The best medicine: why this comedian prescribes laughter in her daily struggle with a debilitating illness
6 April 2018
“When you’ve been diagnosed with an illness like fibromyalgia the only thing you can do is try and find the funny side of it.”
So says comedian Carina MacLeod, who was recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis after enduring years of agonising pain all over her body.
“It’s a completely invisible disease,” explained Carina. “For me, it’s having pain every day from the soles of my feet right up to my head.
“You think, is this what my life’s going to be like forever?”
It’ll never beat me: the comedian turning pain into laughter
Carina MacLeod has written a stand-up about her chronic pain condition, fibromyalgia.
Rather than let the condition rule her life, Carina found that the best way to cope was to include the day-to-day trials of living with fibromyalgia in her touring stand-up show, Fibro my Airth!.
“They say laughter is the best medicine and I definitely recommend laughter for any fibromyalgia sufferer,” said Carina.
Attitudes to invisible illnesses
Carina is one of thousands of sufferers living with an invisible illness in the UK.
Chloe Elliot, who suffers from painful psoriatic arthritis, revealed on BBC The Social, that sufferers of illnesses such as lupus, arthritis and fibromyalgia have to deal with society’s distrustful attitude towards them, on top of coping with the everyday difficulties the conditions bring.
“If people think you don’t look unwell they start to question your illness. That can make you feel so much worse,” she said.
“I’ve had people question me when I’ve parked in a disabled bay with my disabled badge, saying that I wasn’t disabled because I could walk.
“Just because you can’t see our illness doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
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