Going for gold in fight against Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia affects two million people in the United Kingdom yet very few are aware of the condition. This debilitating illness does not have any visible physical symptoms and is often referred to as the ‘invisible illness’.

Members of The Wakefield & District Fibromyalgia Support Group pictured with the Mayor of Wakefield

In this podcast, we speak to June Chivers, founder of the BIG-funded Wakefield Fibromyalgia Support Group, which brought its members together in May of this year to celebrate a ‘FibroGames’ event, as well as the charity’s second birthday.

The group’s annual ‘FibroGames’ recently received an ‘Inspire mark’ from the London 2012 Inspire programme which recognises 2,700 exceptional projects doing something special in their local communities.

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Of the condition, June says: “I live with this little-known and very complicated condition called Fibromyalgia. In Latin, ‘Fibro’ means fibrous tissues and tendons, ‘my’ means muscles and ‘algia’ means pain.

“Any part of the body made up of, or interacting in any way with fibrous tissues, tendons or muscles are painful all of the time. It isn’t a life threatening illness but it is a life-changing one.

“I’ve taken great strength from helping people in a similar condition to me,” June continues. “The friendship and support we can give each other is really uplifting and in holding the FibroGames, we can show that even those suffering from Fibromyalgia can lead a healthy and active life.”