Researchers wanted to know how likely it is for patients to have fibromyalgia with ankylosing spondylitis (AS).
As a result, they found that particular comorbidity to be common. Marina Magrey, M.D., is the lead investigator and stated that the prevalence is 43%.
Additionally, 27 out of 62 people with Ankylosing spondylitis were also diagnosed with fibromyalgia.
According to MedPage, Magrey stated that this study was done to answer a clinical question that is very important: Can the current tools measure pain in just one disease or in both AS and fibromyalgia?
Anylosing spondylitis is a disease that invovles chronic inflammation.
It mostly involves the axial skeleton. There is inflammation in parts of the spine, enthesis (connective tissue between tendon or ligament and bone), and peripheral joints. AS can cause pain, fatigue, as well as stiffness in these parts of the body.
Although there has been progress treating the symptoms of ankylosing spondylitis, many patients still have persistent pain. The pain can be related to AS or it can be related to another disease.
Researchers believe that the unrelated AS pain could be from chronic, nonarticular fibromyalgia syndrome.
As a result of the study, researchers think that clinicians need to look for fibromyalgia symptoms in patients with a high disease activity score. Some symptoms include morning stiffness, widespread pain, and fatigue.
Read more about the study here.
