After this, the second issue of the journal that was previously known as the Journal of Musculoskeletal Pain, MYOPAIN, a journal of myofascial pain and fibromyalgia, will, like the JMP before it, go into hiatus or slumber.
To signal the intensity of our focus, the editorial board and the International Myopain Society board of directors decided, with the change of the name of the journal, to limit the publication to topics related to muscle pain to the exclusion of rheumatologic disorders. We wanted to be the place where researchers and clinicians went to discuss muscle pain, which affects almost everyone and which attracts relatively little specific scientific interest. We were unable to sustain the volume of submissions and the recruitment of reviewers for those articles to publish the journal in the frequency needed to be the forum the topic deserved.
It is a wonder to those who study and treat muscle pain why the topic does not attract more clinical and research attention. We know myofascial pain is a regional pain of muscles and tendons. Most people have had it. Although myofascial pain has a specific anatomy and physiology, it needs further exploration. The clinical evaluation of the patient with it is relatively simple. Actually examining muscles, is an event becoming rare in clinical medicine, to prove the patient has primary or secondary myofascial pain leads to effective treatment and fewer expensive misdiagnoses.1
Fibromyalgia pervades our society. It can be considered the muscular component of a widespread syndrome we are coming to term “chronic pain.” It is different from myofascial pain, but the two often inhabit the same patient. Fibromyalgia has a signature on functional MRI showing where and why patients are so prone to pain. There is no easy treatment for any of the chronic pain conditions. We need controlled research to identify the biologic basis of the muscle pain of fibromyalgia. The results should lead to inventive therapy. As we wait in our ignorance, fibromyalgia patients are at risk for medication abuse, as they drop out of productive life while their care givers watch in frustration and exhaustion.2
I thank associate editor Scott Mist (USA), and section editors Jacob Ablin (Israel), Robert Gerwin (USA), Carmen Gota (USA), Roberta Moreira (Brazil), and Matthew Robbins (USA) for their diligence and long hours of work on the journal. They and our reviewers have helped improve the quality of the submissions. I appreciate the efforts of various editors and assistant editors at Taylor & Francis, especially those of Lucy Francis, in helping with the publication process.
Like Snow White, MYOPAIN will enter sleep from a potion of circumstances beyond its control. It will be served while in repose by acolytes, in this case the believers in the entities of myofascial pain and fibromyalgia: scientists, academicians, clinicians, patients. It will await rescue from a person or organization of nobility. Once restored, it will again serve the clinical and research communities to better understand and treat muscle pain.
Notes
1Ferguson LW, Gerwin RG eds. Clinical Mastery in the Treatment of Myofascial Pain. Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins. Philadelphia. 2004.
2Schneiderhan J, Clauw D, Schwenk TI. Primary care of patients with chronic pain. JAMA 2017; 317: 2367–2368.