About Dr. Keith Wickizer

Dr. Keith Wickizer is an orthodontist who built three successful practices from scratch in Charleston, South Carolina. For over a decade, he worked six days a week, defined himself by what he could build and fix, and lived by a simple philosophy: if something needs doing, you do it. If something is broken, you fix it.

Fibromyalgia broke something he didn't know how to fix.

In late 2017, Dr. Wickizer began experiencing spreading pain that would eventually consume every part of his body. For nearly two years, he navigated a medical system unprepared for his condition, seeing doctors who managed symptoms without ever stepping back to see the whole picture. In 2019, a rheumatologist finally gave him a diagnosis: fibromyalgia. There was no cure. The cause was unclear. The prognosis was uncertain.

What followed was eight years of relentless pain, exhaustion, and the slow dissolution of the life he had built. He became a diminished version of himself—an absent friend, a limited father, a man who calculated the body cost of buckling his children's seatbelts before doing it.

But eight years also meant eight years of research. Hundreds of peer-reviewed articles. Clinical trials. Alternative medicines. Trial and error. Sheer stubbornness. Slowly, methodically, he began to get better. From a pain level of 10 to some days a 1 or a 2. That is a life-changing distance.

More importantly, he discovered something that had been missed by every physician who treated him: a medication he'd been on for most of those years that was actively attacking his muscles. A nurse practitioner finally caught it. One test. One answer. Years of unnecessary suffering.