Vitality Unleashed: The Functional Medicine Podcast

Hope for Fibromyalgia Sufferers : A New Solution that Works

• Dr. Kumar from LifeWellMD.com • Season 1 • Episode 82

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Ozone therapy emerges as a promising treatment option for those suffering from fibromyalgia, with a 2025 study showing significant improvements in pain, fatigue, sleep quality, anxiety, and depression. The research demonstrates both short-term benefits immediately following treatment and medium-term improvements that persisted six months later.

• Fibromyalgia affects 2-4% of people, predominantly women, causing widespread pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances, and cognitive difficulties
• Ozone therapy works through antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immunomodulatory properties that may address underlying fibromyalgia mechanisms
• The study examined major ozone autohemotherapy—a process involving blood removal, ozone infusion, and reinfusion back into the patient
• Pain scores dropped from 6.4 to 3.68 after treatment, with improvements in all measured symptoms
• Medium-term benefits remained significant at six months, though some regression occurred compared to immediate post-treatment results
• Previous research shows ozone therapy increases serotonin levels and decreases oxidative stress markers in fibromyalgia patients
• Study limitations include its retrospective design, lack of control group, and reliance on subjective assessment measures

For those interested in exploring ozone therapy for fibromyalgia, contact LifeWellMD in Florida at 561-210-9999 to discuss personalized treatment options for your specific needs.


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Speaker 1:

If you or someone you know is dealing with fibromyalgia, you know, it's not just a little pain here and there it's constant pain. Yeah, it is. And the exhaustion, the trouble sleeping, it can make you feel absolutely powerless.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

In this deep dive, we're exploring something that might offer a little hope, a little relief for fibromyalgia sufferers. We're going to be talking about ozone therapy, and we have a new study that's been looking into its effect.

Speaker 2:

Right. So the study we're going to be talking about is from this year, 2025. It was published in Rheumatology International. The title is Short and Medium-Term Effects of Major Ozone Therapy on Disease Parameters in Fibromyalgia Syndrome a retrospective study. Catchy yeah, and basically what they did was they looked back at the experiences of 25 people who had fibromyalgia and who had undergone this particular type of ozone therapy.

Speaker 1:

So we're going to break this study down. Help you guys understand what exactly is ozone therapy. What did this study actually find?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Could this be something that could really help with those difficult fibromyalgia symptoms. That's our mission for this deep dive and, before we get too far, I do want to mention that this deep dive is brought to you by the folks over at LifeWellMDcom in Florida. They are a clinic that focuses on health, wellness and longevity. They're always looking for cutting edge ways to help people you know live their best lives.

Speaker 2:

Right Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty of ozone therapy and this particular study, I think it's important to make sure we all understand what fibromyalgia syndrome, or FMS, actually is. So the study defines it as a chronic disorder, of course, and it is characterized by this widespread musculoskeletal pain, but I think it's important to remember that it's not just the pain. There's also this fatigue, you know this persistent fatigue that really doesn't get better with rest, and sleep is significantly disturbed, and you can also have cognitive difficulties and emotional distress as part of this. It's a whole package.

Speaker 1:

It's a whole thing and it's not exactly, you know, rare.

Speaker 2:

No.

Speaker 1:

It's something that the study points out affects between two and four percent of people, and it's way more common in women, so that's a big number of people who are dealing with this on a daily basis.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and what really makes it so complex is that the underlying causes of it are not fully understood, right? So the current thinking is it's probably a combination of factors. You might have a genetic predisposition that makes you more susceptible to developing it. Certain environmental things might trigger it. You could have some imbalances in your neuroendocrine system, that's the communication network between your nervous system and your hormones. There's this whole concept of central sensitization, where your brain and your nervous system amplify pain signals, making normal sensations feel painful. It's a lot of moving parts, a lot of things we don't totally get yet.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so it's really not just a pain in one spot.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

It's a whole body kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

And a lot of times with the pain, you have stiffness, you have tender points in specific areas, you have problems concentrating that's that fibro fog we hear about. Some folks even have memory problems and then on top of that, you know, chronic pain often goes hand in hand with anxiety and depression.

Speaker 2:

Oh, of course.

Speaker 1:

So you can see why people who are dealing with fibromyalgia you know they really have trouble with everyday stuff.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Taking care of themselves, their homes, their jobs, their social lives. It can really impact your whole quality of life Absolutely. And I mean a lot of the conventional treatments. They don't work for everybody Right or they have side effects. So it makes sense why people would be looking at other options. The study actually mentions this that sometimes conventional treatments just don't cut it and people worry about the side effects of some of the medications so they look at other approaches that might help them feel better, you know, improve their well-being overall.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

So that leads us into. You know what this study is all about, which is ozone therapy. But first, what exactly is ozone?

Speaker 2:

Okay, so ozone, you know, also known as O, is a molecule. It's a very simple molecule, just three oxygen atoms.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

But that extra oxygen atom is what makes it really reactive and it gives it these really strong oxidative properties. And you know, it's been used medically for a while actually, oh really, yeah, it goes all the way back to the late 1800s and now we're seeing, you know, renewed interest in using it for all sorts of things, especially in complementary and integrative medicine.

Speaker 1:

Interesting. So you know what is it about ozone that might make it helpful for medical treatments.

Speaker 2:

Well, the study really focuses on its antioxidant properties, its anti-inflammatory properties and its immunomodulatory properties.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

It's a mouthful, I know, but basically it means that it can help to neutralize those harmful free radicals that are in your body Right. It can modulate, kind of fine tune your inflammatory response.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

And it can help to regulate your immune system. And ozone is versatile too. You know there's a lot of different ways you can administer it to target specific areas. You can do subcutaneous injections. You can do intramuscular or interarticular injections, right into the muscles or joints. You can do something called insufflation, which is introducing ozone gas into body cavities. But the method that this study really looked at was major ozone autohemotherapy.

Speaker 1:

Say that five times fast. So how does major ozone autohemotherapy work?

Speaker 2:

So ozone, right? Ozone is a gas but it can dissolve in liquids, so when it comes in contact with fluids in your body, like your blood or your lymph, it sets off a bunch of biological reactions.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Now you might think, well, ozone is an oxidant, so it's going to increase oxidative stress, but it actually does the opposite. It reduces oxidative stress, but it actually does the opposite. Interesting, it reduces oxidative stress overall. And it does that by basically, you know, giving your body's own antioxidant defenses a boost.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

It also helps to modulate inflammation.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

So, for example, it can influence these immune cells called macrophages, and it can help to shift them from being pro inflammatory to being anti inflammatory, and that that's super important for, you know, tissue repair and healing okay and ozone also inhibits something called the NLRP3 inflammasome. I'm not even gonna try that one well, it's basically a key complex that drives chronic inflammation. So it's kind of like you know, ozone is like a coach it's giving your body the tools it needs to handle inflammation and oxidative stress better.

Speaker 1:

I like that. So how does all of this relate to fibromyalgia?

Speaker 2:

Well, as we were talking about earlier, a lot of researchers think that inflammation and oxidative stress are big players in fibromyalgia. So the idea is that ozone therapy, with its antioxidant and immunomodulatory effects, might help to, you know, correct some of those underlying problems in the body, and that could lead to a reduction in pain, fatigue and all those other nasty symptoms that come with fibromyalgia.

Speaker 1:

It makes sense. So let's dive into this study from 2025 and see what they actually did.

Speaker 2:

All right. So this was a retrospective study. That means that the researchers were looking at data that had already been collected as part of routine clinical practice, so they weren't doing a new experiment, they were just analyzing what had already happened. They had 25 patients in the study. All of them had fibromyalgia and all of them had received ozone therapy at an outpatient clinic at a university hospital. This all happened between January 2021 and March 2023.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Now, to be included in the study, you had to be over 18. You had to meet the American College of Rheumatology the ACR criteria for fibromyalgia from 2010.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

And they also excluded anyone with other major chronic illnesses, anyone taking steroids, anyone with a history of cancer, anyone who had recent surgery and, of course, pregnant women.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so they wanted to make sure they were really focusing on fibromyalgia Exactly. What about people who were already taking medication for fibromyalgia?

Speaker 2:

Well, those patients were allowed to continue taking their existing medications for fibromyalgia and for any other stable conditions they might have had. But the important thing is that no new medications specifically for fibromyalgia were prescribed during the study. Okay, they wanted to isolate the effects of the ozone therapy.

Speaker 1:

Gotcha, so everyone in the study got the same treatment.

Speaker 2:

Right. The treatment protocol was 10 sessions of major ozone auto-hemotherapy twice a week.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so just to remind everybody, could you break down how that procedure actually works?

Speaker 2:

Sure. So they would start by taking 50 cubic centimeters of blood from the patient. They would put that blood into a special sterile glass bottle that had an anticoagulant in it called citrate. That citrate is important to prevent the blood from clotting. Then they would slowly introduce ozone gas into the bottle. All right, the concentration of ozone varied between 10 and 30 micrograms per milliliter depending on the patient.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

They would make a total of 100 milliliters of this ozonated blood. Then they would gently mix the blood and ozone for about 30 seconds and finally they would re-infuse that ozone-enriched blood back into the patient through an IV.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

The whole process usually took between 10 and 15 minutes.

Speaker 1:

Okay, blood out mixed with ozone blood back in Sounds simple enough.

Speaker 2:

In theory. So how did the researchers know if this treatment was actually helping people?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. How do they measure the effects?

Speaker 2:

Well, they use a bunch of different tools to assess various aspects of the patient's conditions.

Speaker 2:

So for pain intensity, they use the visual analog scale, or VAS. That's where you rate your pain on a scale of zero to 10. Right To figure out how fibromyalgia was impacting their daily lives, they use the fibromyalgiagia Impact Questionnaire, or FIQ. For psychological well-being, they use the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, or HADS. For sleep quality, they use the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, or PSQI, where higher scores mean worse sleep. To measure fatigue levels, they use the Fatigue Severity Scale or FSS.

Speaker 2:

And finally, they also did physical examinations to count the number of tender points each patient had.

Speaker 1:

Right those specific spots that hurt when you press on them.

Speaker 2:

Exactly so. They took all these measurements at three different times at the very beginning of the study, right after the 10 ozone therapy sessions were completed, and then six months after the treatment ended.

Speaker 1:

Okay, a pretty thorough approach. So what did they find? Did the ozone therapy make a difference?

Speaker 2:

So let's start with pain. That's the big one right, absolutely. And they found that there was a very significant decrease in pain scores after the ozone therapy. That's who it is. The average pain rating on the VAS dropped from 6.4 at the beginning to 3.68 right after the treatment was over. Wow that. To 3.68 right after the treatment was over. Wow, that's a drop of almost three points. That's a big improvement.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's huge.

Speaker 2:

And it was statistically very significant. Okay, now, at the six-month follow-up, the average pain score had gone back up a little bit to 4.12. Okay, that was still way lower than their initial pain level, right? So, even though the initial relief didn't last completely for everyone, most people were still experiencing less pain six months later.

Speaker 1:

It's still pretty promising. What about their ability to actually function in everyday life?

Speaker 2:

Well, that's where the FIQ comes in, and they saw a big improvement there too. So the average FIQ score went down from 59.2 at the start to 39.08 after the treatment. Remember, lower scores are better. With the FIQ, that's a drop of about 20 points. That's pretty significant. It means that people were able to do more, you know, take care of themselves, do things around the house, even get some light exercise. And the cool thing is that at the six-month follow-up the average FIQ was still around 40. So the improvement in functional status basically stayed the same.

Speaker 1:

So they were still functioning better than they were before the therapy? What about anxiety and depression?

Speaker 2:

They saw improvements in both anxiety and depression as well. For anxiety, the average score on the HADSA went down from 11.2 at the beginning to 3.84 after the treatment.

Speaker 1:

Wow.

Speaker 2:

Again, that's a big change.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Now, at six months, the average anxiety score had gone up a little to 6.92, but it was still way lower than what it was initially Okay. And depression scores followed a similar pattern. They started at an average of 10.36, went down to 3.36 after treatment and then went up to 5.8 at six months Okay. So for both anxiety and depression there was some relapse, but people were still better off than they were before the ozone therapy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's definitely something to note. Now, sleep problems are a big issue for people with fibromyalgia.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Did the ozone therapy help with that at all?

Speaker 2:

Well, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index showed a big improvement after treatment. The average score went down from 11.2 to 6.36.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

And a lower score means better sleep, so that's a really positive result.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2:

Now, at six months, the average score had gone up to 8.84, which is worse, but it was still much better than it was at the beginning of the study.

Speaker 1:

Right. So some of that initial improvement faded, but overall their sleep was still better. What about fatigue? You know that constant exhaustion that people with fibromyalgia talk about.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, fatigue is a big one, and the fatigue severity scale scores showed that there is a significant reduction in fatigue after the ozone therapy.

Speaker 1:

That's great.

Speaker 2:

The average score went from 5.48 to 3.24. So people were feeling more energized.

Speaker 1:

That's great.

Speaker 2:

At the six-month mark. The average fatigue score was 4.56. Again, not as good as right after treatment, but still significantly lower than it was at the beginning.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so similar pattern Better right after the treatment, some decline at six months, but still better than baseline. What about those tender points?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So they found that the average number of tender points went down a lot. It went from 14.36 at the beginning to 9.8 after the ozone therapy and then at the six-month checkup the average was 10.12. So basically, the improvement in tender points stayed pretty much the same over those six months.

Speaker 1:

So bottom line, it sounds like the ozone therapy had a really positive effect on a whole bunch of fibromyalgia symptoms in the short term and a lot of those benefits stuck around or at least stayed better than before the treatment, even six months out. What do the researchers conclude from all of this?

Speaker 2:

They said that major ozone auto-hemotherapy seems like a really promising way to manage fibromyalgia in both the short and medium term.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

They saw improvements in everything Pain function, sleep, fatigue, anxiety, depression, tender points, why and even though some of those improvements weren't completely sustained at six months, a lot of them were still significantly better than before the treatment Right. So they think that ozone therapy could really be helpful for people with fibromyalgia. That's encouraging. And they also talked about how important it is to look at different treatment protocols and maybe the need for some kind of ongoing maintenance therapy to help keep those positive effects going in the long run.

Speaker 1:

So it's not like a one and done kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

Right, it might require more than just those 10 sessions.

Speaker 1:

OK. So the researchers are basically saying this study backs up the idea of using ozone therapy as a complementary treatment for fibromyalgia.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and in the discussion section of their paper they talked about those biological effects of ozone that we were talking about before. You know antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory. They think those are the reasons why people are seeing these improvements.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

They even cited another study from 2019 by Moreno Fernandez and his colleagues that showed ozone autohemotherapy actually increased serotonin levels in people with fibromyalgia. Serotonin is that neurotransmitter that helps regulate your mood, you know.

Speaker 1:

Right, so maybe that's why people's mood was improving.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and that same study also found that ozone therapy decreased markers of oxidative stress. So it's like we were talking about before Ozone helps your body to better deal with oxidative stress.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I mean it's really interesting to see how this therapy could be actually changing things at that deep biological level.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the study also mentioned a few other studies that have looked at ozone therapy, right, yeah, they talked about a study from 2024 by Eldre Modash and his colleagues that looked at injecting ozone directly into trigger points for musculoskeletal pain. Okay, they found that it reduced pain really quickly and there were signs of antioxidant effects Wow. But that study only followed people for three weeks, so it's hard to say anything about long-term effects.

Speaker 1:

Okay, they also mentioned a study from China, right.

Speaker 2:

Right, a study from 2022 by Shen and colleagues. They found that ozone autohemotherapy helped with sleep, pain, depression and fatigue in people with insomnia and myofascial pain syndrome, and their follow-up period was six months.

Speaker 1:

And wasn't there another study they talked about?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there was a study from 2019 by Torelli and his group. They used a combination of autohemotransfusion and rectal ozone insufflation okay and they also had maintenance treatment sessions and they found that it improved fibromyalgia symptoms okay but the authors of the study we're talking about pointed out that their research was different because they only used major auto hemotherapy and they followed people for six months to see how long the benefits lasted okay.

Speaker 1:

So it sounds like there's more and more research coming out about using ozone therapy for chronic pain.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1:

But it's always important to look at the limitations of any study. What did the authors say about that?

Speaker 2:

They were very upfront about the limitations. They said, first of all, because it was a retrospective study, it's hard to be totally sure that the ozone therapy was the reason for the improvements.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

There could have been other things going on.

Speaker 1:

Right, they were just looking back at what had already happened.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. And second, they only looked at major ozone auto-hemotherapy, so we can't say for sure that other ways of giving ozone would have the same effects.

Speaker 1:

Makes sense.

Speaker 2:

And you know they didn't have a control group. That's always a limitation.

Speaker 1:

Right, so it's hard to say for sure how much of the improvement was due to the ozone and how much might have happened anyway.

Speaker 2:

Right, and they also didn't compare their patients to people who didn't have fibromyalgia. Okay, so it's hard to say if the effects they saw were specific to fibromyalgia or if they might happen in other people too.

Speaker 1:

Okay, any other limitations?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, or if they might happen in other people too, okay. Any other limitations? Yeah, they pointed out that they use subjective assessment scales, which means that the patients were reporting their own experiences, right, and those reports can be influenced by all sorts of things.

Speaker 1:

Right, like people's expectations or their mood on that particular day.

Speaker 2:

Exactly so. Yeah, there are definitely some limitations to keep in mind.

Speaker 1:

Okay. But even with those limitations, it seems like this study adds to the evidence that ozone therapy might be a helpful tool for people with fibromyalgia.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. It definitely needs more research. You know, ideally we would have randomized controlled trials with longer follow-up periods, but I think these initial findings are very encouraging.

Speaker 1:

Right. So for those of you listening who are struggling with fibromyalgia and maybe you feel like you've tried everything this study offers a look at something new, something different. It suggests that this particular kind of ozone therapy, this major ozone autohemotherapy, could significantly improve a lot of your symptoms, at least in the short to medium term Pain, fatigue, sleep, anxiety, depression. It could make a real difference. And if you're intrigued and want to learn more, well, that's where LifeWellMDcom comes in. Dr Kumar and his team in Florida are dedicated to offering cutting-edge therapies to help you improve your health, your wellness and your longevity, and they do offer ozone therapy as part of their services. So if you want to know more about whether ozone therapy could be right for you, give them a call. The number is 561-210-9999. You can talk to their team, ask all your questions and see how they can help you create a personalized wellness plan that meets your specific needs.

Speaker 2:

It's really about taking control of your health and exploring all the options that are out there and maybe, just maybe, ozone therapy could be that missing piece for you. You know that thing that helps you finally get some relief from those difficult fibromyalgia symptoms and start living a brighter, more active life. It's definitely something to think about and research. Talk to your health care providers and see if it might be right for you.

Speaker 1:

There you have it, our deep dive into ozone therapy and fibromyalgia. Thanks for tuning in.