New Clinical Phenotype of the Post-Covid Syndrome: Fibromyalgia and Joint Hypermobility Condition, 2022, Gavrilova et al

Abstract

Fibromyalgia can be defined as a chronic pain condition, affecting the musculoskeletal system, etiology and pathophysiology of which is sufficiently understudied. Despite the fact that many authors consider this entity to be a manifestation of central sensitization, and not an autoimmune disease, the high prevalence of fibromyalgia in patients with post-COVID-19 conditions requires taking a fresh look at the causes of the disease development. During the patient examination, the authors identified a combination of symptoms that occurs so often, that they can be carefully described as a clinical pattern. These manifestations include young age, female gender, joint hypermobility, the onset of pain after COVID-19, physical traumatization of one particular tendon and the development of the fibromyalgia pain syndrome during the next several weeks. As well as an increase in the titer of antinuclear antibodies and some other systemic inflammation factors. It can be assumed with great caution that local damage to the connective tissue in patients with joint hypermobility, having COVID-19 as a trigger factor can lead to the development of fibromyalgia syndrome. This article presents three clinical cases that illustrated this hypothesis.

Open access, https://www.mdpi.com/1873-149X/29/1/3/htm

 

Perhaps the 74 year old senior author feels a need to maintain his output of a paper a week over the last forty years (2,112).

 

From Wikipedia:

Schoenfeld, who has been characterized as an anti-vaccinationist, proposed a syndrome he calls Autoimmune Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants (ASIA), which purports to be an autoimmune response to vaccine adjuvants.[5]There is a lack of reproducible evidence for any causal relationship between adjuvant and autoimmune condition.[6][7] He served on the scientific advisory board of the anti-vaccine group Children's Medical Safety Research Institute, has spoken at a number of antivaccination conferences, and has regularly appeared as an expert witness for people attempting to prove injury from vaccines in court.[8] The courts, so far, have rejected the theory that ASIA caused those injuries and questioned Schoenfeld's overall credibility as a truthful witness.

 

Unfortunate pseudo-science piece taking advantage of FM (etiology unknown) to make hyperbolic, unsubstantiated claims regarding causation resulting in FM due to unrelated medical occurrences such as pre-existing joint hypermobilty, Covid infection, ANA positivity (present in non-SARDS* people at a rate of up to 30%) and tendon injury.

This priniciple author should be selling wrinkle cream; he might do well.

*SARD=sytemic autoimmune rheumatic disease