From Fibromyalgia to the Gym - A TMS story

Today I would like to share with you the story of "Michael", a patient whose back story will be familiar to anyone with any experience of fibromyalgia, but whose treatment outcome might be surprising. Michael had seen every imaginable specialist, had every test and eventually been told that there was nothing that could be done for him. His life was spent in constant pain, he barely had the energy to leave the house, and the depression and anxiety that so often accompanies these symptoms made every day a real struggle. Here we present a brief summary of Michael's history, treatment and outcomes:

History

This 27 year old male presented with a 4 year history of fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) which appeared to begin after a bad reaction to an insect bite when he was on holiday. Prior to this he was fit, active and happy. His symptoms included widespread body pain, fatigue, brain fog, extreme depression and severe difficulty with productivity – both at work and in his personal life. Michael had been told that nothing had shown up on extensive testing from multiple specialists, so his symptoms must be "in his head". Unsatisfied with this conclusion, Michael sought out another opinion from Dr Stephanie Kaye-Barrett, an expert in innovative treatments for FMS.

Treatment

Michael was recommended for repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), and underwent a 20 session treatment, using a low frequency protocol. This particular protocol was chosen due to its ability to calm the brain areas that have been found to be overactive in people with fibromyalgia. This has been shown to be effective for this condition by previous studies into rTMS for fibromyalgia, notably Tanwar et al (2020). The treatment was very well tolerated by Michael, who even went so far as to describe it as "relaxing".

Outcome

The patient experienced improvements in energy, pain and mood from week one of treatment, and continued to feel better as he went through the full protocol. After 6 sessions he was able to work out at the gym for the first time in 4 years, and did not have any negative response to this on the following day. At this point his depression score had dropped from 52/60 to 6/60, while his pain had moved from 7/10 to 3/10, and he reported significant improvements to his concentration, mental clarity and productivity.

These improvements continued, and Michael achieved the following set of results after his 20th?session:

Fibromyalgia symptoms –?83% improvement

Depression –?88% improvement

Pain –?86% improvement

Anxiety –?100% improvement

Quality of life –?83% improvement

Michael was understandably delighted with these results, especially since he was now able to go to the gym multiple times each week. He also reported significant improvements to his work productivity and social life, as well as much improved sleep.

Michael continues to do well, with the help of occasional maintenance sessions of TMS. His recovery is remarkable, as anyone with any knowledge of FMS will know. Making improvements of this scale is incredibly rare for people with this horrible condition, so results such as these give us a huge amount of excitement for the future.

If you have any questions about RTMS, feel free to contact us.