Tuesday, August 16, 2011

How many people have fibromyalgia and ME/CFS anyway?

Hello fibromites and ME/CFS fighters!  I found a neat website for Canadians today and wanted to share it.  It's called Fibrocentre.ca.  I looked around it some and it seems to be very informative and user-friendly.  I recommend the site whether you live in Canada or not.  The site includes a quiz to print and take to your doctor if you suspect fibromyalgia.  It also includes a fact I did not know: an estimated 1 million Canadians suffer from chronic pain due to fibromyalgia.  In a country with a population of 33.7 million, the number of people with fibromyalgia is staggering.  Fibromyalgia is much more common that doctors first realized.  This is of course, is bad, because people are in pain.  It is also good, though, because with such a large portion of the population having this illness, we will get more research done.


Here are some other sobering facts:


  • 1 in 50 Americans, or between 3 and 6 million people in the USA have fibromyalgia
  • More than 1 million Americans have ME/CFS and 80% of those are not diagnosed
  • 819,858 in the UK have fibromyalgia
  • 250,000 in the UK have ME/CFS 
  • 270,877 in Australia have fibromyalgia
  • 54,327 in New Zealand have fibromyalgia
  • 1,035,420 in Egypt have fibromyalgia
  • 937,159 in Turkey have fibromyalgia
  • 918,242 in Iran have fibromyalgia
  • 345,170 in Iraq have fibromyalgia
  • 387,869 in Afghanistan have fibromyalgia
  • 1,121,217 in Germany have fibromyalgia
  • 821,947 in France have fibromyalgia
  • 789,752 in Italy have fibromyalgia
  • 14,488,092 in India have fibromyalgia
  • 17,668,147 in China have fibromyalgia
  • 1,124,457 in Vietnam have fibromyalgia
  • 1,958,470 in Russia have fibromyalgia
  • 649,296 in Ukraine have fibromyalgia
  • 359,259 in Uzbekistan have fibromyalgia
  • 2,504,316 in Brazil have fibromyalgia
  • 1,427,759 in Mexico have fibromyalgia
  • 374,683 in Peru have fibromyalgia
  • 970,387 in Ethiopia have fibromyalgia
  • 112,966 in Somalia have fibromyalgia
  • 129,752 in Chad have fibromyalgia
  • 604,629 in South Africa have fibromyalgia
  • Fibromyalgia is most commonly diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50 
  • 80% - 90% of all fibromyalgia cases are women 
  • 90% of ME/CFS cases are women 
  • ME/CFS rates are somewhat higher in Nigeria than in the USA, according to one study 
  • Fibromyalgia is most prominent amongst American women with Canadian women coming in a close second 
  • Fibromyalgia may often co-occur (up to 25-65 percent) with other rheumatic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and ankylosing spondylitis 
  • Women who have a family member who has fibromyalgia are more likely to develop fibromyalgia themselves 
  • Fibromyalgia is the 2nd most common ailment affecting the musculoskeletal system after osteoarthritis 
  • Fibromyalgia primarily affects women of childbearing age, but children and men may also be affected 
Wow, I know that is a lot to take in.  I had to do a lot of searching to find these statistics.  I'm amazed at how little we know about fibromyalgia and ME/CFS, yet so many people around the world suffer from it/them.  It seems to me like something this common would be a big pharmaceutical company's dream and we'd have loads of medicines for fibro and ME/CFS.  As it is now, we have three medications approved in the USA for fibromyalgia, and none for ME/CFS.  We need to do better.  I don't care if it is cured or just treated, as long as I don't have to deal with the pain, fatigue, and loads of other symptoms that go along with fibromyalgia.  Knowing that so many other people deal with this makes me feel less alone.  It also gives me hope that there will be some breakthrough research soon to help all of us suffering from fibromyalgia and ME/CFS.  



3 comments:

  1. Intersting site ... Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  2. How many people in Australia have osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia

    ReplyDelete
  3. love these statistics

    ReplyDelete

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