Long before “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” coined the phrase “phone a friend,” that’s exactly what people did when they were going through a tough time: they picked up the phone and contacted a loved one who could offer support.

But what happens when your friend can’t possibly understand what you’re going through? What happens when no one you know has fibromyalgia?

With the upsurge in online social networking sites, more and more people are able to “phone a friend” they may never have met face-to-face—and who they may never even have spoken to.
MySpace and Facebook are the two biggest social networking sites, with hundreds of millions of users. Both sites allow users to build their own “pages,” upload photos, write entries, and connect with old friends—and make new ones. These sites also provide an avenue to quickly share information, such as new research findings and helpful treatment options.

“In the last two months, the NFA’s Facebook page has attracted 600 new fans, bringing the total to nearly 2,000.”

The National Fibromyalgia Association maintains pages on both sites. In the last two months, the NFA’s Facebook page has attracted 600 new fans, bringing the total to nearly 2,000. Melissa Tolwar started the NFA’s MySpace page about four years ago. “It’s great for people who need to talk to someone that is going though the same thing that you are,” she says simply. “I enjoy connecting with others and helping someone by sharing my experiences with FM from when I was 14 years old till now.”

These user-friendly—and free-to-use—sites make it easy to find like-minded people. And once you’ve found each other, relationships can swiftly blossom. “The people in the group are great, and a lot of them have become my best friends,” says Tolwar.

The Internet also allows people to connect via message boards and instant messaging (many social networking sites have messaging functions built in). There are countless people blogging—weblogging, or journaling online—about their experiences with fibromyalgia. And on YouTube, you can do a search for fibromyalgia videos; currently there are more than 2,000.

Perhaps you’ve stereotyped these various Internet services as something strictly for under-25s; but the fact is, people of all ages use social networking for all sorts of reasons. In fact, Tolwar says, on her page she witnesses a lot of mentoring—not younger users tutoring the more mature in the intricacies of MySpace, but older patients helping the younger ones by sharing their experiences, and their successes, with fibromyalgia.

Other social networking sites may be smaller, independent ones; on the NFA’s support group directory page (click here to view), there’s an entire section devoted to online support groups. Then there’s CarePages, where fibromyalgia patients can connect with each other, one on one, in addition to building their own webpages (go to www.carepages.com/fmaware and type in “fibromyalgia” or “NFA” in the search window to meet and respond to others).

Anyone who’s ever been left hanging in a phone tree knows that technology isn’t a cure-all—but it certainly can be the solution if you feel like phoning a friend, and you don’t know who to call.