Having fibromyalgia is expensive
Hello
Forgive me for stating the obvious, but having fibromyalgia is expensive.
So expensive that the scientists wanted to discover if this assumption they had was true and how bad was it.
In this week’s study we will discover that very thing.
The name of this week’s study is“Characteristics and healthcare costs of patients with fibromyalgia syndrome”
“Using a US health-insurance database, we identified all patients, aged ≥ 18 years, with any healthcare encounters for FMS (Fibromyalgia syndrome)”.
“The study sample consisted of 33,176 FMS patients and an identical number in the comparison group. Mean age was 46 years, and 75% were women.”
“FMS patients were more likely to have various comorbidities, including painful neuropathies (23% vs. 3% for comparison group), anxiety (5% vs. 1%), and depression (12% vs. 3%) they also were more likely to have used pain-related pharmacotherapy (65% vs. 34% for comparison group). Mean (SD) total healthcare costs over 12 months were about three times higher among FMS patients [$9573 ($20,135) vs. $3291 ($13,643) median costs were fivefold higher ($4247 vs. $822).”
So it seems what makes it so expensive isnot just the condition itself, which managing it is very expensive, but also having FMS oftenleads to developing other diseaseswhich in turn are costly to manage.
Both in doctors’ visits and in medication.
It feels like managing the problem is part of the problem. You will have to keep paying to manage.
IF you are ready to fix your fibromyalgia.
Jason
