There was a recent Associated Press article in the Houston Chronicle entitled, “Disease may not be real, but the drug profits are: Industry funds awareness of, and demand for, fibromyalgia pills”.
The article insinuated that fibromyalgia doesn’t exist but the drug companies are trying to sell Cymbalta and Lyrica, even if those drugs don’t work.
Is this a twisted world or what?
First, fibromyalgia is very real, even if mainstream medicine is 20 years behind the times in recognizing it. Remember that PMS didn’t become official until just a few years ago. PMS/PMDD is still classified as a psychiatric disorder??? Fibromyalgia is still dissed by many of my colleagues.
In reality, fibromyalgia is a serious disorder that can be completely disabling. I have successfully treated it and will likely put up a new website later in 2009 on this.
So what does fibromyalgia have to do with migraines??? Often there is an overlap between the two. In my book on migraines, I have stated that 80% of women do very well, fairly quickly on my 5 step recommended program.?? But the other 20% is more difficult.?? Quite often, women with fibromyalgia fall into that 20% group that don’t do so well.
This is how I got interested in fibromyalgia, mainly from the migraines perspective.?? I knew that once we were able to successfully treat (or at least, improve) fibromyalgia symptoms, then the migraines got better, too.
One thing for sure is that the new fancy drugs touted by the drug companies don’t do squat for fibromyalgia (but they really help drug company sales).?? Hormones help, especially thyroid and adrenal.?? All women with fibromyalgia are thyroid deficient.?? But then again, many women with migraines are hypothyroid, too.
Another observation is that fibromyalgia has a lot of symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).?? I would venture that Leaky Gut Syndrome has a lot to do with it.?? Again, the women with bad migraines also have IBS often.
All of this is addressed in my chapter on the 20% difficult migraines group with pretty decent success.?? It takes some work and perseverance but we can turn the corner.
Keep the faith.
Andrew Jones, M.D.
Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas