Fibromyalgia During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The first confirmed case relating to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Arab Emirates was announced on 29 January 2020.

On March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the global outbreak a pandemic. Many measures have been taken by the UAE government since the COVID-19 outbreak started hitting the region. From Mid March, the UAE had advised all citizens to restrict themselves to essential travel only and had implemented a curfew between 8 pm and 6 am every day starting from the end of March. On April 5th, UAE imposed a two-week lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and announced there will be disinfection drives.

Many awareness campaigns were initiated by rheumatologists through different media channels advising patients with rheumatic diseases to avoid clinics and hospitals unless they have an emergency. Some healthcare facilities started telemedicine services including rheumatology outpatient clinics. However, most of the clinics and hospitals have maintained open rheumatology clinics aiming to manage emergency cases.

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic disorder characterized by widespread and chronic musculoskeletal pain and other frequent syndromes such as chronic fatigue sleep disturbance, cognitive impairment, irritable bowel disease, depression, and anxiety.

There is evidence of a high prevalence of psychiatric comorbidities in FM (especially depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder), which are associated with a worse clinical profile.

In these challenging times of COVID-19, anxiety increased among the general population. Fibromyalgia patients are more at risk of developing anxiety in these difficult times. This might result in more frequent visits to the rheumatology clinics with an exacerbation of their chronic pain syndrome.