Posts
Oh, it is on now. A New York Times piece recently questioned the very existence of fibromyalgia (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/health/14pain.html). The debate has come up because Pfizer has been off and running with “evidence” that their medication helps this designer disease. Pfizer reps, by the way, can be very touchy as they live and breathe their company. I remember seeing them at a conference, before it started, and they were gathered in groups doing some Amway like cheers to get motivated. Scary. Anyway, I recently had one of their reps, whom I have known for many years, get real testy as I started to question the facts behind the Fibro Phenomenon. Oh no, he says. It certainly does exist and he ripped off all the Pet Scan evidence he could think of. Now the Times article brings the whole issue to light because there is going to be big money for Pfizer when docs start prescribing Lyrica for fibro. The question on most physicians’ minds will always be whether fibro really exists. The article points out that the researcher and physician who wrote the 1990 paper that defined fibromyalgia has since changed his mind saying that the disease does not exist and that Lyrica and the other drugs will be taken by millions of people who do not need them. Wow. That has set off the fibro advocacy groups because they feel the drug will actually legitimize this disease. I highly recommend you read this link and tell me your thoughts. On one hand you have the fibro followers linking up with Pfizer and on the other you have doctors; many of which still aren’t fully committed to believing that fibro is nothing more than a label.
Here are some quotes from the doctors in the NY Time piece:
“The diagnosis of fibromyalgia itself worsens the condition by encouraging people to think of themselves as sick and catalog their pain. These people live under a cloud and the more they seem to be around the medical establishment, the sicker they get, “said Dr. Nortin Hadler, a rheumatologist and professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina who has written extensively about fibromyalgia.
“Some of us in those days thought that we had actually identified a disease, which this clearly is not. To make people ill, to give them an illness, was the wrong thing” , said Dr. Frederick Wolfe, the director of the National Databank for Rheumatic Diseases and the lead author of the 1990 paper that first defined the diagnostic guidelines for fibromyalgia.
Wolfe thinks the condition a physical response to stress, depression, and economic and social anxiety. I tend to agree but it doesn’t matter what I think because the commercials from Pfizer are on their way. Will it succeed in the long run? Since Lyrica causes weight gain (sometimes over 7%), I have some suspicions. The one thing that will beat the pain of fibromyalgia is the possibility of gaining weight. Patients will realize that maybe the symptoms of fibro weren’t so bad after all.
Here are some quotes from the doctors in the NY Time piece:
“The diagnosis of fibromyalgia itself worsens the condition by encouraging people to think of themselves as sick and catalog their pain. These people live under a cloud and the more they seem to be around the medical establishment, the sicker they get, “said Dr. Nortin Hadler, a rheumatologist and professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina who has written extensively about fibromyalgia.
“Some of us in those days thought that we had actually identified a disease, which this clearly is not. To make people ill, to give them an illness, was the wrong thing” , said Dr. Frederick Wolfe, the director of the National Databank for Rheumatic Diseases and the lead author of the 1990 paper that first defined the diagnostic guidelines for fibromyalgia.
Wolfe thinks the condition a physical response to stress, depression, and economic and social anxiety. I tend to agree but it doesn’t matter what I think because the commercials from Pfizer are on their way. Will it succeed in the long run? Since Lyrica causes weight gain (sometimes over 7%), I have some suspicions. The one thing that will beat the pain of fibromyalgia is the possibility of gaining weight. Patients will realize that maybe the symptoms of fibro weren’t so bad after all.
