You Are In The State Of Fibromyalgia (4of5)
It's Not a Mystery Condition – It's a Reversible State Your Body Enters. You Are About To Learn The Truth & A Perspective That Brings Together Your Whole Journey.
Traditional Healthcare Has The Wrong Perspective
Fibromyalgia is not a "thing" you can point to on a scan, like a broken bone or torn ligament. There is no single damaged structure, no visible lesion, no blood test that definitively says "here it is."
Medical scans come back "normal," leaving you feeling dismissed or doubting your own experience.
That's because Fibromyalgia is not a physical defect—it's a state your body enters, in exactly the same way it can enter a state of happiness, deep calm, excitement, or fear - each of them giving you physical sensations, yet they are states.
These states aren't "things" either; they are the result of a series of physical, environmental, biological, and neurological events aligning in a particular way to create your happiness, calm, fear and so on.
When the conditions are right, the body shifts into that state. When the conditions change, the state ends.
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The medical industry has spent decades searching for Fibromyalgia as if it were a concrete disease entity—something to isolate, label, and target with a pill. But your Fibromyalgia pain is driven by the interplay of three key systems in your body, so it evades that approach.
At Physology, we've spent over twenty years working with one of those systems in particular: Fascia. The more we looked, the more we realised that the symptoms people describe only appear when certain things happen together in the Fascia and the other bodily systems that surround it.
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We began to see a pattern. Three key elements kept showing up in every case where people were stuck in that state. Three key systems of the body were always involved.
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The research & knowledge is there on all 3, but no one has pieced them together as we have. The way these 3 systems interact with each other unlocked the door to understanding your Fibromyalgia pain.
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When any one of them is pushed too far, your body could usually still cope. But when all three are turned up high at the same time, you cross an invisible line… and enter the State of Fibromyalgia.
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You can understand this perspective easily with the visual of the 3 dials above.
What Affects Your Dials?
Lets take a deeper look at the 3 dials that shift you into your state of Fibromyalgia to help you understand how and why they send you into pain, what your flare ups really are and how to control the dials to bring you back to pain free.
Dial 1 –Fascia: The Mechanical Foundation​​​
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Let’s begin with the dial that lies at the heart of everything we do at Physology: Fascia.
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Fascia is your body’s living, continuous web of connective tissue. It wraps every single muscle fibre, every nerve, every bone, every organ – forming one uninterrupted three-dimensional network from head to toe. It's richly supplied with nerves and plays an active role in how your body feels and moves.
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When Fascia is healthy: It’s full of water – hydrated, elastic, and slippery, like a well-oiled sponge. Tissues glide past each other effortlessly, and movement feels free.
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When Fascia is "unhealthy": Through injury, poor posture, repetitive strain, or chronic stress, it changes. The tissue dehydrates, thickens, and forms Fascia adhesions: sticky spots where layers that should slide now grip and pull.
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This pull doesn't stay in one spot. Because Fascia is interconnected, tension travels along the web – a restriction in your lower back can tug on your neck, shoulders, hips, even your hands – creating pain that seems to come from nowhere.
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Researchers have found that the classic "tender points" used to diagnose Fibromyalgia are, in fact, active Myofascial Trigger Points – irritable adhesions in Fascial bands. When these points are stimulated, they reproduce the entire spontaneous pain pattern of Fibromyalgia patients, not just local pain.
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EVIDENCE-BASED:
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This key paper proposes Fascia inflammation and dysfunction as the peripheral driver sending constant pain signals to the central nervous system, sustaining the "sensitisation": Fascia: A missing link in our understanding of the pathology of Fibromyalgia
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This study demonstrates that multiple active Myofascial Trigger Points reproduce the overall spontaneous pain pattern in women with Fibromyalgia: Multiple active Myofascial Trigger Points reproduce the overall spontaneous pain pattern in women with Fibromyalgia and are related to widespread mechanical hypersensitivity
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At Physology, we've seen this thousands of times: release the Fascial restrictions, and the pain map changes – often dramatically from the very first session.
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Fascia is the mechanical foundation of the State of Fibromyalgia – and the first dial we turn down to bring you back to pain-free.
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Dial 2 –Fight-or-Flight: The Nervous System Amplifier​​​
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Your nervous system is designed with two opposing modes. Fight-or-flight – the sympathetic branch – prepares you for action: heart racing, muscles tensing, senses sharpening to face a threat.
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The opposite mode – rest-digest-heal, driven by the parasympathetic branch – allows recovery: slowing the heart, relaxing tissues, repairing damage.
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These modes should balance beautifully, switching as needed. Threats can be from childhood trauma or current life stresses. Some things are in the past, and some remain, but the effect on the body can be long-lasting.
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But in the State of Fibromyalgia, something shifts. Fight-or-flight becomes chronically dominant – running at a low but constant level, even when no danger is present.
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This isn't weakness or "anxiety" – it's a biological response to ongoing signals of threat from the body. And the biggest source of those signals? Restricted Fascia.
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Tight, adhesive Fascia sends constant "danger" messages through compressed nerves and tense tissues.
The brain interprets this as a threat, keeping sympathetic drive high – hormones like adrenaline and noradrenaline stay elevated, muscles and Fascia tighten further, sleep fragments, and every sensation gets amplified.
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Recent research shows this sympathetic overactivity isn't just a side effect – it's actively sustaining Myofascial pathology. Tight Fascia feeds sympathetic drive, which tightens Fascia more, creating an immune-mediated inflammation loop that locks the pain in place.
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EVIDENCE-BASED:
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This study reveals how sympathetically maintained Myofascial changes drive widespread pain and prevent healing – exactly what we reverse at Physology: The widespread myofascial pain of Fibromyalgia is sympathetically maintained and immune-mediated
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Another paper demonstrates increased neural sympathetic activation in Fibromyalgia syndrome: Increased neural sympathetic activation in Fibromyalgia syndrome
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A third study links sympathetic activity directly to pain intensity in Fibromyalgia: Relationship between sympathetic activity and pain intensity in Fibromyalgia
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​​When we release Fascia, the threat signals quiet – fight-or-flight naturally drops, breaking the loop and allowing the body to finally rest.
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Dial 3 – Food: The Inflammation & Stress Driver​​​
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The third dial surprises many people: Food – or more precisely, how what you eat shapes your gut microbiome.
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Your gut houses trillions of bacteria that aren't just digesting food – they produce chemicals that travel throughout your body, influencing inflammation, nervous system balance, and even pain processing.
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When diet supports a diverse, healthy microbiome, these bacteria create anti-inflammatory compounds that calm stress responses and help keep Fascia supple. But when the diet is dominated by processed foods, sugar, and low fibre, harmful bacteria dominate – creating dysbiosis (gut organism imbalance) that releases inflammatory signals and activates fight-or-flight pathways.
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This isn't vague "inflammation." It's a direct loop: dysbiosis triggers sympathetic stress → tighter Fascia → more pain → poorer food choices from fatigue → worse dysbiosis.
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Researchers transferred gut bacteria from Fibromyalgia patients into germ-free mice – and the mice developed widespread pain, fatigue, and molecular changes matching human Fibromyalgia. Transferring healthy bacteria reversed it.
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This proves the microbiome isn't just correlated – it causally promotes pain in Fibromyalgia. And the best way to control the health of our microbiome? Food. What we choose to eat and not eat is key.
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EVIDENCE-BASED:
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Here's the link to the mice research just mentioned. Faecal microbiota transplantation from Fibromyalgia patients into germ-free mice induced pain hypersensitivity, fatigue-like behaviours, and molecular changes mirroring human Fibromyalgia: The gut microbiota promotes pain in Fibromyalgia
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This finding shows altered microbiome composition in individuals with Fibromyalgia, with machine learning distinguishing FM from controls based on gut bacteria: Altered microbiome composition in individuals with Fibromyalgia
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A third study demonstrates altered serum bile acid profile in Fibromyalgia associated with specific gut microbiome changes and symptom severity: Altered serum bile acid profile in Fibromyalgia
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At Physology, when treating Fibromyalgia pain, we see clients' other dials respond better as gut balance improves – but the fastest shift comes from releasing Fascia first. And we decide how much we need to address the food once we are in the treatment process.
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In Summary : The 3 Systems That Dial You Into The State Of Fibromyalgia​​​
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Take a breather and let this sink in.
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You’ve just seen the three dials laid out clearly: Fascia, Fight-or-Flight, and Food (Gut Biome). Each one backed by solid research, each one playing its part in the State of Fibromyalgia. The real perspective shift happens when you realise these systems interlink and affect each other.
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Fascia is the main driver but it never works alone.
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The moment Fascia sends those danger signals, your Fight-or-Flight system hears them loud and clear. It responds exactly as it’s meant to—by tightening muscles, raising stress hormones, and keeping you in a low-level state of alert.
That tightness feeds straight back into the Fascia, making restrictions worse. Simultaneously, besides damaging your gut with food, the chronic stress disrupts your gut microbiome—the Food dial—triggering inflammation that circles right back to stiffen Fascia even more. And the inflammation from a disrupted gut keeps Fight-or-Flight simmering.
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All three systems interlink and affect each other simultaneously, in real time. Raise one, and the others follow. Lower one—especially Fascia—and the others naturally begin to calm. This is where the medical industry gets stuck.
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The Issue With Traditional Healthcare
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This is why we always defend the individual practitioner, whether GP or Physio. They are trained to see the body in parts and bound by rules. One specialist for muscles, one for nerves, one for gut, one for mood. Your scans may come back normal because no single part is broken, and Fascia doesn't show up on scans. .
Blood tests don’t show “Fibromyalgia” because it’s not a thing to find. Research moves slowly—years from discovery to medical textbooks, even longer to GP training. So most doctors still treat symptoms in isolation: painkillers here, antidepressants there, dietary advice somewhere else. They never connect the systems the way your body actually works.
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You experience the result of the education system: years of being told, “It’s all in your head” or “Learn to live with it and take this medication.”​​​
Pain Treatment Revolutionised
At Physology, we see you as a whole complete person.
We don’t chase parts—we address the loop at its source: Fascia. We have our own unique methods for this, trusted at Premier League level since 2013.
We release the restrictions and the danger signals quiet. Fight-or-Flight eases & your inflammation drops. The dials turn down together.
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You leave the Fibromyalgia State and step back into the Pain-Free State you remember—or perhaps have been waiting your whole life to meet.
You now understand exactly why you feel the way you do… and exactly how to change it.
