Are doctors rejecting you? Do your friends not understand what’s going on? Research that identified problems with parts of the central nervous system that cause pain in fibromyalgia (FM) began more than a decade ago. While they show that FM is a biological disease, questions remain in the medical community and the public about how real and serious it is.

The fact that so many websites want to point out that yes, fibromyalgia is a real condition shows that the FM field itself and people with the condition still struggle with sometimes outdated stereotypes.

A 2016 scientific journal article, “Not the Last Word: Fibromyalgia Is Real,” made clear the ongoing debate about FM in the scientific community. In 2017, Medical News Today confirmed that the #1 FM myth in the public arena is somehow untrue. The Cleveland Clinic had its own take on the reality of fibromyalgia that year, and just last year, VeryWell Health once again asked, “Is Fibromyalgia Real?” I felt it was time to ask.

Struggling with ignorance and difficult disease can be frustrating. To help with this, here are 10 reasons, based on scientific research, that you can use to convince the skeptics around you (including doctors) that FM is a real disease, and a serious one.

1. It hurts a lot!

A third myth highlighted by Medical News Today is that “the pain (FM) is minimal and does not affect daily life.”

Oh, on the contrary. Research shows that fibromyalgia is actually one of the most painful conditions. A large North American study comparing the pain levels of adolescent FM patients to the pain of youth with other rheumatic diseases found that it was not competitive: pain levels were significantly higher and children with FM had significantly lower levels of functioning and well-being. .