Fibromyalgia – Simple Home Treatment

Stand up with one leg bent up. Position two mirror over the bend up leg so its reflection looks like you have both legs up. This gives patient an amazing sensation of weightlessness. Hold position for 30 seconds and stop for 5 minutes before repeating. Repeat procedure up to 15 times. In one case study, this reduced pain from 8.00 to 4.93 while non-weightless mirroring only dropped it from 8 to 7.33.


Med Hypotheses. 2010 Aug 5 in press
Using mirror visual feedback and virtual reality to treat fibromyalgia.
Ramachandran VS, Seckel EL.   abstract here

  • Picture is big – but done intentionally so you could see how done.
  • 7 X 2 feet mirror propped up on the floor with ends at right angles .
  • hold leg up 30 sec. and rest for 5 minutes before retreating – repeat up to 11 times.

Comment  – sounds great but how long does it last? Does in work by itself?

In one study:
Brain. 2010 Aug 4. in press
Effectiveness of transcranial direct current stimulation and visual illusion on neuropathic pain in spinal cord injury.
Soler MD, Kumru H, Pelayo R, Vidal J, Tormos JM, Fregni F, Navarro X, Pascual-Leone A.
abstract here

The used the illusion of a paraplegic running:

  • Patient pumps his arms like running
  • Top half of his body mirrored to him
  • Bottom have is a projected image of someone walking – they try to sync movements
  • Results of this technique by self dropped pain from 7/10 to 6.3/10 but it only lasted 2 weeks
  • However, when combined with Constant current  Cranial electrical stimulation (CES) 2 milliamp, pain dropped from 7.4 to 5.3 and some effect lasted 12 weeks.
    I have discussed how to make a home CES unit out of a nine volt battery here:
    DC Stim Helps Spinal Damage Pain and Cranial Stim for Fibromyalgia 
  • and have further discussed CES help in fibromyalgia
    Surface DC Electrode Stim helps Fibromyalgia 

Comment – maybe more results could be gotten from repeated mirror therapy alone.  My mirror has a wooden border and it doesn’t work for me…

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One Response to Fibromyalgia – Simple Home Treatment

  1. Sara says:

    Just like VS Ramachandran’s mirror box to treat phantom limb syndrome.

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