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Hey everyone, I just came across this website that posts all of the passionate and OUTRAGED letters the NY Times has published in response to the article that appeared a couple of weeks ago written by that doctor "expert" who says he no longer believes that fibromyalgia exists. There are letters from doctors, patients and researchers and they are all excellent! http://www.fmaware.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6835 I hope this link works, but if it doesn't here is one of the letters: Doctors Respond to Front-Page Article We are practicing physicians who care for fibromyalgia patients—and we are outraged by Alex Berenson’s article, "Drug Approved. Is Disease Real?" (1/14/2008). Short answer: yes. Fibromyalgia is absolutely real. The pain our patients feel is all too real. Research into the etiology of this chronic pain disorder is also very real. With the availability of new technology to evaluate pain processing in the nervous system, it is clear that there is a hyper-sensitization of the pain pathway in fibromyalgia. The broad impact of fibromyalgia is real. The majority of people diagnosed with fibromyalgia are women, but juvenile fibromyalgia is consistently being diagnosed, and men of all ages are also often diagnosed with FM. Fibromyalgia can strike anyone at any age, of any ethnicity. And the prejudice against these people, who struggle with an “invisible disorder,” is all too real, as Berenson himself proves. People with fibromyalgia tend to look healthy, and conventional diagnostic tests are typically normal. Research efforts to develop more definitive, objective testing are ongoing. Berenson writes that some doctors “say that diagnosing the condition actually worsens suffering by causing patients to obsess over aches that other people simply tolerate.” We are not familiar with such a stance, and question its veracity: how can putting a name to one’s chronic pain, one’s sleep difficulties, one’s debilitating fatigue, worsen suffering? We have witnessed, in patient after patient, overwhelming gratitude after receiving a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. Once patients know what they are dealing with, they can step off the merry-go-round of doctor visits and begin moving forward, developing successful symptom management strategies. While we applaud The New York Times for bringing front-page attention to fibromyalgia, we decry the irresponsible reporting that focuses on a threadbare controversy and neglects significant mention of research that continues to bring greater visibility and acceptance to this disorder, which affects millions of Americans. This article not only makes a mockery of the very real pain that patients feel, it denigrates those of us who have devoted our careers to caring for these people, who deserve nothing but our support. Stuart L. Silverman MD FACP FACR Attending Physician Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Clinical Professor of Medicine and Rheumatology David Geffen School of Medicine UCLA Medical Director, OMC Clinical Research Center David S. Silver, MD Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, UCLA School of Medicine Former Clinical Chief of Rheumatology, Cedars-Sinai Andrew J. Homan, MD Assistant Clinical Professor Medicine, University of Washington Rheumatologist, Valley Medical Center, Seattle Terence Starz, MD University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Arthritis and Internal Medicine Post edited by: hipmama42, at: 01/28/2008 02:43 |
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