Abstract

The symptoms of fibromyalgia are associated with physical inactivity such as excessive sitting. Physical inactivity itself produces increased oxidative stress and chronic inflammation, factors present in fibromyalgia. Therefore, increasing physical activity should benefit patients with fibromyalgia. Even in normal subjects, only about 10 to 20% of American adults comply with physical activity guidelines. We report effectiveness of daily use of a passive motion platform over a four-week period that releases endothelial nitric oxide as occurs during active exercise. The primary endpoint of this study was the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ). Improvement of FIQ with the motion platform was comparable to drug studies over the same time-period. Since the motion platform was not portable, patients needed to visit a fixed location within a hospital clinic to receive daily treatments and as time went by dropouts increased limiting its feasibility for longer-term studies. In this paper, we describe a portable, passive simulated jogging device that is low-cost and targeted to home use for future long-term evaluation as primary treatment or ancillary to drug therapies for fibromyalgia.

Keywords: Fibromyalgia; Symptomatic relief; Chronic pain; Inflammation