ABSTRACT
The central symptomatic locus of fibromyalgia is pain. For patients, not only is the pain itself unusual – constant, gnawing – but the reaction to it from others often shaded by a cloud of disbelief or doubt. This chapter examines what it means to live in pain in an explanatory vacuum, and what effect this has on patients. Is this a failure of communication? A function of the epistemic power of biomedicine? A result of attitudes towards fairness and the welfare state? Ultimately, what are the foundations for our beliefs about other people’s truthfulness, in situations where the normal external arbiters are unable to help?
