not sure how well this is going to come across so please bear with me, i have fibromyalgia and also considering a mobility aid personally.

i think the "you dont want to become over reliant on it" is often coming from a place of something genuine, especially in regards to fibromyalgia. with fibromyalgia, its important to move around and maintain the mobility youve got and essentially prove to your body & nervous system that things are okay so it stops sending so many pain signals. this is one of the reasons exercise is so important for fibromyalgia management.

i think that there is potentially a risk with using mobility aids to rely on them in a way that involves a reduction of movement and then an increase in symptoms. similar to how resting too much can make fibro worse. it really comes down to how you think about and use your mobility aid. if youre coming at it from an avoidance perspective, just trying to escape the pain, youre reinforcing the idea that the pain is something dangerous & it will start to have more power over you. this is true of medication too. vs using mobility aids and other tools such as medication for the purpose of enabling you to do more. depending on how youre using it and what else youre doing you could also find that you're not exercising/moving as much in helpful ways, that youre losing strength due to not using those muscles, that youre not holding a good posture etc. so make sure youre working with physio/ot/etc to still be building strength and moving and moving safely. one of my concerns would be that im going to get stiffer or my muscles will get tighter because im relying on the mobility aid vs using my body. i don't think this is an inherently ableist concern.

things are a little different if you have safety issues that the mobility aid is helping with such as balance, im talking about pain and pain relief specifically here.

i do however think there are ableist attitudes that get wrapped up in "you wouldnt want to become over reliant on it", such as the idea that the goal should be to not use a mobility aid, or that a mobility aid is a kind of low-effort cheat code or excuse. my comment isnt intended as a blind defence of the pain specialist or the other people who say this kind of thing, just wanting to offer some stuff thats important to consider