The Human Impact of Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is an illness which by its nature is hard to pinpoint. Symptoms include fatigue, chronic aches, and generalized pain. Therefore the difficulty for doctors is to properly diagnose it. In fact, many doctors still do not believe that fibromyalgia is truly a disease. The above facts make identifying the number of sufferers very difficult.

Studies have claimed two million to six million people are affected by fibromyalgia and diagnosed as such. Of this population, the vast majority (over eighty percent is the estimate) of the patients are women. Children and men make up the other twenty percent. In still other studies these numbers are even more drastic, with the impacted number of fibromyalgia sufferers closer to six to eight million and a whopping ninety percent women. In fact, fibromyalgia is believed to impact as many as one out of every fifty people. These numbers are probably understated.

As mentioned earlier, the symptoms of Fibromyalgia as an illness fall into many other categories as well and true sufferers of fibromyalgia will never be classified as having the disease. Analysis of the common medications given to fibromyalgia patients determined that at least five million patients are being medicated with drugs that are specifically for the treatment of fibromyalgia or its symptoms. Again, whether or not the patient’s doctor classified the prescription or the patient for the treatment specifically of fibromyalgia cannot be determined.

Statistically, six million people are bona fide fibromyalgia cases, but because of the invisibility of the illness and the similarity of its symptoms to many other diseases, a true number of the actual suffers might never be calculated.