No, mitochondria.  I’ve swung from an impossibly too simple solution, infection/virus for the origin of fibromyalgia, to theories that sort of block up the brain.  Mitochondria.  The Google definition: “an organelle found in large numbers in most cells, in which the biochemical processes of respiration and energy production occur.”  So we’re talking tiny organs inside cells that when they get messed up they mess up your energy levels and make you oversensitive to innocuous pain.  Little buggers…

I’m still learning about this, but the key word that put me on this path was “oxidative stress.”  Essentially (and any real healthcare professional who knows what they’re talking about, feel free to correct me), antioxidants work in your system to suppress “free radicals.”  Now personally, I’ve always liked free radicals just on principle.  But we’re talking molecules, and these free radicals cause some pretty good havoc, not harmless fun.  When these free radicals run free, all sorts of crap happens.

So adding another dozen or so chemicals, hormones, etc, to the list of imbalance problems in fibro patients for just this one possible solution… it becomes overwhelming.  I’m starting to wonder if fibromaylgia is simply a balance issue.  If our chemicals and hormones were gravity, we’d either be glued to the ground or floating up in the air most days, feet never underfoot.

The key to the mitochondrial issue, it seems, is antioxidants.  However, if all we needed to do was drink power drinks, we could get rid of fibro pretty easily – or at least ease up the symptoms.  I’ll keep working on understanding the 170,000 technical terms spelled with 25 or more letters and see if I can get a better grip on this.

What is promising about this one is the number of studies that have been done, the type of studies, the amount of publications put out, and that this has been studied over a number of years.  That, and it’s satisfying in a really warped way to be able to say, “Hey, back off, I have a mitochondrial disorder.  No, NOT midi-chlorians, MITOCHONDRIA.”