Is Fibromayalga Real?

[bsaltyman]

It’s generally not a good practice to tell people that their pain is “all in their head” or to dismiss the pain that people claim to be in. I think that fibromyalgia gets a bad rap because it can be a catch all diagnosis for widespread pain that is not well understood.

A lot of people live in some type of chronic pain, whether it’s fibromyalgia or some centralized neuropathic pain. Pain is a complex thing that can be affected by many factors, and how our brains process pain varies between individuals. If someone is under a lot of stress from work or issues at home or whatever the reason, the stress can play a role in how their brain processes pain.

I could probably go on and on for a long time about my experiences with people in chronic pain and things that affect pain. But my point would be to try to at least believe people and have empathy for them when they tell you they are in pain, unless you have a very good reason to believe they are making it up.

 

[wxman1]

Because all of our bodies are the same and react the same way, show the same symptoms etc. Such as when my wife had extreme abdominal pain but no test or imaging indicated anything and the doctor explained it away as “you are somewhat petite and quite pregnant.” Nope definitely wasn’t the extremely infected appendix you found 10 hours later in the middle of the night when you finally decided to do an investigatory laparoscopy.

Or the other doctors that told her to come back if she started exhibiting the same symptoms she was presenting/experiencing at that moment.

I wish I knew why I had to stretch a lot and still have super tight leg muscles that you can bounce a quarter off of.

 

[cowgirl836]

Holy cow. My 3 kids combined never came close to half that!!

Tbf, we had probably 15 days or so of covid exposure exclusion between Jan July which won't occur again. But even then it's still a ton. It's been a really bad fall for any parents of young kids I know.

 

[Gunnerclone]

Why?

It’s interesting to think about the way we are so similar yet there are these tiny intricacies within our bodies that make us different.

I have pretty bad hay and cat allergies. Why those things? Are those things in any way related? Why are peanuts so dangerous to some people but harmless to others. I don’t know I just think it’s interesting.

 

[NWICY]

I have a coworker that misses a couple days at a time every other week for migraines. She's on FMLA and it's quite obvious she's just milking the system. Regularly posts on Facebook on days that she takes off. One day had posted about going out to lunch with her mom on a day she had called in. Someone must have tipped her off cause it was deleted shortly after. My personal favorite was a couple weeks ago posting a pic at a UNI game when she had called in that day, and then called in the next day too

Damn that would be irritating especially if them being gone creates more work for you.

 

[LarryISU]

I think it is real but people will always question something there isn’t a definitive proof for. What’s odd is you hear people question this but not migraines, anxiety, depression, etc.

I have severe anxiety, depression, and OCD on levels where 12 months ago I was 3 hours away from committing suicide - had arranged password and instructions on everything for my wife. And that’s not the only time. I can’t function in any way without a combination of 4 medicines - of which I’ve gone through over 35 different ones since my initial diagnosis roughly 28 years ago. But my diagnosis on each of those was based on what I say and what a doctor deemed correct (I can tell you very much it’s real, it’s bad, and it’s chronic), not a blood or DNA test. Does that mean people just make it up?

I'm familiar with this. My daughter is a mental health therapist. A very, very good one based on her feedback and references. The thing is, though, my daughter diagnoses those things based on tests, observation and experience. Mental illness is far more objectively evident than I ever knew fibromyalgia to be. I'm no expert on either subject, and I am not qualified to opine on the merits. Just based on my own years of experiences, I am skeptical of fibromyalgia. That's all.

 

[cyfanatic13]

Damn that would be irritating especially if them being gone creates more work for you.

Not me, but definitely some others. Just annoying that there's nothing that management can really do about it

 

[cyfanatic13]

I think that fibromyalgia gets a bad rap because it can be a catch all diagnosis for widespread pain that is not well understood.

I have this opinion with some mental health issues, mainly anxiety. I think it's a very real thing and serious issue many people, including some I'm friends with, struggle with. I also think some people are too quick to label and self-diagnose something as anxiety, and then it gets watered down and people give it a bad rap.

 

[carvers4math]

I have a coworker that misses a couple days at a time every other week for migraines. She's on FMLA and it's quite obvious she's just milking the system. Regularly posts on Facebook on days that she takes off. One day had posted about going out to lunch with her mom on a day she had called in. Someone must have tipped her off cause it was deleted shortly after. My personal favorite was a couple weeks ago posting a pic at a UNI game when she had called in that day, and then called in the next day too

My Mom, sister, her daughter, and I all have experienced migraines once a month before our periods. Mine usually just a day or two and I usually went to work if I thought I could read. Got a ride though, did not trust driving. It usually gave me some weird fractal vision thing and hurt so much at times I vomited. If I couldn’t see well enough to read I couldn’t do much at work. Wasn’t every month, and stopped during menopause. Niece is still coping with it but works in a medical office and they are more understanding. I remember when I was very young, maybe 4, seeing my mom crying on the couch and she couldn’t see and was scared she didn’t know where I was. I had quietly been coloring in the same room and she couldn’t see me.

 

[cyfanatic13]

My Mom, sister, her daughter, and I all have experienced migraines once a month before our periods. Mine usually just a day or two and I usually went to work if I thought I could read. Got a ride though, did not trust driving. It usually gave me some weird fractal vision thing and hurt so much at times I vomited. If I couldn’t see well enough to read I couldn’t do much at work. Wasn’t every month, and stopped during menopause. Niece is still coping with it but works in a medical office and they are more understanding. I remember when I was very young, maybe 4, seeing my mom crying on the couch and she couldn’t see and was scared she didn’t know where I was. I had quietly been coloring in the same room and she couldn’t see me.

I actually had something similar starting in middle school all the way through senior year of college. About once every 12-18 months I would get a splitting headache, the same weird fractal vision thing, start yawning uncontrollably, and would always end in me vomiting unless I could fall asleep before that. Didn't happen for probably five years and then it just hit me out of the blue back in like April this year. Only one of my older three brothers had some issues throughout school years too. But we're both dudes so it wasn't period related for us. At least I hope not

 

[Acylum]

There was no covid test this time 3 yrs ago.

Lol.

 

[MartyFine]

No idea. I will say that your description of the people who suffer from it falls right in line with my experience. It seems like a catch all. The equivalent of "soft tissue injuries" on an insurance claim for a car accident

Yeah insurance companies are to be trusted over everyone else. Just remember if you are sitting on a jury there is always insurance coverage but the rules of evidence prohibit you from knowing how much and that it exists in the first place

 

[simply1]

I have this opinion with some mental health issues, mainly anxiety. I think it's a very real thing and serious issue many people, including some I'm friends with, struggle with. I also think some people are too quick to label and self-diagnose something as anxiety, and then it gets watered down and people give it a bad rap.

Literally everything has degrees. Doctors have you fill out pain or anxiety or depression symptoms so they can work from the severity.

 

[simply1]

I think it is real but people will always question something there isn’t a definitive proof for. What’s odd is you hear people question this but not migraines, anxiety, depression, etc.

I have severe anxiety, depression, and OCD on levels where 12 months ago I was 3 hours away from committing suicide - had arranged password and instructions on everything for my wife. And that’s not the only time. I can’t function in any way without a combination of 4 medicines - of which I’ve gone through over 35 different ones since my initial diagnosis roughly 28 years ago. But my diagnosis on each of those was based on what I say and what a doctor deemed correct (I can tell you very much it’s real, it’s bad, and it’s chronic), not a blood or DNA test. Does that mean people just make it up?

I wish people could take a pill and know how that feels for 5 minutes. The world would be a far different place.

 

[WartburgClone]

Alcohol + poor diet + obesity = "Why do I feel like crap all the time?"

 

[Cloneon]

It’s interesting to think about the way we are so similar yet there are these tiny intricacies within our bodies that make us different.

I have pretty bad hay and cat allergies. Why those things? Are those things in any way related? Why are peanuts so dangerous to some people but harmless to others. I don’t know I just think it’s interesting.

This touches on one of my concerns with our medical education. With the exception of psychological substitution, why on earth would we question someone's pain? We're so biologically different, it's irrefutable that someone could have something which legitimately is causing the pain.

My wife suffers so badly from pain which years of specialist doctor's assessments couldn't diagnose. We, by process of elimination, determined it's electro hypersensitivity. And, accordingly, have moved 8 times in the past 15 years to try to outrun it. But it's pervasive by design so our dead end approach landed us in an area where all wireless is prohibited. She's, of course, feeling better, but for people to suffer so much without medical help is sad. And worse yet, the condescending attitude that she's faking it or it's in her mind. Trust me. No one would want to live with this affliction. Not the least of which, her.

I feel for the billions of people in the world suffering from headaches which doctors simply say 'take two aspirin and call me in the morning'. There's an underlying reason for these headaches or body pains. IMO medical science needs to focus more on the why's and not what pills we can pop to relieve it.

 

[NENick]

An earlier post (that I'm not taking the time to find) stated that a coworker missing work due to fibromayalga was probably jusy anxiety/depression (paraphrasing).

Maybe they are anxious and depressed because they suffer from a hard to diagnose/treat disorder causing the chronic pain?

 

[bstegs]

I wonder if inflamation has anything to do with it?

She definitely has inflammation. But that seems to be an effect rather than a cause.

 

[BCClone]

Female viagra was tested on men. Or male rats only. I gotta check but it's insane. Women's hormones make it "too complicated " to adequately represent in animal to human trials. At the cost of women's health and lives, see heart attack symptom training.

I didn’t have time to look up heart disease until now so I waited to double check myself before commenting, but do you suspect that men make up most of the majority of these studies since they are the most likely to suffer from them? Massive heart attacks are 70-89% (wide number that the info reports) occurring with men. Also, men are considered 4x as likely to be an alcoholic than women.

So are some of these studies just trying to help the greatest amount of people and not being sexist in their studies?

 

[bstegs]

So is this the same thing as “Chronic pain”? These people could all be getting great pricing on medical cannabis. Clear ‘em right up with a nice GG4 or Northern Lights.

You get discounts if it's medical?