Foot notes: Retracing the steps towards diagnosis

Abstract

In this article, I describe the experience of a chronic pain diagnosis. Combining memoir, medical history, and literary precedents, I begin with a reflection on my own history with walking. Walking leads to foot pain which eventually leads to diagnosis of a full-body chronic condition: fibromyalgia. Through an exploration of the history of hysteria, one of fibromyalgia’s ancestors, I consider some of the resonances between these conditions.