When Your Doctor Doesn’t Have Answers for Fibromyalgia 

A lack of answers is not the same as a lack of options.
It just means the person you asked didn’t have them.

When You’re Diagnosed with Fibromyalgia — but Given No Real Plan

A friend of mine texted me awhile back and said she'd just been diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

She said, "They're giving me pamphlets."
(Because pamphlets are so good at managing pain.)

When these kinds of experiences keep happening—when your symptoms are dismissed, when you’re told “I don’t treat fibromyalgia,” — or when you finally find someone to treat you but it still feels like you’re treading water — your life starts shrinking.

You stop making plans.
You stop trusting your body.
You stop asking for the things you really want because you’re just trying to survive the day.

Instead of asking for your life back, you start asking for less and less.

Because you don't want to be "that patient."

You start hearing things like:
“Get used to your new normal.”
“Your lab tests are normal.”
“There’s not much else we can do.”

And after hearing that enough times, you start to believe it.

Maybe this really is as good as it gets.
Maybe you really have tried everything.

But here’s what most people don’t realize:
A lack of answers is not the same as a lack of options.

It just means the person you asked didn’t have them.

And just because one person — or even a lot of people — couldn’t help you, that doesn’t mean you can’t be helped.

It simply means you haven’t found the right person who knows how to connect the dots yet.

This isn't about managing your fibromyalgia.
It’s about getting your life back.

It's not about learning to tolerate suffering better, either.

Too many people have been taught to settle for merely surviving the day instead of getting their lives back.

Why Your Doctor Doesn't Know What to Do with Fibromyalgia

I want to be clear about something: I’m not saying your doctor is a bad doctor — and I’m not saying they don’t care.

What I’m saying is that most doctors simply haven’t been trained to treat fibromyalgia effectively.

Here's what typically happens:

If a doctor isn't fully familiar with fibromyalgia, they're going to look it up. They'll see the three FDA-approved medications — Cymbalta, Savella, Lyrica — and maybe the newest one, Tonmya™, if it's shown up in their system yet.

They know that eating better and moving more is generally good advice — without understanding that fibromyalgia has very specific requirements when it comes to both.

They'll know stress makes things worse, so they might refer you to counseling, especially if there's trauma influencing your symptoms.

But a referral to counseling when what you actually need is treatment for fibromyalgia just isn't enough. It's not the same thing at all.

Maybe they’re not connecting how your other conditions are contributing to your fibromyalgia symptoms.

That it’s not just one thing here and another thing there — it’s one whole picture, with everything influencing everything else.

So you end up with bits and pieces of a treatment plan — but no one is connecting all the dots for you.

You’re given pieces.
But nobody’s showing you how to put them together.

And, most importantly —  

Nobody’s showing you how to actually get your life back — which is what this should be about in the first place.

The Research Gap in Fibromyalgia — and How It Affects Your Care

So why is this happening?

It's not because doctors don't care. It's because the training and research simply aren't there yet.

Even though fibromyalgia has been described in medical literature for over 200 years, there still hasn’t been nearly enough research.

Here's what I mean:

Researchers compared published fibromyalgia research to other rheumatology conditions like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjögren’s, and scleroderma — and then looked at how many people are actually diagnosed with each condition.

Fibromyalgia is tied for dead last — with the fewest published studies in rheumatological journals. [1]

Meanwhile, there are 17 times more studies published on rheumatoid arthritis.

Here's the kicker: there are 17 times as many people diagnosed with fibromyalgia as with RA.

It's literally backwards.

And when the research isn’t there, it doesn’t get taught in medical school.

Which means the gap you’re experiencing in your care is very real — and many patients are stuck trying to navigate fibromyalgia in a system that was never properly trained to help them.

Even when something new is discovered about fibromyalgia, it takes years to reach patients.

Right now, the average gap is about 17 years — from discovery to when it actually reaches patients in everyday clinical practice. [2]

The Gap in Pain Management Training — and Why It Matters

Unfortunately, it gets worse.

Pain management, as a whole, is under-taught.

Here in the United States, the average medical student receives about nine hours of training in pain management across their entire education. [3]

Not nine hours of fibromyalgia.
Not nine hours of chronic pain.

Nine hours for all kinds of pain management — surgery recovery, broken bones, bad burns, fibromyalgia, chronic low back pain — everything. 

Nine hours.

So many providers are doing their absolute best — with incomplete information.

To be fair, think about what a primary care doctor has to know. You literally cannot teach everything under the sun to a four-year medical student. You just can't.

So a lot of their training ends up being an inch deep and a mile wide — a little bit of information about a lot of things.

Which is why you may hear:
“You have fibromyalgia. I can diagnose it — but I don’t treat it.”

They know enough to recognize it and diagnose you.

But not enough to know how to treat you effectively so you can actually get better.

No Answers for Fibromyalgia Doesn’t Mean No Options

Now let me give you some good news. 

While it’s true that your doctor may not know how to treat fibromyalgia effectively, that doesn’t mean answers don’t exist.

And this is what I meant at the beginning — just because somebody hasn't helped you, or even a lot of people haven't helped you, doesn't mean that nobody can.

It means the people you went to didn’t have the answers you needed.

I'll give you an example.

My husband is an engineer. He designs computer chips, and if you saw the Artemis II NASA mission, he worked on the GPS for the Orion crew capsule. He's a really smart guy.

But there are a lot of things — even computer-related things — that I can ask him and he won't know the answer. Just because he can design systems that send rockets into space and bring people back safely doesn't mean he knows everything.

And that's the same with your doctor.

They may be an amazing doctor. I'm definitely not saying you should get rid of your doctor. But if they don't know what to do, it simply means they don't know. It doesn't mean your situation is hopeless.

You haven't tried everything.
You've just tried everything they know — and everything you know.

I want to be absolutely clear about something:

There is so much that can be done to help people with fibromyalgia.
You do not have to stay feeling the way you do right now.

I believe, to the core of my being, that you can feel better — no matter how good or how bad you feel right now.

I haven't had any fibromyalgia pain since 2018, and I'm still amazed that I keep finding ways to feel better and better. 

It doesn't matter who you are. There's always more that can be done.

What You Actually Need to Feel Better with Fibromyalgia

So... at the end of the day, what do you actually need?

Not more advice. Not opinions from a million people — because you'll get a million different answers, some good, some not, and some that are good but just not right for you.

What you need first is clarity.

What is actually going on in your body? What do you truly need? Who are you, really — your personality, how you want to live, what matters to you, and the practical realities of your day-to-day life?

We can't tell you to make healthy meals at home if you've never cooked, hate to cook, and never want to cook. That's a failure from the get-go. (By the way, I am that person — I'm not calling anyone out unless you consider me calling myself out.)

Here's the thing — we need to know your real life. We need to look at the real body you're living in right now, today — not how it used to be, not how you wish it was, not even your body on a good day. We need to understand where you really are.

Then, once we have that clarity, we need a direction.

One of my mentors uses the analogy of a swimming pool. You've got a person in the middle of the pool trying to get out. They swim a little in one direction, then change course and swim the other way, then switch again. They never actually reach the edge of the pool because they keep changing direction in the middle.

I see that in so many of the people I talk to. You're trying this thing, then that diet, then nervous system regulation, then a medication someone mentioned, then maybe a therapy.

You don't stick with things long enough, or stack them together in the right way, or try them at the right time for your body — so you think they don't work.

Just because something worked for somebody else doesn't mean it's the right thing for you. And as I've talked about with the Fibro Hierarchy of Needs℠, sometimes what works for someone else can actually set you back and make you feel worse.

You also need someone who knows how to connect the dots.

I always tell people — you've got to have a fibro expert on your team, but it may not be your doctor, and that's okay. There are lots of times where I'm the fibro expert on a client's team, educating both the client and their doctors through research, articles, books, and recommendations.

In addition, our Certified Fibromyalgia Advisor^® and Certified Fibromyalgia Coach^® training programs are approved for ANCC-accredited continuing education contact hours. That means healthcare providers themselves are coming through our programs to learn how to better understand and support fibromyalgia patients. 

You need that fibro expert, and you need your medical team too. We're not doctors, and we're not trying to replace yours.

You need a team: your fibro expert, your doctor, you, and maybe a whole village of providers all working toward the same goal.

I've always joked that it takes a village to keep Tami happy, because it's true. My massage therapist, my chiropractor, my acupuncturist, my neurologist — I could go on and on. And that's okay.

At the end of the day, it's about your ability to go out and live your life again.

My fibromyalgia is in remission. I don't care how many people that took.

It’s Not About Managing Fibromyalgia Symptoms — It’s About Living Your Life

Between you and me (and the whole internet, haha), that word "managing" is starting to grate on me just a little bit. 

When you "manage" something, it's like trying to keep the bucket from spilling over. But what we really want to do is empty the bucket.

Managing fibromyalgia? Yes, absolutely — that's the first step. You need to get things under control and stable. I would even say my fibromyalgia is managed.

There's no cure for fibromyalgia. If I stop doing the things that help me, I know I’ll feel like I did years ago. But because I keep doing them — and adjust when needed — my fibromyalgia is so well managed that it's actually in remission.

And just to be clear — that word "remission" is a medical diagnosis that came from my doctor. I didn't just decide to start saying it.

But managing your fibromyalgia is not the end goal.
Getting your life back is.

I have the privilege of talking to medical students at Oregon Health & Science University a couple of times a year as part of a pain patient panel. The main thing I want them to understand each time is this:

Every conversation they have with a chronic pain patient is about that person's ability to live their life.

It doesn’t matter whether they’re changing a medication or recommending acupuncture, physical therapy, or dietary changes.

Every conversation is about your ability to live your life.

And if they learn nothing else from that panel discussion, I want them to know that.

Where to Start: The Fibromyalgia Wellness Style℠ Quiz

If you've been trying to piece all of this together on your own and you're exhausted — because it is a lot of work — the best place to start is by understanding both who you are and the body you’re living in right now, today.

Once you take the quiz, you'll discover your Fibromyalgia Wellness Style℠. You can also sign up for a free email series where I’ll walk you through the patterns most likely affecting your pain, fatigue, brain fog, sleep, and fibro flares — based on your specific style.

Kim, who happens to be a Perfectionist, sent me this message:

"This quiz absolutely resonated with me. The questions sounded like all the things I would want someone to know about myself when developing a treatment plan. I'm actually crying now knowing that there is someone out there who truly understands."

What she said is something I hear over and over again:
"Oh my goodness, that is so me. How did you know? I feel so seen and understood."

If you need a little bit of that — or if you’re exhausted from trying to figure this out on your own — this is a simple place to start.

Discover your Fibromyalgia Wellness Style℠ here.

What Fibromyalgia Awareness Really Means for Patients

Since this article is being published during Fibromyalgia Awareness Month, I want to bring us back to that for a moment.

Fibromyalgia awareness isn't really about those of us who have it. We are more than aware.

What we actually need is for the rest of the world to catch up.

And awareness itself is not the end goal.

Yes, it's important that people understand what fibromyalgia is, that it exists, and that it's real. But as patients, what we really want is to feel better. We want our lives back.

This is about so much more than symptom management.

If you've been feeling like you're treading water but not actually getting anywhere — that's what this article is all about.

In my next few articles, I'm going to give you more: what good care should actually look like, what a lot of people are missing in their treatment plan, and how to start putting all of these pieces together.

Don't assume that just because you don't have answers yet, those answers don't exist.
They do.

Action Steps: Start Feeling Better

1. Understand What “No Answers” Actually Means

If your doctor hasn’t been able to help you the way you need, that does not mean you’ve tried everything — and it doesn’t mean your situation is hopeless.

It means you’ve tried everything they know, and everything you know.

And that’s a very different problem — because it means there are still options, strategies, and support you haven’t been shown yet.

2. Start with Who You Are

Take the Fibromyalgia Wellness Style℠ quiz here.

Understanding your personality, your strengths, and your natural challenges is a powerful first step toward a plan that actually fits your body and your life.

3. Get a Fibro Expert on Your Team

You don't have to figure this out alone.

Whether that's a Certified Fibromyalgia Coach^®, a knowledgeable provider, or both — find someone who understands fibromyalgia deeply and knows how to help you apply the right strategies in the right order for your real body and life.

Ready to feel better?

If you’re exhausted from trying random advice, second-guessing yourself, and feeling like nobody is connecting the dots, this is exactly why our coaches exist.

Schedule a consultation with a Certified Fibromyalgia Coach^® and take the next step toward understanding your body and building a plan that actually fits your life.

That's how you begin getting your life back.