A Plea to Family and Friends

I just want to introduce myself.  I am an RN of 17 years.  I had never heard the term "fibromyalgia" until I got very ill about 7 years ago.  I had no idea what was wrong with me.  I thought at first I had a fatal disease and would die.  This is because my body literally felt as if I were dying. 

I am going to plea with you to read this and lend an ear for a few minutes.  Then if you choose still not to believe it exists as a real medical physical condition, then so be it.  If you still tend to believe it is "not that bad" then so be it.  However, please listen for a few moments.

I am the caregiver.  I always have been to some extent even before I was a nurse.  But I am the one you will find to believe you when YOU say you are in pain. You will get compassion from me.  You will get my best offers of comfort when you have the flu, a cold, a broken bone, cancer and etc.  I will be the one to listen to you and help in any way I can.  This just happens to be a part of my personality which gives.  So for you to say you will not believe me really hurts emotionally.  I wish you would just consider how you would feel if you had the worst headache of your life and someone said that you were faking it or that you must be imagining the pain.

Headaches are well accepted.  We have all had them.  Everyone at some time has had a bad headache or has had a migraine.  I believe you when you tell me you hurt.  But then again, fibromyalgia is one of those diseases which is as invisible as a headache but yet not believed by many because they have not experienced the disease first hand.  And please believe me when I say that your family member or friend who has FM is in much more pain all over than just a headache. 

It hurts us badly to have the very people we love doubt us.  The reason is not because we neccessarily want sympathy, but rather the fact we only want belief.  Your disbelief does not relieve your loved ones real physical pain and miseries.  It only serves to hurt more.  The disbelief and labels may not increase the horrible physical pain, but it does bring on emotional pain which only adds to the miseries of the disease they call "fibromyalgia".

As a nurse, I research everything about this monster which plagues me.  Most recently they have found evidence that FM is indeed real and is a disease of the central nervous system.  Chemical imbalances in the brain are at fault for the many many symptoms we suffer.  Just as diabetes is a disease of the pancreas which fails to supply enough insulin, the brain fails to supply enough of other kinds of chemicals in FM.  You can believe diabetes because you can see it on paper or on a blood sugar meter.  We don't have an FM meter.  But the disease is real.  I might add I would rather live with diabetes everyday than to live with FM.