Running a Fibro Blog
One of my biggest challenges in running a fibro blog is how to deal with the comments. I get a lot of emails and comments promoting products to cure fibro. The user always feels the need to tell me that it doesn’t have to be this way and then gives their affiliate link and tells me their story of curing fibro. Don’t get me wrong; I’m happy that people get better.
However, there isn’t a cure. There is nothing that works for everyone. I know because I’ve tried most everything. It really just made my condition worse simply because I was so stressed out about my inability to get well and the amount of money that I was spending. Usually, I just leave the comments alone. I don’t endorse any of the products that other people have said have helped them. Personally I spend my time thinking about furnace filters, grocery lists and writing jobs, things I can control. I don’t feel right about deleting comments that aren’t spam, simply because they might help someone else if they don’t help me. However, if you ever feel the need to wade through the comments, on any given post you will surely find a few “cures”. Please take them with a grain of salt. So fibromites, how do you handle these comments on your blog?
October 18th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Like you I focus on the things that make my living and care for my wellness…such as it is. Normally I delete anything that I don’t recognize, but occasionally something comes in from a fibro sufferer that I do read and, rarely, it’s something I haven’t already tried or something that I wouldn’t try. Either I don’t respond or if pushed say it ‘isn’t for me, thanks anyway’ I don’t really know any fibromite who hasn’t been bombarded with spam about cures. However, there is one fellow who tries anything that comes down the pike, and in the beginning raves about how much it helps only to end in more pain,
and bewilderment about how something with so many promises could not be true.
As trite as it sounds, I usually tell folks to try to find the humor and just keep on keeping on.
October 19th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
You’re correct that people posting and claiming to have “cures” is a bit inappropriate. Now if they instead would use the word “heal,” that’s an entirely different story. I healed from both Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome after more than 15 years. And I was sick, very sick. Healing implies a real improvement, maybe even approaching total health. But each person is different and what method will heal one person will not necessarily heal another. Thereby, producing the risk to the consumer.
However, “cure” implies a medical remedy to an ailment and, so far, there is no medical remedy for either of these conditions. Now you can load up on prescription meds and suffer the side effect consequences, or you can go a more alternative route and look for healing mechanisms that tend to work for most people. I choose that route.
As the writer for my blog, the Health Matters Show, I look at all comments that come in and will post them if it is relevant to what we’re talking about. I don’t post the ones that are blatant advertisements and obviously could care less about what is going on. In my mind, that is fair. I think people want to make up their minds about what is legitimate and viable for them. We can never walk in someone else’s shoes. Be well, Cinda Crawford