The Fibromyalgia Advocate: Getting the Support You Need to Cope with Fibromyalgia and Myofascial Pain Syndrome

by Devin J. Starlanyl

Fight for your right to receive effective health care. Learn to maximize visits to caretakers. Get advice on dealing with the legal aspects of the health care system. Discover the best approaches you can take to identify sources of support and assemble a functional health care team. With over 300,000 copies sold, the popularity of Devin Starlanyl's book, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Myofascial Pain, has demonstrated the widespread demand for reliable material on this subject. If you or someone you love is struggling with fibromyalgia, her new book, The Fibromyalgia Advocate, offers a wealth of practical suggestions for dealing with an often skeptical medical establishment and getting the help and support you need.

Genres: Health, Nonfiction, Medical

392 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1998

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was the most validating book I've ever read on fibromyalgia. I knew for sure that I had fibromyalgia after reading this book. All the strange and terrible symptoms of fibromyalgia are addressed in this book. None of the doctors I have seen (which are many and some nationally known experts on fibromyalgia ) have come close to explaining what fibromyalgia is and what you will have to endure. If you have fibromyalgia or want the real facts about this syndrome, than this is the book to read.

[Lori · Rating 2 out of 5]

I first read this book in about 1997 and found it slow going at the time. This was the only source of information about fibromyalgia I had, the doctor who diagnosed me in 1993 having little to no knowledge about treatment. I remember feeling very frustrated and disappointed in it at the time, since I didn't get any new insights or effective help from it. I remember thinking that the author's own brain fog made it hard for information to be made available.

In particular, I read how taking guaifenesin every day will reverse the disease, so I got my doctor to write the prescription for me and I tried it. However, for a brain-fogged person dealing with this disease as a single parent, it was not clear at all to me how I had to entirely avoid salicylates, even small amounts of which will block the beneficial effects of guaifenesin. It is a much more difficult protocol than that section of the book portrayed, but it is not impossible if the details are made clear enough for a cognitively and emotionally challenged person to understand. Those details were not clear.

I had got rid of this book during one of my several downsizings, so after beginning this protocol with full information and social media resources, I bought it again to see if the information was not there, or whether my own brain fog and resistance to change was the main factor. It seems to me that the book was too vague, as I originally thought. As a result, although I had the opportunity to reverse this dastardly disease 21 years ago when I was entirely poised and capable of making a life again, this book did not give me good enough information, so I went along struggling and deteriorating. There is contact information for Dr St Amand and his staff, but that was a bridge too far at the time. I took the guaifenesin, felt remarkably worse, and dismissed this whole protocol as another useless medical intervention like the many pharmaceuticals that doctors pushed on me. Too bad for me and my family.

On the other hand, I did learn that trigger point therapy and regular bodywork would help me, so I did that as long as I could afford it.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative and useful.

[Stephy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Second Edition is as full of new information, alongside the older information from the first volume, to make any patient who wants to be involved in their own health care. I've learned a lot more, and continue learning. I take mine out whenever I have a fibroflare because I forget the stuff when I'm in fibrofog. Read This Book. For yourself, for me. READ IT!

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good "how-to" manual as to how to navigate the doctor's offices, your family, work etc with fibromyalgia. Excellent resource with many specific letter templates and checklists to help you from feeling overwhelmed.

[Bri Malan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helped me to understand Fibromyalgia a lot better.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book that is right on target. One of the best writers on fibromyalgia that there is!

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so helpful to me shortly after I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another book I found very useful when first diagnosed with fibromyalgia. A must have for anyone who has or knows someone with fibromyalgia.

[Relaynie]

fibromyalgia

[Judy Mahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this years ago. It's the Fibro Bible.