Celebrate the resilience of Fibromyalgia warriors, sharing stories of strength, tips for managing symptoms, and resources for support and empowerment.
A number of years ago I had a female patient that doubled as a famous female singer. Her resemblance to the singer was remarkable. After performances, this patient double would be ushered through the crowd to a limo that the followers and photographers would converge on. While this was happening the star singer was going out a side door with no crowd. It was great theatrics. When she was in town and available I would…
Talk about “coming out”. Lady Gaga announced she had to enter a hospital and cancel a number of future engagements due to severe body pain and fatigue that has been diagnosed as Fibromyalgia. She was very positive but she had no time schedule as to when she might be able to return to a regular schedule of work. If you have Fibromyalgia or know of someone who has this disease you know that this debilitating…
Last week I traveled to the California Fibromyalgia Research and Treatment Center to visit with Doctor R. Paul St. Amand and his assistant Claudia Marek. During my visit, I found that the research center is getting closer to identifying the genetic component that triggers fibromyalgia and its many symptoms. Since pharmaceutical companies control where and how much of the research money is distributed the ability to complete the study is lacking. Guaifenesin, the OTC product…
Obviously, I cannot answer for all of the people of the countries in the world, however, those people that I interviewed for the most part either never heard of fibromyalgia or had very little knowledge of this condition. In my opinion, the people that I interviewed were well educated. Some had heard the term fibromyalgia but had little knowledge of this condition except for some similarity to flu-like symptoms. Any of the other many symptoms…
In twenty-four years working clinically with fibromyalgia patients I have yet to meet one that does not have some lumps, bumps, and/or water-filled swellings also known as lesions just below the skin. What are these and where do they come from? They most often are not painful trigger points. They are areas of swollen tissue. With excess phosphate and calcium in fibromyalgia patients’ cells, the body is unable to evacuate these and other chemicals. These…
Fibromyalgia, meaning muscle and connective tissue pain (also referred to as FM or FMS), is a disorder classified by the presence of chronic widespread pain and a heightened and painful response to gentle touch (tactile allodynia). Daily variations are interwoven in combinations from the following list of the most common symptoms. Central Nervous System – Fatigue, irritability, nervousness, depression, apathy, listlessness, impaired memory and concentration, anxieties, suicidal thoughts, insomnia, frequent awakening from pain resulting in…
It has recently come to my attention that there is another condition that is commonly found in a number of fibromyalgia patients. The condition is called “postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome,” P.O.T.S., also known as postural tachycardia syndrome. The condition is caused by a change from the supine (face down) position to an upright position causing an abnormal increase in heart rate. The increase can range from 30 beats per minute for adults to an increase…
“Breathe and let be”, Jon Kabat-Zinn Within the last two decades, the concept of mindfulness meditation has been adopted by schools, hospitals, businesses, police, and even the military. Those who teach/mentor MM to people in the huge business of organized sport, the corporate world, and the military, no doubt live with some degree of contradiction in their lives. It is not a practice that is focused so much on ethical issues in big business or professional sport (considered by…
“Names are not always what they seem”, Mark Twain How to go about convincing experts and the general population that fibromyalgia is not a disease, but a Medically Unexplained Syndrome (MUS)? It is in fact, a dis-ease. It is mysterious in the ways in which it exhibits itself with a vast array of features, but the cause can be explained as an uneasy central nervous system! What is implied in that name? Generally, it is ‘sore…
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are”, Anaïs Nin One of the common sayings in Mindfulness Meditation is that thoughts are not facts. In chronic pain clinics, we are told that hurt does not necessarily mean harm. B.K.S Iyengar, a yoga master, says to think light and feel light. But what are we to do when we are in a state of high arousal, waiting for disaster to fall, whether…