Your comments centered around two very valid questions:
- Has anyone ever been “cured” of fibromyalgia by a change in diet - or any of the dozens of other products and treatments claiming to cure FM?
- What can I tell family and friends who saw that Oprah show and tell me all I have to do is follow Dr. Oz’s diet and I’ll be cured?
Has anyone been cured?
Like most of you, I’m extremely skeptical whenever I hear someone who claims to have been cured of FM by some product, treatment program or diet. Generally they are promoting that product or program and stand to profit by getting you to purchase whatever they’re selling. I even wrote an article to help you recognize the warning signs of these scams: “Let the Buyer Beware.”
Another possibility is that the person claiming to be cured was misdiagnosed and didn’t really have fibromyalgia. A number of other conditions can produce similar symptoms that may go away when certain deficiencies or imbalances are corrected. There’s no way to know without full knowledge of their medical history.
Having said all that, I’ll answer the original question – whether I know anyone who has been cured. I do personally know one person who has recovered from FM, largely through dietary changes. Yvonne Keeny suffered with real fibromyalgia for 13 years and her recovery has lasted for 10 years thus far. I will say, though, her recovery was not as simple as just trying a new diet. It was a slow process and took some pretty drastic changes on her part. (If you’d like to read Yvonne’s story, see: “Yvonne Keeny - Turning ‘Cope’ to ‘Hope’ for Thousands of FM/ME/CFS Patients”)
To her credit, when Yvonne got better, she founded the Fibromyalgia Coalition International, a nonprofit that tries to “give hope to everyone suffering with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome through extensive research and reporting of natural, proven and effective therapies that focus on the root causes.” She doesn’t profit monetarily from sharing what she’s learned; rather, she gives her time and energy to helping others. And even though Yvonne has experienced a full recovery herself, she acknowledges that not everyone will necessarily have the same result. However, she feels that learning to eat better and live a healthier lifestyle will, at the very least, bring about some significant improvement.
After working in the field of fibromyalgia for 10 years and meeting thousands of FM patients, Yvonne is the only person I know who has experienced what I would consider to be a full recovery. Several have had significant improvements, usually attributable to a combination of treatments and therapies. Interestingly, every combination seems to be different. That’s part of what makes this illness so frustrating. Every individual patient has to go through trial and error to find the combination that works best for him or her.
