Fibromyalgia is plenty real, of that I am convinced. What I'm not buying into is that the pharmaceutical companies need to pump out pill after pill to effectively treat this painful condition.
During my Great Breakdown of 2008, I was initially diagnosed with fibromyalgia by an ER doctor. I can't even tell you what that news does to you. No one knows what causes fibro, and no one treatment works for everyone, or even a majority of the sufferers. Being told you have fibromyalgia is more or less being told you can look forward to a lifetime of pain.
For a month I lived like this, scouring the Internet for medical articles and forums. I wanted to learn about ways sufferers made life bearable. All I saw was a lot of people on more medication than is safe. It took a visit to a local rheumatologist to discern that I did not have fibro. I did not have the tell-tale pressure points pain, for one. My blood work showed a negative ANA test. Which was cool; but it took another month to find out what exactly was up with me.
What lifted me out of that mephitic swamp? Therapy. Given the "murky" nature of fibromyalgia, why don't physicians encourage their patients towards counseling instead of immediately scribbling on some paper? I think some fibro sufferers need to start insisting on it.
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