Men and Fibromyalgia

I have been told and have read Fibromyalgia is a disorder that causes chronic pain, fatigue, as well as many more physical and mental issues depending on the individual and strikes mostly women with very few men in the mix, but men can and do suffer from Fibromyalgia.

The problem for those of us men who suffer from Fibromyalgia is the popular perception this disease known as Fibromyalgia is only suffered by women. In my experience if a man complains of invisible ills he is gold bricking, riding the sick call line, playing hooky, out for disability and shirking his responsibilities.

In my world growing up playing sports, working as a civilian police officer, U.S. Army Soldier, and Investigator for the Department of Defense I found out quickly no one wanted to hear about my invisible ills, if I had a visible injury it got fixed, if I did not feel good or had no energy, too bad, suck it up, get back to work, be a man, and do my job!

During my many visits to the doctor’s office over the years my ills were lumped into other medical issues which may or may not have been my problem, and when the doctors could not fix those invisible ills, I was referred to a neurologist who treated me for chronic headaches.

Near the end of my twenty-one year service with the U.S. Army I was placed on medical hold so the Army could find out why I was suffering from ills no one could see, was I a nut case or was I really suffering.

The Army sent me to Eisenhower General Hospital  at Fort Gordon, GA for two weeks to try and find why I was complaining of Chronic muscle pain, muscle spasms fatigue, Insomnia, waking up feeling tired, severe stiffness in my legs and arms after staying in one position for too long, difficulty remembering, concentrating, and performing simple mental tasks (“brain fog”), abdominal pain, bloating, nausea, and constipation alternating with diarrhea (irritable bowel syndrome), migraine headaches, sensitivity to odors, noise, bright lights, medications, certain foods, and cold, anxious or depressed, numbness and tingling in the face, arms, hands, legs, and feet, increase in urinary frequency (irritable bladder), reduced tolerance for exercise and muscle pain after exercise, feeling of swelling (with and without actual swelling) in the hands and feet.

The U.S. Army decided my invisible ills were irritable bowel syndrome related and retired me with a 10% medical disability and sent me on my way.

My ills over the years during and after my Army and DoD service consisted of all sorts of visible ills which were fixed quickly, but I was still suffering from many invisible ills such as chronic pain, chronic fatigue, difficulty sleeping, headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, restless legs syndrome, memory issues and difficulty concentrating.

During my early years I did not know there was any ill called Fibromyalgia and did not know of the disease until my wife was diagnosed with that invisible ill and medically retired from civil service, then both of us started reading about Fibromyalgia and what we could do to resolve our issues now that we had a name for our invisible ills.

As you can see from reading about my invisible ills men can and do have Fibromyalgia but did and do not always know what they have or what to do about it, we have been raised to ignore our invisible ills, and we have to change that.