By Sabrina Dudley Johnson
May 09, 2022
Have you ever heard, "my sister/cousin/mother/coworker has Fibromyalgia, and they are not as bad as you (or they are not as active as you)?" Have you ever met another person with Fibromyalgia, and they exclaim, "are you sure you have Fibro, you're awful active", or "I have Fibro and I'm not as bad as you claim to be, are you sure you don't have something else along with the FM?"
This line of questioning drives me crazy. It assumes that everyone with Fibromyalgia is identical to everyone else with Fibro.
Fibromyalgia is a pendulum swinging back and forth from extreme disability to mild life disruption. Therefore, no two people with Fibromyalgia will experience it in the exact same/identical way. Some people with Fibromyalgia may be able to work outside the home while others are bedridden and totally incapacitated.
I guess the title of this post could have been, "In the Fibroverse there are only fraternal twins." Like fraternal twins, or mere siblings, people with Fibromyalgia all have some Fibro family characteristics such as chronic, widespread pain, tender points, cognitive dysfunction, sleep disturbance and fatigue.
But then if you look at Fibro's cyclic nature of waxing and waning, flare ups to "remission" (no matter how brief), you might say that people with Fibromyalgia have doppelgängers. We can
begin our day with green lights (low pain and high energy) and thus attempt to pack in all the chores and errands that we couldn't complete over the past week or month due to flare ups. This pushing ourselves over the edge turns our day into a yellow light warning us to slow down and pace ourselves. If we listen to our bodies, our doppelgänger may just be a little exhausted with a mild increase in pain. However, if we don't listen to our bodies, our doppelgänger will end up a hideous, energy zapping, pain inflicting monster staring at us from the mirror. When people query, "why can't you do xyz, yesterday I saw you doing abc?" I respond, "oh you must have seen my Fibro doppelgänger having a good day". I've grown weary of trying to explain the cyclic nature of FM.
Another factor that determines how Fibromyalgia may affect patients is age. In 2018, Quinn Phillips wrote an article on age and Fibro entitled "Fibromyalgia at Different Ages: Same Condition, Different Challenges" for Everyday Health. In discussing Fibro and age, Mr. Phillips reports that the number and severity of "symptoms may vary somewhat with age." He explains that children "are often screened for and diagnosed with other conditions, even if their symptoms point toward fibromyalgia." Many of us with Fibromyalgia remember the long and difficult journey to diagnosis, seeing 10 or more doctors before finally hearing the words 'you have Fibromyalgia.' Mr. Phillips writes that obtaining a diagnosis is "a particular challenge for teenagers and young adults." Young to middle-aged adults with Fibromyalgia have their own unique challenges as they strive to build a career, according to Phillips. Closing out Phillips' discussion is Fibromyalgia and middle-aged adults to seniors. Phillips relates symptoms may not necessarily get worse with age. It may be more a combination of age-related reduction of stamina and the onset of other healthcare issues along with the ongoing problems of Fibromyalgia.
In the Fibroverse there are no identical twins but there are fraternal twins, siblings and doppelgängers.
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