YourFibro.com

Many people with fibromyalgia are not diagnosed with the disease right away. Many physicians believe that the disease is all in the mind.

Legitimacy of fibromyalgia still a contentious point

Despite being recognized as a diagnosable disease by the American College of Rheumatology, the Food and Drug Administration and most insurers, fibromyalgia has not shed the stigma of being dismissed as “psychosomatic” by some in the medical establishment.

Controversy swirls even as new FDA-approved medications have shown promise and recent brain-imaging research has shown central-nervous-system changes in those afflicted. The National Fibromyalgia Association, a patient advocacy group, estimates that 10 million Americans suffer from one or more of the multifarious manifestations of the condition. It is this array of symptoms not linked to specific cause and effect — as opposed to how rheumatoid arthritis can ravage a patient’s joints — that keeps skeptics in mainstream medicine from validating fibromyalgia as a legitimate disease.

Are Fibromyalgia Patients Crazy?

Because those with Fibromyalgia have an illness that’s hard to “prove,” loved ones may secretly convict them of hypochondria or laziness. Patients may be told, “it’s all in your head.” They may be told that they need to exercise, lose weight or take antidepressants.

Physicians can be even worse. If they believe the condition exists at all–and some don’t–their first impulse is to mask the symptoms with prescription drugs. Patients often end up on a medical merry-go-round, seeing doctor after doctor after doctor. They end up more confused and disoriented than ever, often concluding, “Maybe I am crazy, after all.”

Here is a readers comment that sums it up pretty well…

“As someone who has suffered with this disease more years than I care to count, I’m very disappointed by the attitude of doctors.  I hope they never have a loved one come down with fibro.  One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that most of the women who have this illness are Type A personalities.  We are goers and doers.  That is the hardest part of the disease, not being able to go and do.