What Your Doctor Doesn't Know about Fibromyalgia: Why Doctors Can't or Won't Treat Chronic Pain

FMS, a common term for fibromyalgia, attacks men, women, and even children of all ages, varying in intensity from patient to patient. Because doctors do not like to treat conditions they don't understand, patients are often ignored, denied pain relief, shuttled off to other "experts," or filled with powerful prescription drugs that may add new and confusing symptoms. Thus begins a vicious cycle of frustrating doctor appointments with no clear diagnoses and continuing treatments that may or may not lead to any relief. If you've always trusted that most of your doctors are up-to-date, informed, and rarely mistaken about a diagnosis or treatment, What Your Doctor Doesn't Know about Fibromyalgia may change your mind. Fibromyalgia is listed as one of the top ten most painful conditions in medicine, but many doctors still do not "believe" in it. If they do recognize it, they have only a vague notion of a collection of mild symptoms that they attribute to stress, menstrual problems, weight gain, depression, or hysteria-none of which have been scientifically linked to fibromyalgia. What Your Doctor Doesn't Know about Fibromyalgia will help you take charge of your condition and teach you how to find physicians you can trust so that you can obtain the relief you need.

Linda Meilink is an award winning writer, columnist, and journalist. For ten years, she was the managing editor for a newspaper in northern California. She has written for national publications such as Working Woman and Fibromyalgia Aware. She was diagnosed with fibromyalgia six years ago. She lives in Modesto, California, with her husband and two dogs.