Fibromyalgia is in many ways a medical mystery. Researchers keep studying it, but the exact cause of the condition has yet to be truly identified. Some people support environmental models while others favor biological. As in most things in science, the truth will likely end up being a hybrid of the two, but knowing the truth doesn’t help those who have to deal with the chronic fatigue and pain of the disease. Fortunately, some classes have drugs have shown a degree of efficacy in helping manage symptoms. This doesn’t help everyone though. There have been some reports that adjusting diet helps some people and the reason was never entirely clear. OROGOLD would like to highlight that it might just be connected to a handful of studies indicating that thiamine, also known as Vitamin B1, appears to have an effect on the condition.

The Purpose of Thiamine
As part of vitamin B complex, thiamine provides a vital role in the functioning of your body. It acts as one of the components used to process any carbohydrates that you eat. This ties it intimately to your body’s ability to process foods and generate the energy you need to go about your day to day life. Studies shows that it fills a role in the production of DNA and RNA as well. Replication of each of those is what allows your body to repair itself by generating new cells. If your body lacks the proper materials, then your body will slowly be less able to keep itself intact. Lastly, it also serves several roles related to your nervous system. These roles each help keep your nerves working effectively and without issue. Due to these vital roles, a deficiency in thiamine can lead to several debilitating and painful conditions.

How Does This Connect to Fibromyalgia?
Interestingly, the cluster of symptoms associated with low-level thiamine deficiency does overlap some with the experiences of those suffering from fibromyalgia. OROGOLD is by no means suggesting that the two are the same. We aren’t doctors, but it is possible to end up with a deficiency on top of an existing condition. Suffering from chronic pain tends to make people a bit less motivated to do things or lapse into comforting cycles of behavior that aren’t as healthy as they’d like. Teas are particularly comforting to people in pain, but these can actually reduce the amount of thiamine in your body. This can mount to slowly feeling worse and worse if you’ve established a lower baseline of thiamine in your body than it needs and make the pain and listlessness of fibromyalgia worse. This is why some researchers have noticed that providing thiamine supplementation or eating thiamine-rich foods appears to help some sufferers of fibromyalgia. It may be treating a deficiency developed after onset or be offering symptomatic relief.

How Can I Use This?
Supplementation is always an option. The study most often cited used doses of thiamine applied to the patients. This makes taking it directly an option, but we suggest consulting with your doctor before taking a direct supplement of thiamine. A potentially better and longer lasting option is to adjust your diet to include more thiamine-rich foods and drink less coffee and tea. This will help increase levels of thiamine in your body at a natural rate and mean that you’re less dependent on remembering to take a pill each day. As is often the case, dark, leafy greens are your friend. They are loaded with vitamins and a number of them have particularly high concentrations of thiamine. Citrus is useful as well, but you’ll get the most from eating more oranges. You can even just add whole grains to your diet to get more thiamine. Ideally, you should incorporate these and other thiamine-rich foods into your diet, but these are only a handful of suggestions to give you an idea of things to try for a while before committing fully to a more thiamine-filled diet.

Sadly, pain is one of the most constant companions of anyone suffering from fibromyalgia. Adding more thiamine to your diet may not do much for some sources of pain, but it could help diminish generalized flares as well as improving overall energy. OROGOLD wishes you the best in finding ways to manage the symptoms and hopes this article gives you some ideas for additional symptom management strategies.