In Making Sense of Fibromyalgia, noted medical writer Janice Wallace and Dr. Daniel Wallace, a leading expert on this disorder, provide a comprehensive guide -- for both patients and professionals -- to this little known and poorly understood syndrome. The authors offer detailed information in a clear and accessible style, taking readers through the steps of diagnosis and all the established forms of treatment. Fibromyalgia, they explain, is a pain amplification, brought on by abnormal interactions between hormones, the immune system, neurotransmitters, and the autonomic nervous system. Sometimes the syndrome occurs spontaneously; in most cases, the authors write, it is associated with trauma, stress, such conditions as lupus and hypothyroidism, and over forty microbes, from hepatitis to Epstein Barr to Lyme disease. They draw on actual cases to illustrate their points and to break through the isolation that patients often feet when doctors misdiagnose or simply ignore their symptoms.