Posted by Victoria on April 19, 1999, at 15:28:18
In reply to fibromyalgia, posted by Elizabeth on April 19, 1999, at 2:54:02
Funny you should ask! I just responded to your post under "refractory depression," saying that my symptoms sound a lot like yours, and I was recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I've done some reading and poking around the Web about fibromyalgia. I'm not sure anybody knows exactly what it is. Some things it's fundamentally depression, some that it's a variant of chronic fatigue syndrome, and there are various other theories. As I said above, Jay Goldstein's "Betrayal By the Brain" was the first thing I read that made sense to me (and confirmed my intuition that, for me, the psychological symptoms of depression and the physical symptoms of fibromyalgia are different expressions of the same underlying chemical problem. Goldstein's book is hard to read and he's ahead of the science in trying to apply experimental evidence to treatment, without the treatments themselves having been tested. BUT, recent work on fibromyalgia research seem to be confirming his direction. I'm seeing him next month, so I'll let you know. Also, I found a good fibro Web site recently--can't remember the address, but I'll find it and post again. Good luck!
> Can anyone explain what fibromyalgia is? (Is there a definition on the web somewhere?)
>
> (I have major depression and chronic insomnia and neck/shoulder/back pain, that's why I'm curious.)
poster:Victoria
thread:5041
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19990401/msgs/5050.html