10 Diet Commandments for Pain Patients

Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition whose symptoms include muscle and tissue pain, fatigue, depression, and sleep disturbances; it often mimics or appears together with other chronic conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), lupus, and arthritis. "There are usually other things that are triggering it, so you have to individualize treatment for each patient," says Daniel Arkfeld, MD, an associate professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.
Because it is such a complex condition, fibromyalgia is difficult to treat. Medication tends to reduce symptoms only by about 30% to 50%. Many patients seek diet and lifestyle changes as treatment; in one survey, 42% of patients reported that certain foods aggravated their symptoms.