WINNIPEG — As the winter months draw to a close, Winnipeg residents are still waiting for the final verdict on whether they should seek help for their chronic pain.

But the province is also hoping to provide them with some answers.

Dr. Stephen Bremner is president of the Winnipeg Medical Association and has led a study on how people with fibromyalgic pain can get the best possible treatment.

Bremner’s group says people with chronic pain can benefit from treatments like chiropractic, massage, massage therapy and acupuncture, but the study found that these therapies do not address their pain.

“We know that a lot of patients have been going to chiropractors for decades, for many years, but we don’t really know what’s happening with those patients,” he said.

“So it’s important that we understand what’s going on.”

Dr. Roberta Lacey, a fibromycologist with the University of Manitoba, said the study was a good start, but it has been too limited.

“There’s still a lot that we don´t know about the impact of these different therapies on patients,” Lacey said.

Dr Lacey and her colleagues are working to improve their understanding of what is going on with fibroids.

She said they hope to offer a better way to predict whether someone is going to have a chronic pain condition and help doctors tailor treatment to meet that patient’s needs.

“You can’t just take something like chiropractor and put it into the same category as acupuncture,” Lacy said.

Lacey said some people with a chronic condition have the genetic predisposition to fibromystic pain.

That predisposition can also be related to other conditions such as osteoarthritis or diabetes.

“That can lead to other problems, including the other conditions,” she said.

Breslau, meanwhile, says he and other members of his team at Breslaur University have developed a model that predicts how people who have fibromyacological pain will respond to different therapies.

The model is based on the Fibromyalgia Association of Canada’s Fibromyalgie Questionnaire, a questionnaire that has been validated for many other conditions, including chronic pain and fibromyal syndrome.

The questionnaire is used to identify the best treatments and therapies to treat people with multiple chronic conditions, according to Breskau.

He said his group is now looking at a similar questionnaire for fibrocystic pain and is also planning to run a study to see if fibromyo-neuropathy is a predictor of fibromy pain.