When people hear the word doctor, they often imagine strength, stamina, and resilience without limits. What they rarely imagine is chronic pain, crushing fatigue, or a nervous system that never truly rests. I am a doctor living with fibromyalgia, and these are the ten things I wish people understood.
1. I Didn’t Choose This Illness
Fibromyalgia didn’t appear because I couldn’t “handle stress” or because I pushed myself too hard in medicine. Like many patients, I developed it after years of training, long shifts, emotional strain, and physical exhaustion. Chronic illness doesn’t discriminate, it simply arrives.
2. Pain Doesn’t Make Me Less Competent
I can diagnose complex conditions, manage emergencies, and care deeply for my patients, even while my body hurts. Pain affects my comfort, not my intelligence or compassion. Having fibromyalgia has not diminished my medical skill; if anything, it has sharpened my empathy.
3. Fatigue Is Not Just Being Tired
Fibromyalgia fatigue isn’t solved by sleep or weekends off. It feels like practicing medicine while wearing invisible weights, with a brain that sometimes struggles through fog. I work twice as hard to appear “normal,” and most people never notice.
4. I Believe My Patients More Than Ever
Living with an invisible illness taught me how often symptoms are dismissed. I now listen more closely, ask better questions, and advocate harder, especially when tests look “normal.” I know firsthand that suffering doesn’t always show up on lab work.
5. I Have Good Days and Bad Days
Some days I function almost normally. Other days, every movement hurts. Fibromyalgia fluctuates, and that unpredictability can be terrifying, especially in a profession built on reliability. Flexibility is survival, not weakness.
6. I Push Through More Than You Know
Doctors with chronic illness are experts at masking pain. I’ve finished shifts with burning muscles, nerve pain, and migraines, then gone home to collapse. Just because I show up doesn’t mean it’s easy.
7. Asking for Accommodations Is Not Failure
Shorter shifts, modified schedules, or rest breaks don’t make me less dedicated. They make me sustainable. Medicine loses talented professionals when chronic illness is treated as a personal flaw instead of a medical reality.
8. Fibromyalgia Has Made Me a Better Doctor
I understand fear, frustration, and grief in ways textbooks never taught. I know what it’s like to feel unheard. That perspective has made me gentler, more patient, and more determined to treat the whole person, not just their symptoms.
9. Doctors Get Sick Too
Medical training doesn’t grant immunity. Chronic illness among healthcare providers is more common than people realize, but stigma keeps many silent. We need a culture where doctors can be human without fear of judgment.
10. I Am Still Here, and Still Fighting
Fibromyalgia hasn’t ended my calling. It has changed how I practice, how I pace myself, and how I define strength. I am still a doctor. I am still capable. And I am proof that chronic illness and purpose can coexist.
Final Thoughts
Being a doctor with fibromyalgia means living in two worlds: one of care and competence, and another of pain and endurance. Both are real. Both deserve recognition.
If you’re a healthcare professional living with chronic illness, you are not alone. And if you’re a patient, know this, many of us truly understand more than you realize.
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