Fibromyalgia: The Answer Is Blowin' in the Wind

April 22, 2004

04-21-2004

By KEVIN P. WHITE, MD, PhD,

Rheumatologist and Epidemiologist

London, Ontario, Canada.

Address reprint requests to Dr. K. White, 266 Oxford Street East, #301,

London, Ontario N6A 1V1.

Source: J Rheumatol. 2004 Apr;31(4):636-9

How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see?

--Bob Dylan, " Blowin' in the Wind "

These immortalized words have rung true repeatedly throughout the sordid

history of humankind. Yet it should seem startling that Dylan's words

might apply to physicians, who recite the Hippocratic Oath, and promise

to ease pain and suffering and " do no harm. " Nonetheless, these words too

often do apply to physicians, perhaps no more frequently than when many

such physicians are asked to deal with fibromyalgia (FM).

For those unfortunate patients who suffer from FM, " Hippocratic " often

rings more like " hypocritical. " In desperation, patients turn to those

learned in Medicine and professing to help them, only to hear their malady

called nothing at all: " an illusionary entity " (1), " a common non-entity " (2),

" mass hysteria " (3), " the syndrome of feeling out of sorts " (4). Many in the

medical profession have chastised FM, calling for " a return to common

sense " (5)

by discarding the label, and the concept, altogether.

But why? And why are these comments so often laced with venom? Why are those

who oppose the FM concept so verbal and destructive, many going out of their

way to write position papers about an area in which they have done no

research,

and seem so oblivious and impervious to the research of others?

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