Fibromyalgia is associated with sleep disturbances, specifically alpha wave intrusion into EEG during deep or REM sleep, preventing restful sleep.

“It is uh was historically uh based on American college rheumatology definitions based on tender points and 11 out of 18 places but that's been replaced by now criteria which involves multiple body sites affected and a symptom severity score. The key thing when the audience hears well first of all it's fibromyalgia syndrome and whenever the audience hears syndrome what they should translate that to the definition of a syndrome is a constellation of signs and symptoms that define a disease but we don't understand the mechanism. So fibromyalgia is a syndrome. We do not understand its mechanisms. We know that historically it tended to affect women more than men. About 80%ish or so women. With the newer definition, we're picking up a lot more men. Um the cognitive aspects of it are really a problem. It's also associated, as I alluded to, with sleep disturbances. They get this weird what we call alpha wave intrusion into their EEG, which means alpha waves are typically in light awakefulness. So, when you're supposed to be in deep sleep or REM sleep, your brain is in kind of a light alert state instead. And so, they're not getting a restful sleep.”