Sleep and Fibromyalgia

Abstract

Objectives: To provide a selectively brief review of sleep and fibromyalgia studies and to relate future studies in fibromyalgia to sleep. Results: Generally fibromyalgia patients report poor sleep along with somatic symptoms. Sleep EEC alpha is a possible measure of this unrefreshing sleep. However, more uniform measurement and analysis techniques are required if such an index is to be proposed as sensitive and specific. Recent proposals on the function of sleep, such as for bodily restoration and/or immunoregulation hold much promise for investigating the emergence of fibromyalgia symptoms. Conclusions: Because fibromyalgia is predominantly an illness affecting women, the sleep/immunologic relationships will be confounded by a variety of time dynamic issues including circadian menstrual cycles.

KEYWORDS:

• Fibromyalgia
• sleep
• immune functions