Assholes!
This article has driven me to blog.
It's about fibromyalgia, which is a poorly understood condition marked by widespread pain, fatigue, and other fun symptoms. It's kind of similar to what's going on with me, though I don't think I have it per se; my symptoms run a bit closer to chronic fatigue syndrome. There are no blood tests or other diagnostics that can identify either condition, and the underlying causes of the symptoms are still unknown.
Until recently, chronic fatigue syndrome patients were treated like complainers whose problems were all in their heads. This has been changing over the last few years, as researchers are starting to identify a biological basis for the condition. I'm so glad that I've never had the shock of being told by a doctor that I'm perfectly fine and just need to get over my worries - I've read of so many sick people being treated this way.
Well, it looks like fibromyalgia is still in the dark ages, even though last year the FDA approved a prescription drug to treat it. According to one doctor quoted in the article, fibromyalgia is "clearly not" a disease and people suffering with fibromyalgia symptoms shouldn't be told they have fibromyalgia, because it'll just encourage these people "to think of themselves as sick and catalog their pain." You know, because it wasn't the debilitating pain that made them think they're sick. Right. Jerks.
It'd be nice to see a bit of humility in the face of medical uncertainty.
posted by p @ 9:06 PM
4 Comments:
I really think we need the medical community to step up and come up with a new word. "Disease" conjures up images of microorganism invaders. Which makes things like "heart disease" and "cancer," which are clearly real conditions, appear like pretenders.
I suspect having a prominent doctor with this condition as a spokesperson would help improve the recognition in the medical community.
I do remember John Finnie (ex-college roommate) who went on to medical school mention that he did not like dealing with people who think they have a condition that isn't clearly diagnosable, hence one of the reasons he chose to practice oncology. There was an undertone of having to deal with people who may be hypochondriacs and perhaps this is a real issue for physicians as they are evaluating new patients. That said there has to be mechanisms to try and help patients even when there is no clear diagnosis.
They are putting the cart before the horse a little, "just as Prozac brought depression into the mainstream". And at a full 100% more effective than the placebo, the profits will be well deserved.
I imagine it's a disease in the wider sense of the word, but these drugs don't seem to be the ideal treatment of what is still mysterious.
You shouldn't read that rag-sheet. :)
Placebos are incredible, aren't they? They work quite well, especially given how cheap and well-tolerated they are.
As for Lyrica bringing fibromyalgia into the mainstream - sad but true that there are lots of people for whom an illness isn't real until there's a drug that makes it better (at least a little more often than a placebo, that is). We are a very drug-oriented society.
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