Thank you. Thats really kind of you to say. I really do love my girlfriend and I just want her to get better. It's important for all the spouses to be supportive, and sometimes all the fibromyalgia reading material is overwhelming. It's been good for her to have me helping wade through all the research.
So i've been really looking into the sodium oxybate treatment. The general idea from what I can gather is that a lot of doctors feel like unrestful sleep is a big reason fibromyalgia patients are in constant pain. Our bodies regenerate themselves during the "deep sleep" cycle of our rest, and many FMS sufferers are deprived of this sleep cycle due to alpha wave intrusions and other factors which inhibit "deep sleep". Sodium oxybate is actually the same drug as GHB, a date rape drug which became popular in the rave music culture for it's euphoric effects. The Sodium oxybate treatment is essentially to knock yourself out with GHB before sleep, allowing your body to reach deep sleep and restore it's nervous system. Other sleep drugs can't really achieve this, many such as ambien actually seem to prevent your body from reaching deep sleep. Sodium oxybate is one of the only drugs which induces deep sleep. Since it is not approved by the FDA for fibromyalgia, sodium oxybate is expensive and difficult to aquire through legal avenues. However GHB is readily available on the black market and is generally pharmaceutical grade. Having been used heavily as a recreational drug the side effects and long term effects are well documented and fairly marginal. I am in no way condoning illegal drug use, simply providing this information as the basis for independent research.
