Fibromyalgia is the third-leading cause of disability worldwide and its number of cases is increasing.
But in order to combat the disease, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are creating a unique approach to treatment that aims to treat the body differently.
For years, doctors have been using an outdated approach to treating fibromyalgies, treating patients with antibiotics, medication and surgery.
While these therapies have worked in some cases, most of the time they only lead to side effects and can’t address the underlying issues that cause the condition.
In order to tackle the disease head on, researchers say they’ve developed a new approach that uses a unique treatment protocol to target a specific protein, known as FibR-4, in the body.
“It’s basically a different approach that is targeting a specific amino acid, called FibR4, that we found in the fibroblasts,” said University of Penn medical professor David Siegel, who co-led the study.
“The idea is to get the protein to become more active and more responsive, and this is what we’ve found with this approach.”
The new method uses a different set of drugs and has already helped to reduce the number of patients who need treatment.
The drug-free approach has been tested in more than 600 patients, with more than half of the patients taking it daily.
“The number of people with fibromyause who have gotten a good response, who have reduced their risk of relapse and who have actually made some progress with their symptoms, we think that’s a significant achievement,” Siegel said.
The team hopes to expand the study to a larger population in the coming months and to develop more compounds that can treat fibromyah-like symptoms in combination with other treatments.