It is very rare that we see the sight that fibromyalgia is featured in any popular media even though 10 million Americans are the victims of this disease. Still many medical professionals don’t believe that fibromyalgia is a real disease. What fibro is and how it affects people is still s mystery. Featuring fibromyalgia in TV shows can increase awareness and understanding about fibromyalgia. Hopefully there will be a lot of TV shows on fibromyalgia to increase awareness.
We asked from our community “Living with Fibromyalgia and Chronic illness” a question what movies or TV shows have you seen that portrayed your illness the RIGHT way. They shares with us their experiences and we compiled this article with their feedback
So this is what community share it with us:
1. Miracles from Heaven…...
The years of being misdiagnosed. What it’s like living with a invisible disease. Judgement from others. Family & friends not showing up. Those of us are still waiting on our miracle but, thankful they showed a disease that is not in the spotlight, they shared a life with Motility Disease
2. A movie called ‘Cake’ where Jennifer Anniston plays a women with chronic pain- we were doing to watch it but my husband didn’t want me more depressed. Cake had moments in it that were close and I saw a movie about a woman living with Alzheimer’s where the woman went through some similar feelings, but’s that’s all.
3. Seven little Johnston’s last Tuesday the mom had herniated discs in lower back and was in acute pain
4. The Golden Girls. I recently showed my companion & said “See Dorothy’s situation? That was my life from age 7 to my CFS diagnosis @ 31 & fibro diagnosis @ 42. And see how Sophia is telling off the doctor? THAT was my mom championing me. She always knew there was something wrong!” you can watch the video here.
5. “Sick and Tired” part 1 and 2 Dorothy’s struggle with getting diagnosed reflects mine so well.
6. Under our Skin, the Untold Stories of Lyme Disease, is a documentary from 2007 showing some of the top Lyme literate doctors in the world, and shows multiple patients who struggled to receive a diagnosis, being told they had everything but Lyme, or it was all in their head. Everyone who has chronic Lyme disease can relate to the people in this documentary and since it’s about their experiences it very accurately portrays how serious tick borne diseases are and how little awareness there is about them. The movie changed my life and led to me being properly diagnosed! I have also met multiple doctors who were in the film.
7. The Fault in Our Stars, for how others treat you as a sick person and for the guilt you feel hurting others, especially when you are/may be terminal.
8. Sailor Moon Crystal season 3. One of the characters should have been killed in a house fire, but her father sold his soul to a devil who give him the ability to keep her alive. He turned her into a cyborg and planted a seed of an alien to grow inside of her, turning her into a cacoon for a parasite. She needed constant medical artention. Regular fainting spells, gasping for breath, kept her arms and legs covered to hide her scars, had serious PTSD and depression, and fought hard to avoid letting the parasite inside her grow. It’s very symbolic to me.
9. Dr Phil
In a March 2014 episode Dr Phil share a story of woman who was struggling with the pain of fibromyalgia and was also experiencing marital issues due to this pain. Here is the video of it. Dr. Phil had an episode where a once-to -be model had to stop modeling due to chronic Lyme disease. They interviewed her and she showered videos of what her life was like as well as talking to Dr Phil. The controversy of the disease was brought up and there was a debate between two doctors, one from ILADS that believes in chronic Lyme and one who doesn’t believe in chronic Lyme like the CDC. The young adult reminded me a lot about myself and I was so glad the audience got to see such an important topic and how serious and real chronic Lyme is.
10. Monsters inside me. Every episode are intense and show the tons of doctors and misdiagnoses people go through before getting diagnosed correctly with chronic Lyme disease, and they even say correct facts about the controversial disease, talk about myths, and inform about the importance of tick checks and prevention.
11. Greys anatomy : superior semi circular canal dehiscence syndrome a rare condition ( sscd ) where you hear your eyeballs move and a lot more body noises that you shouldn’t ,they portrayed this well
12. Life in Pieces. They had a brief scene showing a man with vertigo, and one of the characters is an ENT who fixed him right away. They didn’t make fun of dizzy people, and they did not make a big deal out of it.
13. Criminal minds
In season 10 the behavioral analysis unit looks for a suspect they believe to have delusional parasitosis. This causes him to believe that he is infested by bugs. The term reported that that the suspect usually spends time with people who support their concerns rather than people who denies him.
14. Face off
Nicole has fibromyalgia and she was open about her illness on her winning award show of face of season three. She hoped to use her cash on her mother. She tells that doing makeup distracts her and take her out of the mental state of thinking about what her body is going through.
15. House
Dr Gregory House meets a patient in a clinic who strongly believes that he is a victim of fibromyalgia. But House denied all his concerns and said that it is due to aging. He then replace his stores of Vicodin with mint and keeps that vicodin for himself. Afterwards the patients returned to ask for Vicodin.
16. Un-Rest
This is the power of art, the power to educate, to inspire, to bring about change and to ensure that people never feel isolated or alone no matter what they are going through. Here is the trailer of it.
17. iZombie
In this series “Grumpy Old liv, “ Liv Moore and her friend Ravi investigate the death of a 77-year-old man named Wendell Gale. At the crime scene the victim’s sister-in-law arrives and reveals that the Wendell was not loved much by the community.
18. Haters back off
This series featured a character that claimed to have un-diagnosed fibromyalgia. All the time Miranda’s mom tells people that she wears wrist braces because she is suffering from fibromyalgia, although fibromyalgia pain is all over the body. She uses it as an excuse so that she doesn’t has to lift heavy objects on work and her boyfriend can sympathize her due to her condition. But later on she admitted that she has kidney condition.
19. The healer
This TV show features’ energy healer” Charlie Goldsmith and appreciates his efforts in treating people who are victims of chronic pain conditions.
20. The Dr. Oz show
Dr Oz speaks with a doctor who had been treating fibromyalgia patients for nearly 10 years. In one segment Dr Caudle differentiated everyday pain from fibromyalgia. She also explains how doctor believes that fibromyalgia is a result of abnormal pain processing.
21. Glee
In season 2 Glee is planning out the routine her cheerleaders will do for the regional cheerleading competition. She wants to fire one of the cheerleader but after her signature on a consent form.
22. This morning
To cope with fibromyalgia jade Smith cosplays as a china doll. She was interviewed in this morning and she tells that at the age of 5 she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.
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Reference: 10 Times Fibromyalgia Was Featured on a TV Show by Paige Wyant via The Mighty
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