Breakthroughs in our understanding of neuroplasticity are helping us understand the neuroplastic cause of fibromyalgia. The symptoms can be viewed as an alarm system that has become highly sensitive and dysfunctional, misinterpreting nerve signals and setting off inappropriate alarms. 

Anxiety is a fundamental part of neuroplastic pain. It is the nervous system informing us that something is not safe. The nervous system always communicates in a language of sensation; heaviness in the stomach, tingles up the spine, prickling on the back of the neck etc. Sometimes the nervous system perceives a threat that is not there, causing these sensations to give us a ‘false alarm’. 

It is not just external threats that the nervous system warns us of, pain is the alarm for bodily damage. Sometimes the nervous system gives us a ‘false alarm’ here too, which is neuroplastic pain. Neuroplastic means ‘learned by the nervous system’.

When neuroplastic pain becomes chronic, the nervous system becomes hyper-alert to perceived threats, creating a feedback loop of physical symptoms and anxious responses. At the root of fibromyalgia there is a feedback loop between the symptoms and the fear/anxiety of the symptoms and their impacts on life. Recognising fibromyalgia as neuroplastic pain allows us to focus on the brain's role in the pain experience, rather than just the physical symptoms.