Fibromyalgia is tough enough on its own, but adding stress to your life can compound things. Consider this news from the UAB.

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham recently performed a study to discover how stress coorelates to the "pain perception" in people with fibromyalgia. People with fibromyalgia can respond differently to stress than otherwise healthy people.

Researchers studied 120 people with fibromyalgia and added 60 control patients without fibromyaliga. In the study, they were asked to imagine either a stressful or non-stressful event from their past. During this, a heat stimulus was applied to the arm for a few moments. Researchers then measured heart rate, blood pressure and cortisol levels (a stress hormone) in the blood. Patients then rated the intensity and unpleasantness of the pain.

The preliminary results from the study reveal people with fibromyalgia tend to scale the heat stimulus as far more unpleasant than the healthy control subjects. The researchers said that if the results show that emotions play an important role in pain perception for those with fibromyalgia, doctors may want to consider treating depression in patients with higher levels of the emotional symptoms. That may help some fibromyalgia patients gain better control over their pain symptoms.

I'm not sure if this study is of much value or not. Basically to me, people with illnesses or degenerative diseases already have more stress in their life. I don't think it takes thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars to conclude that. They could have paid me $500 and I would have given them my 2 cents.