Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

Fibromyalgia Is Not “All in Your Head” #shorts

26 Feb 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:00

In this YouTube short, Dr. Aaron Hartman recounts his 1996 medical training where chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia were dismissed as purely psychiatric, “all in your head” conditions. He explains that over the past 25+ years research has shifted to view these disorders as brain‑based inflammatory illnesses, potentially triggered by chronic concussion, PTSD/trauma, chronic or post‑Lyme disease, post‑COVID syndrome, and other stressors. Hartman criticizes the systemic medical gaslighting—especially of women—stemming from entrenched blind spots, presuppositions, and a limited mindset within healthcare. He invites viewers to share personal experiences of being dismissed by doctors, positioning these stories as part of a broader movement toward recognition, proper diagnosis, and care for fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue patients.

Chapters

It's all in your head. It's a mental health issue. The chronic fatigue, the muscle aches and pains, the joint pains, the tender points, it's psychiatric. This is exactly what I was told in 1996 when I started my medical training. This new thing called chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia was just a mental health care issue. How do we treat these things? Of course, with certain medications to help. What we've learned since over the last 25 plus years is actually chronic fatigue. And fibromyalgia is actually a brain based inflammatory condition. It can be caused by chronic concussion, ptsd, trauma stressors, chronic Lyme disease, post Lyme, post Covid, a whole host of things. But why for this whole time have we gaslit, mainly women who are the ones who have this condition? Because our healthcare system has blind spots. Things we refuse to look past because of our limitations, because of our mindset, because of our presuppositions. How have you been medically gaslit? Is there something where you've went to multiple doctors, been told nothing's wrong with you, it's all in your head? Later, find out something significant is going on. This happens to patients that come see me in the clinic all the time. Not in my clinic, but they come to me for that. And we find whatever, whatever's going on, become part of the revolution. Share your story below.