Making Sense of Fibromyalgia: A Guide for Patients and Their Families

This year, six million Americans--most of them women--will go to their doctors, complaining of an illness they have no name for. The majority will be turned away or treated for depression; the few who persist will go to an average of four doctors before they receive the correct diagnosis: fibromyalgia.
In Making Sense of Fibromyalgia, noted medical writer Janice Wallace and Dr. Daniel Wallace, a leading expert on this disorder, provide a comprehensive guide--for both patients and professionals--to this little known and poorly understood syndrome. The authors offer detailed information in a clear and accessible style, taking readers through the steps of diagnosis, all the established forms of treatment, and alternative therapies that have yet to be proven effective. Fibromyalgia, they explain, is a pain amplification, brought on by abnormal interactions between hormones, the immune system, neurotransmitters, and the autonomic nervous system. Sometimes the syndrome occurs spontaneously; in most cases, the authors write, it is associated with trauma, stress, such conditions as lupus and hypothyroidism, and over forty microbes, from hepatitis to Epstein Barr to Lyme disease. They draw on actual cases to illustrate their points and to break through the isolation that patients often feel when doctors misdiagnose or simply ignore their symptoms.
When Dr. Wallace wrote The Lupus Book, he brought hope and relief into the lives of countless Americans, in a book that sold through many printings. In Making Sense of Fibromyalgia, the authors address a desperate need for information and reassurance, in a groundbreaking book.

Daniel Wallace, M.D., is an attending physician who has served as Clinical Chief of Rheumatology at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles, and has treated hundreds of victims of fibromyalgia (including popular talk show host Rosie O'Donnell). He is the author of The Lupus Book (OUP). Janice Wallace is a freelance medical writer. They live in Los Angeles.