EL CENTRO — When Marta Olmos was just five years old, she began to experience pain doctors couldn’t explain. Her mother took her from Mexicali to Guadalajara searching for answers, but none came. Nearly five decades later, Olmos, now 59, is still living with fibromyalgia—a chronic illness that causes widespread pain, fatigue, and cognitive difficulties—but she has found a way to turn her struggle into strength.

From the El Centro Library, Olmos leads a small but growing group of women who, like her, live with chronic pain. The meetings, she said, provide comfort, hope, and understanding—things many in the fibromyalgia community say they often struggle to find from the medical system.

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