All you may want to know about fibrose, fibrosis and fibroids

All you may want to know about fibrose, fibrosis and fibroids : fibrose means to form fibrous tissue and its adjective form is referred to as the fibrous.

More to it comes when we use this word to describe the condition of connective tissue. As always i would drift from the topic a bit and come back with a better understanding. For this i thank you for your patience and take you through the concept of tissues from the musculoskeletal system view point, which, consists of three interrelated parts: bones, joints (articulations), and muscles.

Bones are connected to one another by fibrous bands of tissue called ligaments. Muscles are attached to the bone by bands of tissue called tendons. The tough fibrous covering of the muscles (and some nerves and blood vessels) is called the fascia.

Cartilage is a flexible form of connective tissue that covers the ends of many bones, gives form to the external ear, and tip of the nose, and provides support and protection to many other sites in the body.

Now for some conditions, syndromes and diseases associated with our word of the day:

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a common cause of chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain, often accompanied by fatigue, cognitive disturbance, psychiatric symptoms, and multiple somatic symptoms. Strange but true, the etiology of the syndrome is unknown, and the pathophysiology is uncertain!!!!

Go for the second, ” fibroids” , i am sure i have covered them extensively before, nevertheless this word in more scary when you sound them in a medical language as Uterine leiomyomas which are nothing but , are benign tumors. Why we call them tumours when they are benign and not cancerous. Well i think they are somewhere correct as it is an important condition. Read on and you would also agree like i did about 20 years ago at the med education lecture.
These leiomyomas or fibroids are of significance in women if they experience abnormal uterine bleeding, pain, pressure etc. and may warrant hysterectomy ( removal of the uterus surgically) to avoid the progressing fibroid into a potential life threatening cancer.

The third i can can think of is the fibromuscular dysplasia: it has common symptoms like hypertension, transient ischemic attack, stroke, headache, dizziness, tinnitus, and pulsatile tinnitus (abnormal swooshing sound in ears.

Fibroadenoma is a condition that affects the breasts and involves glandular and fibrous tissues and needs a follow up to catch it before it manifests as a cancer.

Pulmonary fibrosis, is a chronic, progressive, fibrosing pneumonia of unknown cause, occurring in adults and limited to the lungs. These are of importance as they may lead to development of other complications or conditions (eg, pulmonary hypertension, emphysema, and bronchogenic cancer.

Last on the list i have is something called as the retroperitoneal fibrosis. This is fibrosis occuring behind the covering or membrane that surrounds the organs of our body and could be te side affect of drugs, tuberculosis of any surgery.