Lady Gaga who suffered from fibromyalgia is coming to Singapore

Lady Gaga is making headlines in Singapore cos of her upcoming concert. She will be performing at the Singapore National Stadium, her only Asia stop, in May. Lady Gaga’s concert presale starts on 18 March while general sales will start on 21 March.

While that is all fun and exciting, what I want to talk about in this post is Lady’s Gaga’s fibromyalgia.

What is fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain condition that is very poorly understood. The most common symptom is widespread pain throughout the body. In the past, doctors would assess 18 specific points on the body for tenderness. This is, however, no longer required for diagnosis.

Because fibromyalgia involves widespread pain, you must have pain in at least four out of five of the body regions: left upper region, right upper region, left lower region, right lower region, and/or axial region.

Upper region refers to your upper limb (e.g., shoulder, arm) and/or jaw. Lower region refers to lower limb (e.g., hips, buttocks, legs). Axial region refers to your spine, chest, or abdomen.

It is primarily of exclusion so lots of assessments will be performed to rule out other conditions. Once no conditions can be identified, a fibromyalgia diagnosis will be considered.

Lady Gaga postponed concerts in 2017 due to severe pain

It is good to see Lady Gaga back in action after suffering from chronic pain for years. In 2017, Lady Gaga cancelled her concerts in Rio and Europe due to “severe pain”. It was later revealed that her pain condition was fibromyalgia.

I remembered watching bits of Gaga: Five Foot Two. The parts that featured her living with chronic, debilitating pain was difficult to watch. I ended up skipping through most parts of the documentary film.

I am not sure when did things start to turn around for her. From what I could find on Google, she was significantly better by 2022. In 2022, she completed her world tour Chromatica, without pain.

In an interview with The Sunday Times only two days ago, she shared that her pain from fibromyalgia is under control and that she is largely pain-free! This alludes to that long-term pain relief is possible, even for cases of severe pain.

However, Lady Gaga does, on the rare occasion, continue to have pain days.

Lady Gaga treatment for fibromyalgia

When  your pain is bad, like bad bad, I guess you would try anything for pain-relief. And I totally appreciate it. One of the things that Lady Gaga did share on the record that she self-medicated with marijuana. The good news is, now that her pain is largely gone, she hadn’t used weed for years.

Illicit drugs, at least by Singapore standards, aside, Lady Gaga also took prescription medication. One of the medication she was prescribed with was Olanzapine. Olanzapine, sold under Zyprexa, is an antipsychotic medication for conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. As you can probably tell, it is not quite a painkiller.

Chronic pain can sometimes improve with psychiatric drugs

Lady Gaga does suffer from mental health issues. In an interview, she shared about being repeatedly raped when she was 19 years old. And that her chronic pain is result of the trauma. With this in mind, in then does make sense for her fibromyalgia symptoms to improve as she was being treated for her mental health conditions.

Lady Gaga did openly shared that medication played an important role in her recovery. As a chiropractor, I do agree with that. I have had seen people whose recovery improved tremendously with pain medication.

Nonetheless, it is true that medication has its limitation. For example, you have to take a specific dose before you start to see any relief. The relief also tend to be very short-lived if you stop the medication too soon. For most parts, medication also do not eradicate your pain 100%. I am not saying pain medication works for everyone or that it’s the ultimate solution for anyone’s pain.

I feel obligated to point out that the antipsychotics were not necessarily prescribed for her pain. Rather, they were prescribed to help with her mental health issues. As these issues improved, her pain also improved accordingly.

Antidepressants not recommended for virtually all pain conditions

Antidepressants being prescribed for chronic pain is increasingly frowned upon. Largely because antidepressants, like antipsychotics, are not designed to treat pain. This is considered an off-label use. In other words, using a medication for conditions that they were not approved for.

Specific to antidepressants, no systematic review studies were able to find evidence showing that antidepressants can help with pain management.

Disclaimer: Lady Gaga promoted Pfizer’s migraine medication

Sometimes it’s hard to tell what is what on the internet. Like, I totally get the medication is helpful for recovery from chronic pain. For some of my clients who are not coping as well with conservative care, I do suggest medication as an adjunct therapy.

However, not everyone who supports medication is without bias. In the case of Lady Gaga, she was a paid ambassador (?) for Pfizer’s Nurtec® ODT. Nurtec® is also available in Singapore for treatment of migraine.

“When I tried Nurtec ODT (rimegepant) 75mg for the first time, I’ll never forget wishing I had found it sooner. That’s why I’m proud to partner with Nurtec ODT. We’re in this together. If you’re ready to speak to a doctor, ask about Nurtec ODT today.”

Honestly, it does sound super like an ad plug. This was what Lady Gaga shared on her Instagram. Her glowing testimonial was also found on Nurtec®’s website but seems to have since been taken down.

I guess my point is we can’t trust everything we see on the Internet. Sometimes, certain opinions find the way to us because, well, someone paid for them to find their way to us.

P. S., There is talk that Lady Gaga’s post had violated the EU’s laws, which has restrictions (or forbade) direct to consumer marketing for prescription drugs. On top of that, Pfizer is expected to spend ~$60 million to resolve the improper kickbacks to doctors to encourage prescription of Nurtec.

Can chronic pain truly go away forever?

Finding a treatment that will get you pain-free for the rest of your life, honestly, is not a reasonable expectation. Even people who are seemingly health and pain-free now have a chance of experiencing back pain or neck pain sometime in the future.

It is not reasonable for anyone to expect that they can be pain-free for life.

As per Lady’s Gaga own experience, her pain has significantly improvement but she still does have a rare, occasional pain episode.

At Square One Active Recovery, we talk a lot about finding freedom from pain. Freedom from pain, at least to me, is not a case of being pain-free for life. But taking control of your pain narrative and working towards being able to live the life you desire pain-free.

The honest truth is nobody is pain-free for life. Even I myself had sciatica since my early 20s from a disc herniation. While it doesn’t give me problems 90% of the time, it still does act out every so often.