A Life of Endless Agony

“WHAT YOUR DOCTOR DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT FIBROMYALGIA”

by Linda Meilink, 2010

This book is insightful and informative about the mysterious ailment known as fibromyalgia. No one knows what causes it, and the medical establishment is guessing how to treat it.

(No, I don't have fibromyalgia. I'm a friend of Linda Meilink, the book's talented author. She's also an excellent proofreader.)

This book is one woman describing her own experience and her feelings about the treatment she

received. Linda Meilink tells what she’s gone through and what she tried. And she tried everything.

There’s no happy ending where in the last chapter the author finally finds that miracle cure or the means to cope. Meilink's odyssey from diagnosis to quack treatment and ridicule is nightmarish and the only greater nightmare is how first the disease and then the medicines made her life a Hell.

Maybe because I do not suffer from fibromyalgia, I would have wanted to begin the book with a definition or explanation of the disease. That does comes later, when Meilink explains to those who have never had FMS, that it feels like rigor mortis but you’re still alive. Maybe the most dramatic (and yet still informative) place to start would be the tale of the woman at the yard sale. Other parts in this book read like a horror story that becomes real.

But it’s not all depressing. There’s humor and a great deal of sound advice for improving one’s life even if the chronic pain remains. Maybe the most important message is, try everything; if it works, stick with it.

5 stars