Many of us are familiar with Hans Christian Andersen’s fable, The Princess and the Pea. In this story, the royal family searches, with great difficulty, for a wife for their son. The intended bride must be a princess and a suitable candidate was hard to find. They devised a test that required the bridal candidates to sleep atop several mattresses and featherbeds with a pea underlying the whole structure. Only a princess, with her royal sensibilities, would find this unbearable.
It is firmly my belief that the royal families of the fairy tale suffered from fibromyalgia. For after a night’s sleep on the aforementioned bed, not only did the princess toss and turn all night, clearly suffering from the classic sleep disruptions of a fibromyalgia sufferer. But she woke up black and blue from the discomfort of the pea. Only a true fibromyalgia sufferer could experience the kind of sensitivity that the princess did. It is apparent to me that just as the Hapsburgs of Austria passed hemophilia through their royal bloodline, the royal family from which this princess descended bestowed fibromyalgia upon their progeny.
So, what exactly is fibromyalgia? Unfortunately, there is no good, concrete answer to that question. A diagnosis of fibromyalgia is often given because of what it is not. In other words, if a physician suspects a patient is suffering from fibromyalgia, he or she will perform a series of tests for a variety of possible ailments. If the tests all come back negative, then it might be suggested to the patient that he or she is suffering from the effects of fibromyalgia. And just like many similar disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, or hypothyroidism, there is no known cure. In fact, there are few ways to relieve the pain and exhaustion of fibromyalgia.
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