Good News, It’s official! You are not crazy. Fibromyalgia is real!
Let’s take a trip back to the 1980’s in my time machine. My patients were actively having and raising their children. For the most part, mothers worked at home with their kids and dads went to work at the office. Both parents poured themselves into their respective jobs.
My family was no different. I worked from 5:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., 5 days a week, with shorter hours on Saturday and Sunday. Renee ran the office and raised the kids. By the time our family grew to 3 kids, Renee was having an assortment of pains in her neck, upper and lower back and marked pain in her thighs.
Of interest, I was seeing a fairly large number of women with similar pains and similar exams in the office (on a daily basis). My patients and Renee were miserable. The only positive findings on exam were trigger or tender points along the spine and the diagnosis of trigger/tender points was very subjective. I diagnosed these patients as having Fibromyalgia and treated them with an assortment of muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatories, sleeping meds and physical therapy.
I hypothesized that Fibromyalgia was cause by a sleep disorder caused by the mothers frequent awakening with her infant, as well as neck and shoulder injuries from lifting the children out of the crib/car. Most of my colleagues thought that Fibromyalgia didn’t exist and that the proper diagnosis for women suffering with the symptoms listed above was hysteria or anxiety.
I saw a large number of patients (mostly women) with Fibromyalgia who were tired of doctors treating them as if they were nuts. Frankly, I was tired of listening to my colleagues denigrating patients with Fibromyalgia. Over the ensuing years, Fibromyalgia became a recognized entity but continued to be associated with a fair amount of doubt.
Flash forward to today and a group of researchers from the University of Illinois have come up with a blood test (The Fibromyalgia Test) that reliably diagnoses a very real disease. They are also working on understanding what causes Fibromyalgia and new treatment.
It’s official! You are not crazy. Fibromyalgia is real!
Here’s your joke for the day:
Two students, both 5 year old kids are peeing inside the male toilet.
Boy 1: Hey, what’s wrong with your pee-pee?
Boy 2: What do you mean?
Boy 1: It doesn’t look like mine, why is there no skin thingy?
Boy 2: Oh, i was circumcised when i was 2 days old. The doctor removed the skin.
Boy 1: (Grimacing) Oww, was it painful?
Boy 2: Painful? I wasn’t able to walk for a year.
