Why are so few men diagnosed with Fibromyalgia? (guest post)

Why are so few men diagnosed with Fibromyalgia?

During my recent interview with @Fibro_boy (aka Leo) he brought up the rarity of guys being diagnosed with Fibro, and his thoughts were so insightful (again I’m amazed at how wise this guy is for his age) that I wanted to share them as a separate post.

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Why are so few men diagnosed with Fibromyalgia?
by Leo Cristea

guys with Fibro aren’t actually that rare Share on X
Consider the fact that guys with Fibro aren’t actually that rare! This is a misconception for two reasons, that are nevertheless, intricately linked:

Men are expected to weather pain. It’s something we are simply expected to do. Men are the strong; women are the weak. Of course, it’s utter tosh. People are absolutely equal. But everyday sexism is ingrained deeply into peoples’ mindsets and therefore, as with many things that men do or say unwittingly to offend women, the same will inevitably happen with men. Imagine wives telling husbands to stop being babies, making jokes about Man Flu if their husband happens to have the Fibro symptoms that mimic those of colds and flu, every day. And, in the same way that women often body-shame other women, or cast doubt on accounts of assault, etc, other men will also add fuel: it will be laddish and meant harmlessly, but it isn’t.

It really isn’t harmless. They will eventually be told to “man up”. So, out of embarrassment or shame or irritation, they remain quiet and eventually begin to think that everyone else is right: that they do need to man up. Sexism hurts men just as much as it attacks women. It runs both ways. And that’s why I identify heavily as a Feminist. Men, women—anyone can and should identify as a Feminist. Maybe if men weren’t too afraid of the ridicule of being weak and sick—let alone with a women’s disease, gods forbid!—the stats on men with Fibro would be more accurate.

Furthermore, consider the above in relation to men with any kind of chronic illness or pain. Maybe they never even read into such things because they’ve convinced themselves it’s “nothing”. Or that it really is all in their heads. But what about the smart guys who have a pretty good hunch that it is Fibro? Those guys might still remain silent because, well—who has the spoons for the stress of potentially having to convince a doctor it might be Fibro? That’s going to be one fear: that they will be flat-out dismissed. And yes, this happens. Heck, it happens with other diseases, like Lyme disease, where some doctors still refuse to accept it as a real illness. So how many guys really have illnesses like Fibro or CFS and trudge on with ultimately difficult and unhappy lives, just because we live in a sexist society? It sucks, doesn’t it?

I do think that, yes, as with many conditions and diseases, women suffer more commonly. But the key word there is: more. Not entirely. Not totally. Just more. And yet if you start looking at stats that actually care to dig deeper, you find that much of the myth is just lazy research and assumption. The last paper I saw on “Men with Fibro” was from 2012. We’re now in 2015—tell me that there wouldn’t be more men diagnosed if the condition was treated like any other?

I remember reading a statistic somewhere that for every four or six (I don’t remember entirely) people who have Fibro, one of them is male. That’s, if we go with the higher number, still one in six. One sixth of all people with fibro are guys. Translate that into numbers, into actual men with fibro. It’s a smaller number than the female side of the chart, but it is by no means an insignificant number. One in six is a lot. Never mind if it was actually one in four!

Related Posts:

• Guys with Fibromyalgia: @JohnnyTribs
• Fibro Warrior : Gary of @FibroGuys
• Fibro Warrior : Guys with Fibro – Richard Gerome
• Fibro Warrior: Andy – Running With Fibromyalgia