Fibromyalgia & Drug Companies

[Pan]

http://news.0201/s/ap/20090208/ap_on_bi_ge/fibromyalgia_drug_companies

Interesting article.

[Kayteecatt]

I do not doubt for one minute that the drug companies see patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia as nothing more than dollar signs.  Since Cymbalta was approved last year for fibro, my mothers GP has tried to push it on her again and again.  Her specialist however believes it's a marketing ploy and will not have anything to do with it.

I've posted my feelings on fibro a few times here.  I am very blunt about the way I feel having seen it take its toll on my mom over the last 20 plus years.  She was actually one of the first people diagnosed with it in my state.  Her GP at the time had seen a description that sounded exactly like her in a medical journal.  Unfortunately for my mother, he had already ordered thousands of dollars worth of tests that proved she was healthy as a horse.  Except she didn't look or act healthy as a horse.

Fibromyalgia has become the "Catch all" disease in the last 10 years or so.  I would guess that just about everyone knows someone or knows of someone who suffers from it.  I wonder how many of those people actually do.  Fibro is more than being in chronic pain.  It's more than having tender points.  It seems to me that when a doctor can't find reason for aches and pains, they just shrug and say "you have fibromyalgia"...and that annoys me to no end. 

So anyway, what better disease to make money on?  People are being diagnosed with it at such a rapid rate that I can't actually blame the med makers for jumping on the bandwagon....in business it's taught to see the need and make the money.  The ones I blame are the physicians that give up too easily or are just too lazy to care.