Books

I’ve posted about online resources, as well as men­tion­ing some peri­od­i­cals that are good offline resources. Now I want to share some of the books I rec­om­mend to oth­ers who are learn­ing more about fibromyalgia.

The First Year : Fibromyal­gia — A Patient-Expert Guide for the Newly Diag­nosed by Clau­dia Craig Marek is exactly what the title says. If you only check out one book, make it this one. You’ll get a decent overview of what FMS is and a good idea of the most com­mon treat­ment strategies.

Two of Devin Starlanyl’s books, Fibromyal­gia and Chronic Myofas­cial Pain: A Sur­vival Man­ual (2nd Edi­tion) and The Fibromyal­gia Advo­cate, are an essen­tial part of my library. They’re impos­ing books, but don’t let that intim­i­date you. They are excel­lent, ency­clo­pe­dic ref­er­ences that every­one deal­ing with fibromyal­gia should own and use.

The Arthri­tis Foun­da­tion has some excel­lent infor­ma­tion about fibromyal­gia, which is treated for the most part by rheuma­tol­o­gists despite being seen more recently as a neu­ro­log­i­cal dys­func­tion. One book in par­tic­u­lar, The Arthri­tis Foundation’s Guide to Good Liv­ing with Fibromyal­gia, 2nd Edi­tion, takes the reader through cop­ing tech­niques and includes some very mild exer­cises which almost any­one can tol­er­ate. Another, The Arthri­tis Help­book: A Tested Self-Management Pro­gram for Cop­ing with Arthri­tis and Fibromyal­gia is a more in-depth book with a broader focus. It also adds an excel­lent sec­tion on adap­tive devices.

New books are released every month, and over time I’ll be review­ing them and some of the oth­ers in my library. These books, though, should give you an excel­lent intro­duc­tion to fibromyal­gia and some com­mon cop­ing techniques.

May 21, 2006   Posted in: Resources

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