The Wastebasket Diagnosis
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
Fibromyalgia!
Fibromyalgia is a relatively newish term, eventually settled on by Western medical types as a label for some nasty symptoms that do not seem to be driven by any biochemical cause—-meaning they who look can not find clumps of little ‘abnormal’ bugs under a microscope to blame it on.
This dis-ease mostly hounds women but was not taken very seriously until the mid to late Seventies.
Symptoms are too numerous to mention. There’s everything from difficulty taking it in (as in swallowing) to difficulty letting it go (as in bowel and bladder abnormalities).
Basically, if you have been saddled with a ‘fibromyalgia’ diagnosis, you hurt all over all the time—-but especially in the morning. You are beset with constant fatigue and you may have difficulty thinking clearly. There are reports that some become ‘hysterical’ at times. I certainly can’t imagine why anyone in constant pain would get hysterical. (Sarcasm, if you can’t smell it.)
There’s not much hope for fibromyalgia sufferers in the medical department. Knowledge is severely hampered by conventional thinking/nonthinking. Doctors, themselves, admit they understand so little about the reasons for chronic pain in general, but this doesn’t mean they aren’t willing to provide sufferers with access to various colors of capsules, caplets and pills—-all complements of pharmaceutical industry research. Anytime pain is involved, the drug companies are right there for us and pleased to be of assistance. (Smell it?)
Some physicians still label the manifestation of all-over muscle pain as a psychosomatic or psychiatric disorder, so don’t look for any help there, unless you want to further complicate your existence with antipsychotics and antidepressants.
Let’s not forget that it wasn’t very long ago that some experts prescribed ‘hysterectomies’ as a treatment for hysterical women with ‘imaginary’ pain or emotional issues. I don’t think they advocated anything similar for men in the same condition. Readers can correct me, though, if I’m wrong.
One of the pet medical theories these days, is the combo cause or the auto-immune deficiency category: Any combination of stress, anxiety, emotional/mental/physical traumas, coupled with poor sleep habits and general physical weakness, can supposedly trigger more pain in those thought to have an inherent sensitivity to pain. Very few among us don’t have an inherent sensitivity to pain, I would imagine. Why else would there be a word for ‘pain’ in every language?
The most recent 21st Century diagnosis, however, calls this syndrome, with its myriad of painful symptoms, a malfunctioning Central Nervous System (CNS).
At least some medical researchers have jumped the biochemical track, though they have no real means of dealing with a malfunctioning CNS that doesn’t cause side effects to the CNS. Ironic, isn’t it?
Go for a nice leisurely 5 mile run, some experts will advise. Enjoy the fleeting yet potent after-effects of endorphins. These strong brain chemicals will take your mind off the pain for awhile, and you can always exercise again to restock your brain receptors.
Hey, I know! Take some steroids and beef up your exercise potential. You have only to ask and Doctors will prescribe prednisone. Never mind what steroids do to your Central Nervous System.
At least exercise activates the lymphatic function, which in turn lowers the effects of pathogens and dead skin cells, but exercise can also overtire you and present more challenges to the basic body systems, not to mention your kidney chi.
Another thing you can try for solace is a‘support group’, mainly for those who are also suffering—-a veritable pain club. It’s an opportunity for people to learn and talk about their pain, hear about other people’s pain, and pool their hope for a cure. Sounds pretty dismal and I don’t think misery really loves miserable company.
How can any real relief be found for such a misunderstood pain? How can ‘cures’ be found for the Central Nervous System when the only cures that researchers even look for are biochemical in nature?
After all, changing the body’s chemistry is a pretty simplistic way to deal with a malfunctioning CNS, but that’s the theme these days. No matter what type of physical, mental or spiritual pain, blame it on the chemical makeup of the body and you’re approach is unquestionably sacred.
Fortunately, there are alternatives—–just not any alternatives that are commonly accepted or commonly known.
So the question you have to ask yourself is this… can an intuitive non-conventional approach to dealing with chronic pain work? Well, the conventional approach doesn’t.
That you already know.
