{"id":3575,"date":"2010-06-08T06:35:45","date_gmt":"2010-06-08T11:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/?p=3575"},"modified":"2021-09-12T10:18:09","modified_gmt":"2021-09-12T15:18:09","slug":"fibromyalgia-gender-discrimination-and-fibro-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/08\/fibromyalgia-gender-discrimination-and-fibro-pain","title":{"rendered":"Fibromyalgia: Gender Discrimination and Fibro Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Let me start with a fact that many doctors acknowledge but prefer not to discuss: Numerous well-conducted studies have shown that all chronic pain patients, but especially women, are seriously undertreated by physicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can be any type of chronic pain–from fibromyalgia, arthritis, cancer, an autoimmune disorder like lupus, anything. If you\u2019re a woman, expect to get short shrift from your doctor–male or female–when it comes to pain control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are the reasons for this rooted in a heritage that (wrongly, in this case) admires stoicism? Whatever the cause, too many physicians feel annoyed by the chronic pain patient, quickly labeling her as \u201cneedy\u201d or a \u201chypochondriac,\u201d especially if she has fibro<\/strong><\/em><\/a> with its raft of negative tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young girls probably pick up on this minimizing of pain early in life. Her sports injury couldn\u2019t possibly be as painful as her brother\u2019s, because, well, she didn\u2019t (shouldn\u2019t?) play as hard. Painful menstrual cramps are another example. Teenage girls regularly faint from them, but often hear \u201cTake a Midol and get used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The irony is that women are generally more articulate about their symptoms than men, willing to discuss pain with a sympathetic physician who might offer relief. Too frequently, though, women in pain leave the doctor\u2019s office with a sense that wherever the pain is coming from, they\u2019re going to have to learn to live with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this pervasive gender prejudice, you can bet getting adequate pain relief for fibromyalgia (affecting females 95% of the time) is extremely rare. Remember, because fibro falls under the radar screen of diagnostic tests, the vast majority of doctors will not write a decent pain medication prescription for this \u201cnon-disease.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what kind of treatment can one of the roughly 20 million fibromyalgia patients expect to receive when, after seeing the (statistically-based average of) five physicians who \u201cdon\u2019t know what\u2019s wrong\u201d with her, finally finds one who actually diagnoses her fibro?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disappointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The average fibromyalgia patient is kept on an astonishing number of prescription drugs–usually about five–and amazingly enough, not one of these is an actual pain medication. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five individual prescriptions is a huge number. A doctor can bring high blood pressure under control with one, perhaps two, pills a day. High cholesterol? One. Fibro, five. Why so many? Because he\u2019s treating symptoms, not any specific illness, and fibro brings with it a multitude of symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what about the ads you see on TV for fibro pain medications, such as Lyrica? These aren\u2019t actually pain meds (you wouldn\u2019t take Lyrica for a toothache), but various chemicals with many effects on the body (both good and bad), one of which can reduce fibro pain somewhat. If the good effects outweigh the bad, you might feel a little better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, a true pain med (an analgesic) stops pain in its tracks, whether the pain is from an abscessed tooth, cancer, a migraine, or fibro. And this is the one type of medication a fibro patient usually doesn\u2019t receive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next week we\u2019ll talk about why this is so, along with those five fibromyalgia prescriptions patients do get.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, learn about the organization For Grace<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, founded by a badly injured former dancer, Cynthia Toussaint, who writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026my doctors completely ignored my symptoms. For the next 13 years, they told me my condition was \u2018all in my head\u2019 while the disease with no name mercilessly spread throughout my entire body.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She realized how poorly women in pain were served by physicians and set about to increase the awareness of the public, physicians, politicians, and health insurers. A good person, Cynthia. Tough, despite her relentless pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here <\/strong><\/em>for Part 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me start with a fact that many doctors acknowledge but prefer not to discuss: Numerous well-conducted studies have shown that all chronic pain patients, but especially women, are seriously undertreated by physicians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2087,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,45,209,3],"tags":[208,1168,102],"class_list":["post-3575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-f","category-fibromyalgia-chronic-fatigue","category-knowledge-base","tag-fibromyalgia","tag-gender-discrimination","tag-pain"],"yoast_head":"\r\nFibromyalgia: Gender Discrimination and Fibro Pain<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Numerous well-conducted studies have shown that all chronic pain patients, but especially women, are seriously undertreated by physicians.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, 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