Apology to Fibromyalgia Sufferers
If you were offended by the fibromyalgia post, here's the apology you were so desperately seeking.
Nope, I didn't write it. Ambulance Driver did. I remain unapologetic. I'm evil that way. Just ask my mother.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
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8 comments:
MG, You really scared me for a minute there (ok, for less than a nanosecond...) If anyone needs to apologize, it's the fibromyalgia patients (or at least the ones impersonating REAL fibromyalgia patients) for sucking the life out of us and leaching off the system (medicare, medicaid--TAXPAYERS!)
Actually, I just cross-commented this at the original ambulance driver's post, but I thought I'd throw it your way too, with the idea that while I don't think you have to apologize - it's your blog, after all - the people you see are undoubtedly not fibromyalgia patients, who tend to be a group of people who have regularly scheduled doctors appointments rather than needing the ER. At any rate:
"Interestingly enough, a recent review in the Journal of Clinical Rheumatology (April 2007) points out two important aspects of fibromyalgia that I bet a lot of the people entering your ambulance (ER?) don't know:
1) There is now some fairly reliable evidence that fMRI can be used to test for disorders on the pain spectrum, that show a true statistical difference in the way pain is processed in the brains of those with fibromyalgia (and other disorders) versus normal people. Sadly, we can't yet put an fMRI on the doors of your ambulances (that might make some of your calls a lot easier... then again, it probably couldn't handle the potholes)
2) Opiates are definitely not the "drugs-of-choice" for fibromyalgia. There's no good evidence that they actually help people who have real fibromyalgia, and NSAIDs are even of dubious help. TCAs work with some success, but the newer SNRIs are showing better results. Anti-epileptics like gabapentin help some, especially with the associated sleep disorders. Benzos are sometimes used, but they have their own problems, of course.
I wonder what would happen if the next time you get a drug-seeking fibromyalgia faker you simply say something like, "huh, that's funny - they don't usually give - insert drug of choice here - for that because it's been shown to not work." I'm sure they'd come up with some excuse as to why they'd just have to have it, but if you do it enough, do you think there'd be a new disease du jour?"
Hopefully, this gives you great ideas for when the next drug-seeking snot whines all over you.
Alexis;
That was the best reply I've seen on any of the various comment-storms generated by the original post. Thank you.
When my mother was a teenager, her doctor told her there were no such things as menstrual cramps. He had never been able to palpate any cramping on any patient who they claimed to have cramps. That women were hysterical by nature and the cramps were all in their heads. That other women who told her they had cramps were lying and whining at the same time. That there was something wrong with her mentally if she believed she was having them. That she was just trying to get attention. And this was the generally accepted medical position about menstrual cramps at the time.
By the time I was a teenager and had menstrual cramps, women had broken ground in the OB Gyn field and suddenly menstrual cramps were acknowledged as real, because even doctors had experienced them.
By the way, a very close family friend is dying of a disease diagnosed only by exclusion. She has ALS. I expect you to start mocking people dying of ALS any time now.
Just some food for thought.
psyche,
does it really matter if white males acknowledge mentrual cramps as real? I mean really...they (the cramps) will still be there, however, they will NEVER kill any woman!!!! EVER!!!! Do mentrual cramps justify narcs? I don't think so. We all have our crosses to bear...
Please don't look for MG or any of us cynical ER nurses to be mocking people dying of real diseases (and even real diseases that people cause themselves--for example, COPD--in fact, when someone comes through the door gasping, we always rise to the occasion and are compassionate and caring.) Please don't expect that care for either mentrual cramps or fibromayalgia...
I'm just saying...
Realistic RN,
In my mother's time, women were mocked by medical professionals and accused of being liars and worse when they reported menstrual cramps. Today people are mocked and called liars or worse when they report fibromyalgia. Both are diagnoses of exclusion - there is no exam finding that will prove either exists. You may choose to believe that they don't exist and disparage people who report them, but keep in mind that the medical community has been wrong before.
And those addicts who lie to get drugs? They're sick too. I work with them all the time as a psychiatric social worker. Compassion fatigue is a part of giving professions, but it is still ugly.
.I am so glad I came across this site!! I am A very hard working mother of a one year old and a two year old. I am also A Flight Attendant that has to put up with a lot of very rude and cold hearted people like all of you that don't beleive in fibro and are pre-judging who you beleive are faking it or not for the medication that does not always help with the unbearable pain. I also was passing kidney stones with both births of my children which I would not wish that pain on any one, not even the person that is reading this and is so evil they are happy I had to feel that too. I care about people and try to make people comfortable no matter how bad you think I do not feel. God reads your mind and knows your heart so people like you are very very scary and evil and need prayer. fibro suffer. Please do the world a favor and go to work in a wheat field somewhere so no one has to be exposed to you. your in the wrong occupation and should join a third world country mission group so you can really experience the reality of the world we live in.
Oh, and by the way for the RN who shows no conceren for the fibro suffer who comes in with terrible menstrual cramps, thats how I found the site!!! My cramps are so terrible during my period due to already suffering from the fibro that I was just telling somone I felt like I needed to go to er for a morphine shot. I feel that way every month. Hopefully you will learn from my comment, go to a chronic pain clinic and get educated about bio-feed back machines that monitor a persons pain and anxiety and you will all learn that fibro is a very real and terrible diagnoses. Thank you for letting me know how horrible the nurses are, I'll be sure and tell them I think I am passing a kidney stone (both kidneys are full of them) if I ever need pain releive from my debilitating FIBROMYALGIA. BUGH BYE
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