© Debra MucCunton
Thirteen years ago, Christine Yovanovich came down with a severe case of flu-like symptoms. "My joints ached, and I could barely get out of bed," recalls the 39-year-old from Indianapolis. But the pain and fatigue didn't run their course as they would have with influenza. For weeks, then months, and eventually years, they waned from time to time but never vanished. "Some days I felt like I was dragging a corpse around," she says.
Desperate for relief, Yovanovich ricocheted from doctor to doctor. Each ran tests, but the results were always the same - everything looked normal. "I took every test under the sun," she says, "and still the doctors were baffled. "They would pooh-pooh my symptoms and tell me it was all in my head," she adds, "and after a while I believed them." Finally, in 2002, she visited a rheumatologist who immediately recognized what no other doctor had: Yovanovich had fibromyalgia.
Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain disorder that affects up to 10 million Americans, most of them women. It was identified in 1816 by a Scottish physician, but wasn't officially recognized by the American Medical Association as an illness until 1987. It manifests as pain in the fiber of the muscles, often throughout the body, along with unrelenting fatigue, headaches, and sleep disturbances. And it can mimic other ills, such as chronic fatigue syndrome or rheumatoid arthritis, which often leaves sufferers like Yovanovich spending years seeking a correct diagnosis. Because there is no definitive test for the condition, the diagnosis is tricky and some doctors continue to question its validity.
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