Polypharmacy and Symptoms of Pain in Women with Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia (FMS) is a syndrome characterized by chronic widespread pain (CWP), which has no known etiology, and coincides with other life-altering symptoms including fatigue, mood disturbances, non-restorative sleep, and muscular stiffness. Despite the multiple medication classes that are typically used for the treatment of FMS, there are no known studies assessing the efficacy of polypharmacy on symptoms of pain in this patient population. While analgesic medications, including opioid or opioid-like medications, are commonly prescribed, the use of these medications for FMS has not been fully described, including the potential incidence of analgesic overuse. The primary purpose of this secondary analysis was to examine how many classes of pharmacologic agents were used in a sample of N=122 women diagnosed with FMS, the relationships between baseline pain levels and medication use, controlling for self-reported levels o