Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Are we Making any Progress?

I've been researching some statistics for my upcoming training course for Fibro practitioners. The World Health Organization (WHO) now estimates that 6% of the world population may have Fibro. That is a very high number. It would follow, then, that in the face of what appears to be a mini epidemic, cures would be coming at us right and left. Not so much.

There are a number of pain medications, psychiatric medications used off-label and cannabis derivatives that all show some hope...for some people. There is anecdotal evidence related to all manner of alternative treatment methods, including transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), for which I personally have a great deal of optimism. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, EFT, bring it on. I mean no disrespect to those hard at work researching new and cutting-edge treatment options when I say -- it's just not enough.

If 6% of the world population -- which translates into 462 million people -- have Fibro, then why are we still so lacking in safe, effective, universally affordable treatment options? There are several possible answers to this question. The most obvious might be simple ole sexism, given that the clear majority of Fibro sufferers are female. A more complex answer might be that Fibro is simply difficult to treat, given the dizzying network of systems in the human body that gang up on each other to create a Fibro picture. In any scenario, we are left feeling that we are at the mercy of a medical culture that doesn't necessarily believe in our pain and worse, isn't working very hard to alleviate it.

If you are one of the lucky Fibro warriors for whom the existing treatment protocols are working, that is wonderful news. If you have failed on several medications and have not found relief from any alternatives, hang in there. 462 million is a big number, and we can make noise.