So what causes fibromyalgia? Why do so many people develop it?

Yeah.

You know, the straightforward answer is there's no single cause.

And another straightforward answer is we don't exactly know.

But that's the honest answer, but let me fill in some gaps.

We know it's a threshold condition, meaning that your genetic makeup probably loads the gun.

It runs in families, pain processing genes do matter, but probably not a huge amount, but it matters.

So what treatments tend to work best for most people?

So if you were trying to explain to a Martian from another planet who doesn't experience pain what it is, what would you say?

There's the formal definition of pain, which is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage.

It's a mouthful.

If you think of it as it's an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience, it's usually tied to something physically happening, but may not be.

I think sometimes what's missing in that definition, one of the things I wish they had put in but never did, is that pain is the great motivator.

Pain is one of the most primitive experiences going back to, if you will, single-cell organisms.

It's either pain or reward.

Some of my favorites.