Ginevra Liptan > Quotes

“But fibromyalgia is primarily a sleep disorder, a state of chronic deep-sleep deprivation.”
― Ginevra Liptan, The FibroManual: A Complete Fibromyalgia Treatment Guide for You and Your Doctor

“Remember that efforts to trigger the relaxation response will reduce the negative effects of a hyperactive stress response and are the foundation of treating fibromyalgia.”
― Ginevra Liptan, The FibroManual: A Complete Fibromyalgia Treatment Guide for You and Your Doctor

“The crucial thing to remember with fibromyalgia is that the nervous system is stuck in the stress response (Martínez-Lavín 2012, 1998). In fact, all symptoms of fibromyalgia, including excessive pain, are the result of a complex chain reaction set off by a hyperactive stress response. The stress response is an automatic brain reflex that is commonly referred to as the “fight or flight” instinct. It has little to do with feeling stressed out. Rather, it refers to the body’s automatic response to danger, triggered by a primal brain area whose only focus is on survival. When a potential threat is detected—a loud banging on your front door, a stranger moving quickly toward you on the street—the brain prepares the body by pumping adrenaline and tightening muscles, readying your whole system for action. This is the body’s normal response to danger—great for a short-term response, and activated only when there is an imminent threat. In fibromyalgia, however, the stress response never stops, like a smoke alarm that goes off incessantly even though there’s no fire.”
― Ginevra Liptan, The FibroManual: A Complete Fibromyalgia Treatment Guide for You and Your Doctor

“patients with fibromyalgia don’t spend much time in deep sleep, and the deep sleep they do get is interrupted by fast “wakeful” brain waves (alpha waves) that are normally only seen in the awake brain, a phenomenon called “alpha-wave intrusion”
― Ginevra Liptan, The FibroManual: A Complete Fibromyalgia Treatment Guide for You and Your Doctor

“a low delta-alpha score (a disproportionate amount of alpha waves compared to delta waves) consistently occurs in patients with fibromyalgia (Rosenfeld 2015).”
― Ginevra Liptan, The FibroManual: A Complete Fibromyalgia Treatment Guide for You and Your Doctor

“Sleep must always be improved before any other treatment will work,”
― Ginevra Liptan, The FibroManual: A Complete Fibromyalgia Treatment Guide for You and Your Doctor

“benzodiazepines are my absolute last choice for treating insomnia in fibromyalgia,”
― Ginevra Liptan, The FibroManual: A Complete Fibromyalgia Treatment Guide for You and Your Doctor