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Despite almost 20 years of research, fibromyalgia is still met with skepticism by some in the medical community. Is it a legitimate disease or a symptom of an underlying health problem? The jury is still out.

It hurts all the time. The constant neck, shoulder, hip and leg pain is too much to bear and saps a person of their energy. The chronic pain is often accompanied by feelings of depression and anxiety.

It has a name now, but there was a time when people who complained of these symptoms were told that it was all in their heads. Fibromyalgia is a poorly understood condition. No specific cause has ever been identified and there is no known cure.

U.S. regulators approved a drug to soothe the symptoms of fibromyalgia for the first time in June 2007. It sparked hope in fibromyalgia patients and advocates that more doctors will come to understand and diagnose the tricky condition now that there is a medicine to treat it.

But not all doctors agree that fibromyalgia is a disease. And those who doubt it is a disease say it’s not helpful to call it one. Even the doctor who helped put fibromyalgia on the map in 1990 has second thoughts.

Dr. Frederick Wolfe, director of the National Databank for Rheumatic Diseases in Wichita, Kansas, was the lead author of the medical study that created criteria for identifying patients with fibromyalgia. Those criteria are still the standard used today.

Dr. Wolfe acknowledges that people diagnosed with fibromyalgia feel real pain, but in recent published articles he has said patients are experiencing “a physical response to stress, depression, and economic and social anxiety."

And he is not alone. The undefined nature of the condition leads many doctors to think fibromyalgia is not the real disease. It is merely the symptom of an underlying problem.

Others say it’s about time fibromyalgia was legitimized. Some doctors say the disorder is undertreated and its sufferers have been stigmatized as chronic complainers. The condition is recognized by many health agencies (World Health Organization, National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), it’s in every major textbook, and thousands of articles have been published in reputable medical journals. More importantly, the disabling symptoms are very real for those who suffer from them.

Where do you stand on the issue? Let us know. We’ll publish the best letters and you’ll get bragging rights.

Write to Aujourd’hui at 141 Laurier Ave. West, Suite 701, Ottawa, ON K1P 5J3, or email us at aujourdhui@cpa-apc.org.

© Copyright 2008. Canadian Psychiatry Aujourd’hui. All rights reserved.

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