May 12th is National Fibromyalgia Day
Should we celebrate National Fibromyalgia Day? Well yes and no. I don’t believe it is appropriate to celebrate a disease or even a day that recognizes a disease. Wouldn’t it be great if there wasn’t an awareness day because fibromyalgia doesn’t exist anymore?
Wishful thinking I know, but celebrating fibromyalgia doesn’t feel right.
True, those in the fibromyalgia community don’t have anything to celebrate but we can appreciate just how far we have come.
When I first started treating fibromyalgia, some seventeen years ago, the public didn’t know what the illness was or even how to pronounce it. Heck, most doctors didn’t know much of about fibromyalgia.
Fortunately healthcare professionals and the public at large have over the years continued to learn more and more about fibromyalgia-at least at this point most everyone has heard of fibromyalgia.
So while we aren’t celebrating anything on May 12th we can be appreciative that the skepticism from family, doctors, and the public is thankfully being put to rest.
Unfortunately we still have some STUPID doctors who think that fibromyalgia doesn’t exist-“it’s all in your head.” Clearly ignorance and arrogance is still alive and well as some stupid doctors choose to write fibromyalgia off as another hypochondriac disease.
Wish they could be in your shoes for a few days. I bet they’d change their minds. Let them go 4-5 nights without sleep and battle diffuse achy all over pain day in and day out and I bet they’d be demanding federal dollars for a cure for fibro.
Clearly there is much work to be done so that those with fibromyalgia aren’t made to feel like they are lazy, crazy, or simply depressed.
National Fibromyalgia Awareness Day is a great way to educate others about a very real disease. We need more research and we need more understanding-the more the better.
We also need to proactive and not wait on “the cure.” Please realize that traditional medicine alone isn’t going to cure fibromyalgia. There will not be a magic pill or combination of magic drugs that will prevent or cure fibro-sorry but it just isn’t possible.
You can read my blog about this topic here-
I’m not anti-drug-they can be helpful. But drugs don’t make you healthy-they cover up your symptoms and do not correct the problem. Now this can be life saving but covering up symptoms while ignoring the cause can also be dangerous.
You can read more about this topic
Unlike type II diabetes in which the symptoms, elevated blood sugar, can be treated and managed with one drug like Metformin, fibromyalgia has several problems, sometimes dozens of symptoms that must be treated in order for the patient to feel dramatically better.
Of course covering up the symptom, elevated blood sugar instead of correcting the cause, being overweight (95% of time) really doesn’t make sense either….
But in fibro patients using one drug after another to treat the various symptoms, insomnia, chronic pain, fatigue, depression, headaches, etc., is a recipe for disaster-one drugs side effects lead to another drug.
The drugs being used for fibromyalgia don’t work, at least long term, and potentially have numerous life draining side effects.
You can read more about these drugs at the links below
Savella-Cymbalta
Lyrica
Neurontin
The only way to beat fibromyalgia, and you can beat fibromyalgia, is to get healthy.
Drugs don’t make you healthy.
Using the essential, natural vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and supplements the body needs to repair itself, replenish serotonin, norepinephrine, cortisol, melatonin, thyroid, etc. is the best long term approach for treating and reversing fibromyalgia.
Using the right supplements along with losing inflammation storing fat, slowly building up to exercising on a daily basis, reducing or eliminating potentially dangerous drugs, and managing stress, allows your body to repair itself.
If you are tired of being sick and tired, tired of seeing doctor after doctor who continue offer more and more mind numbing drugs, going year after year stuck in a medical paradigm that treats symptoms, not causes, then I challenge you to be proactive and take a different course of action-get healthy.
Are you willing to be proactive and get healthy? Change your diet? Start the RIGHT (go easy) exercise program for you? Are you ready to start eliminate those bad health habits you know aren’t good for you-smoking, excessive sugar, etc?
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I’m committed to helping any many folks as I can beat fibromyalgia. I’ve helped thousands get their life back. Are you next?
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The History of Fibromyalgia Awareness Day
In 1993, Tom Hennessy, the founder of RESCIND, INC. (Repeal Existing Stereotypes about Chronic Immunological and Neurological Diseases) designated May 12 as International Awareness Day for Chronic Immunological and Neurological Diseases (CIND).
The date was chosen to memorialize the birth date of Florence Nightingale, the English army nurse who inspired the founding of the International Red Cross. Nightingale contracted a paralyzing, CIND-like illness in her mid-thirties and spent the last 50 years of her life virtually bedridden. Despite her illness, she managed to found the first ever School of Nursing.
Today, National Fibromyalgia Awareness Day activities take place worldwide in an effort to increase awareness of this chronic pain illness. Awareness Day seeks to help patients and organizations educate the general public, healthcare professionals, government officials, and legislative bodies.
National fibromyalgia and chronic pain organizations, as well as local support groups around the country, host events in or around May 12 to create awareness and generate media interest in their cause.
Fibromyalgia can be a difficult disease to diagnose and actually goes untreated in many patients as a result. The reasons for this are many but mainly due to the lack of consistent Fibromyalgia Symptoms that can be tested for and documented with a patient.