Flower Arranging Helps Reduce Fibromyalgia Pain

[shak8]

According to this Medscape report https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/916994

Unfortunately for me, lifting my arms is never therapeutic. Strong floral odors can be unpleasant also.

Surely the more severe cases (who couldn't reliably turn up at the venue) dropped out.

 

[hellytheelephant]

How ridiculous! Doing any enjoyable activity would temporarily distract from pain but you have to be well enough to do it in the first place. I quite agree @shak8 - if you're well enough to do an activity, it is already a self-selecting group....and it would be interesting to know how the pain was after, the next day, few days after etc.

 

[Wonko]

These flowers...they wouldn't be poppies would they

 

[shak8]

These flowers...they wouldn't be poppies would they

Hehe, but there were a lot of potheads as participants.

 

[TiredSam]

Not deckchair arranging?

 

[rvallee]

These flowers...they wouldn't be poppies would they

Sackler Faculty of Medicine

I mean, kinda.

(for those unfamiliar, the Sackler family is very prominently responsible for a large part of the opioid crisis in the US and has recently been found guilty of just that and hiding their blood-stained fortune away from prosecution).

 

[rvallee]

Seriously confirming that the bar to get a medical license is actually way, way too low.

 

[Hutan]

Little is known about the pathogenesis of the syndrome, so treatments primarily focus on alleviating pain and improving quality of life.

And why is little known?
Could it perhaps be because people like this:

Coinvestigator Howard Amital, MD, head of the Center for Autoimmune Diseases, Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, and professor of medicine at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel,

faff around with studies on flower arranging?

 

[Wonko]

I am much more interested in the effect basket weaving has on fibromyalgia, or painting, or being Napoleon.

Has any research been done on these yet, and if not why not, as they clearly think that people with fibromyalgia require exactly the same, and only the same, treatment as people on a MH ward (for whom there is also the possibility that flower arranging is no more effective at helping cope with a 'break' than, say, doing something that is not flower arranging.)

 

[Hutan]

I am much more interested in the effect basket weaving has on fibromyalgia, or painting, or being Napoleon.

If someone pays me an adequate sum, I can do a literature review (aka google) that will confirm that being Napoleon significantly reduces the risk of having fibromyalgia. I will also offer, at a discounted price, a range of bicorne hats to assist people in their journey towards being pain-free.

 

[Milo]

There is no placebo control. Rookie mistake. They should have had patient folding clothes and arranging them in chest of drawers as control group.

Then this:

However, the participants in group 1 reported significantly higher use of cannabis (46.7% vs 13.3%; P = .010).

Sigh. Flower arranging while high... tsk tsk tsk...

When evaluating the groups separately, the researchers found a significant improvement in all study measures except tender-point count during the course. There was a slight decline in improvement in group 1 after their course ended (weeks 12 to 24), but the measurements did not return to starting levels.

So patients still have tender points. But who cares if you smoke pot and arrange flowers in a pot?

 

[NelliePledge]

But surely they are missing a fundamental question = do the patients bring their own flowers in a shopping bag and how do they feel about carrying them.

 

[large donner]

So presumably flower unarranging would make you feel more ill?

 

[Hutan]

Sorry, I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I'm still bemused/appalled by this study. These people seriously believe that 12 weekly sessions of flower-arranging, (very bad flower-arranging at that e.g. this, taken from the article)

has a lasting effect on fibromyalgia symptoms?

However, the participants in group 1 reported significantly higher use of cannabis (46.7% vs 13.3%; P = .010).

Maybe that's the answer - the ladies using cannabis introduced the others to their suppliers.

 

[Trish]

I haven't bothered to read beyond the first sentence.

Sounds like 1950's style occupational therapy. Is this really what people in severe disabling pain need - to be so patronised.

And spending hours getting hayfever from the flowers and excruciating pain in my arms from all that flower arranging is not my idea of treatment.

And why the assumption that people with fibromyalgia have 'psychiatric symptoms'.

 

[fossil]

I reckon that red flower is hiding the doobie.

 

[NelliePledge]

And why the assumption that people with fibromyalgia have 'psychiatric symptoms'.

It’s that symptom catastrophising thing Auntie Trudie likes to bang on about innit. Sit and do some nice flowers and think nice thoughts instead of the silly exaggerated ones.......

 

[hellytheelephant]

So presumably flower unarranging would make you feel more ill?

I can confirm this: I haven't arranged any flowers today, and I feel like crap!

 

[hellytheelephant]

I haven't bothered to read beyond the first sentence.

Sounds like 1950's style occupational therapy. Is this really what people in severe disabling pain need - to be so patronised.

And spending hours getting hayfever from the flowers and excruciating pain in my arms from all that flower arranging is not my idea of treatment.

And why the assumption that people with fibromyalgia have 'psychiatric symptoms'.

This is pretty much the approach I faced when after over a year of waiting, I finally got to our local Pain 'Management'- unbelievably stupid advice, consisting of: you are going to be in pain for the rest of your life, in fact your pain is going to get worse (I'm already not coping, but thanks for that!), you need to carry on as if you don't have the pain ( for whose benefit?), and hide it from everyone ( again- why?), and look at this diagram, which shows that when you are HAPPY you notice pain less, therefore be HAPPY and problem solved!

It is hard to believe that people get paid to do this kind of stuff.

 

[large donner]

I can confirm this: I haven't arranged any flowers today, and I feel like crap!

Ah you must be in the control group. Try looking for a nice vase with some pretty flowers in and shuffle them all up so they are discombobulated and then get back to us.

I feel the level of evidence gathering here could result in a Cochrane review being the outcome of this thread.