Why does one fibromyalgia patient recover while another suffers endlessly for years and years? What kind of treatments does a successful patient use? Why does one treatment work for one patient and not for another? Such baffling questions could be answered if more retrograde research was done.

Retrograde research would involve bringing together hundreds, perhaps thousands of patients who have stopped having symptoms of fibromyalgia. Researchers would then gather information and details about the remedies they used to get better. To pinpoint the beneficial treatments, patients would have to eliminate different therapies and see which ones brought back the symptoms of fibromyalgia. The research would then help scientists identify the different subtypes of fibromyalgia and the common mechanism that produces symptoms. It would also help determine specific treatments that work on different symptoms.