Fibromyalgia Awareness Day is May 12

May 12 is CFS/Fibro Awareness Day and once again, we want to inundate our elected officials with letters calling their attention to these two under-funded, under-recognized diseases.

Tell your elected officials:
Who were you before CFS/fibro? How has it changed your life? If you can't work, what makes you unemployable? (e.g., fibro fog, excessive absenteeism, napping in excess of ADA allowable standards, etc.)

Here are a couple quotes to consider putting in your letter: (and I'm sure each of you has your own favorites to share)

Fibromyalgia is a systemic dysregulation of the neurotransmitters, with many biochemical causes.–– Devin Starlanyl, M.D.

Dr. Paul Cheney found that in dual chromatography analyses, many CFIDS patients actually had more derangement of the brain, on a biochemical level, than Parkinson's or Alzheimer's patients.

The incidence of CFIDS is now higher than that of lung cancer, breast cancer or HIV infection in women

Dr. Mark Loveless, an infectious disease specialist and head of the CFS and AIDS Clinic at Oregon Health Sciences University, proclaimed that a CFIDS patient "feels every day significantly the same as an AIDS patient feels two months before death."

Dr. Daniel Peterson's Medical Outcome Study revealed that no other set of patients had ever measured so poorly. CFIDS patients experienced greater "functional severity" than the studied patients with heart disease, virtually all types of cancer, and all other chronic illnesses.

This disease is actually more debilitating than just about any other kind of medical problem in the world. –– Dr. Leonard Jason

40% of CFS patients studied by a Chicago group were completely disabled by the disease. Nearly all of these said they had been denied Social Security benefits.

If you can't find just the right quote, search the archives at Co-Cure.org; there are plenty of good research papers on every area of CFS/fibro where you can swipe the perfect sentence to make your point, with the power of a researcher's name behind it.

For Awareness Day 2007 Fibromyalgia in focus Update go to the following website or click on the title http://www.fmaware.org/fmOnlineNewsletter/2007/no4/article_awareness.htm