The Fibromyalgia Research and Education Center hosted a conference on campus Saturday to teach about health aging and give instruction on living with and treating Fibromyalgia.

The three-part seminar helped those in attendance better understand the unknown causes and potential treatments for the newly diagnosable disease.

"There were things that we wanted to make sure that we addressed in the community," said Brianne Levine, a graduate student in psychology. "We worked with the support group leader to see what the community needed and what would best serve our participants. So, we really tried to incorporate things that are new and helpful such as the treatment lecture by Dr. Jones. Then we try to offer things that are helpful for all kinds of people dealing with FM."

The all-day event focused on different aspects of the condition.

"This event had a dual purpose," said Jordan Aquino, a graduate student in public health. "The first part was a feedback conference. We had 115 participants that came through a research study this last semester and the beginning of this semester. For the first hour we talked about the results of what they went through, gave them individual numbers on some of the results and explain to them what some of those numbers mean and tell them how they can improve."

Fibromyalgia is a medical condition characterized by widespread pain throughout the entire body. It has only been recognized as a diagnosis since 2010. In the history of the disease it was usually misdiagnosed as something else, or chalked up to "women's problems" by the predominantly male medical community. Since nearly 90 percent of all people diagnosed with the condition are women, it finally took women entering the medical field to get the condition taken more seriously and properly treated.

"It is someone who has pain all over their body, which can be accompanied by fatigue, morning stiffness and sleep disturbances," Aquino said. "There are studies that have measured brain waves of some people with Fibromyalgia that have shown brain waves that would be similar to those they would have if they were running a marathon. So, you can imagine if your body and brain acting as if they were sprinting for 26 miles, waking up and feeling that exhausted after sleeping for eight hours."

The second part of the seminar series was dedicated to helping the attendees understand the potential causes and going toward the first step to proper treatment.

Fibromyalgia is difficult to diagnose because it is not yet understood what exactly causes it. It is thought that a person's genetics may be a factor in causing the condition to occur. There are so many different symptoms of Fibromyalgia that a person may try to treat pain and make it worse; because the chemical balance in their body is already off, medication to help one part of the problem only accentuates another part of the problem.

"This syndrome is so much more than pain," Levine said. "There are so many things that make life a little harder for those who suffer from Fibromyalgia."

It is thought the syndrome could be brought on by something messing up the body's hormone level. It was stressed to the audience to eat a balanced diet and to try de-stressing their lives. The audience was given information so they could educate their doctors about the condition and try to get the proper treatment and diagnosis for a syndrome that is not yet fully understood.

"This seminar is important because people with Fibromyalgia are prescribed too many medications by doctors," said Professor Jessie Jones, Ph.D., director of the research center. "This seminar means getting out the hope for finding the underlying causes and the hope for finding the cure which will be found eventually."

Employees at the Fibromyalgia Research and Education Center will document and then publish all of the data they collected from this study. On May 7, the center will be hosting a free awareness day on campus to celebrate life and bring awareness of the condition to the community.