In my neck of the woods (eastern part of New York State), the disease discussed
is usually a red flag that the individual has Lyme disease, as Lyme is such a great mimmicker of so many health problems. As testing was not very accurate for some time (without getting into the great debate about testing, treatment, etc.), many times a lack of insufficient findings would result in a doctor diagnosing fibromyalgia. I was diagnosed by a rheumatologist (for which I do not hold in high regard) with fibro and arthritis, with no evidence of such, only to find out by a competant physician that I had Lyme and erlichia.
-Tom
LINK TO STAFF REPORT: Is fibromyalgia a real disease? - The Straight Dope
MODERATOR COMMENT: Please note that this is a thread from 2008, revived in post #5 in Jan 2014, and in post #10 again in July 2014. We’re OK with resurrecting old threads, just don’t expect people from that long ago to necessarily still be around, or comment. – CKDH
As mentioned in the article, fibromyalgia is a diagnosis often arrived at by process of elimination. Doctors call this process differential diagnosis. When a patient presents with a complaint, the doctor considers all the diagnoses that might fit those signs and symptoms, and then goes down the list to eliminate or confirm these possibilities.
If, for example, blood tests were negative for other pain & inflammation disorders, fibromyalgia and arthritis may be reasonable possible diagnoses. Humans and human diseases are sometimes frustratingly atypical, which further complicates the process of arriving at the correct diagnosis.
This is one thing I think the TV series House gets (mostly) right – despite House being considered some godlike diagnostician, there are always blind alleys and incorrect initial diagnoses. Part of this is, of course, a necessity of writing an hour-long show every week, but it also reflects the fact that presentation of a disease often doesn’t match the textbook description. For example, the blood test for Lyme disease has a high false negative rate, so if a doctor relies on blood test results to eliminate Lyme in his or her differential diagnosis, this may lead them to a mis-diagnosis.
I know all this reads like an apology for your first doctor. Since I don’t know either you or your doctor and have no vested interests at all in the matter, I can assure you that it is not. I’m just trying to reflect why fibromyalgia and other generalized pain & inflammation disorders are so hard to diagnose. This difficulty also contributes so the resistance in some quarters to regarding FMS as a real disease.
I hope this was helpful, and I wish you the best in your treatment.
I have it, it has flared up for the last month and it is painful as hell. My physiotherapist can attest to the muscle spasms and multiple trigger points that are causing the severe pain.
Weekly massage and physio keep me somewhat sane and mobile, otherwise I would be looking for a big bottle of Jack Daniels or Demerol, or maybe just a bullet.
Well said. I have had it since birth. 41 years old now. It gets worse as I age. Pair that with Kidney stones from hell since 1998 (I almost never pass on my own) and it’s a miracle how I have not used the latter choice you listed above.
To be sure it’s understood. And to reiterate what the above quote has said. HELL YES FYRBO IS REAL! I signed up just to say so. I wish it was fake. I would give almost anything to not have to live with it. Misery…
To the OP. I was angry someone actually asked such a cruel question. And I held back from cursing you out in bitter anger (as I sit here in absolute misery) for such an inconsiderate attitude. Ok I feel a tiny bit better now.
Not to mention Fybro also amplifies all my other pain issues. Which is just F’in peachy. :mad: Thanks to Fybro, I know when any small weather change is coming because my pain gets so much worse. I should have been a weather man. I have it head to toe and it is maddening.
Exercise, eating right, sleep. sex, heating pads, soaking in a hot tub, hot shower, are all helpful. But sleep is tough when the pain keeps me awake. Sometimes pain meds and drinking (not at the same time) come in to play. But I try to keep those to a min. so I can not get other health issues.
FybroKidneystoned, you may not have noticed this, but the OP, Crosswind, posted once in 2008 and has never posted since. So nothing you say will be noticed by him/her. Now that you’re here, tell us more about your fibromyalgia. How were you diagnosed? How many diseases did your doctors have to test for before figuring out that you had it?
The fact that the pain is real doesn’t necessarily mean that the *diagnosis *is real. How would you feel if someone eventually figured out what’s really causing your pain, and it could have been treated more effectively if your doctor had continued to look for answers about your condition rather than give it a vague label in attempts to pacify you? That’s already happened to more than one person I know… for example, one of those people eventually learned that she has celiac disease after a biopsy during a colonoscopy and now that she’s on a gluten-free diet doesn’t get the pain the other doctor dismissed for years as fibromyalgia.
Fibro is a process-of-elimination diagnosis - if you have a certain set of symptoms and they can’t find anything else to pin it on they call it fibro. I suspect it’s a collection of related disorders, or a collection of disorders with similar symptoms, but we don’t really understand what’s going on or what’s causing it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t real. I agree it got to be trendy in a sense, and there are all too many people self-diagnosing, but there really is something amiss with a certain number of people. They are starting to be able to define objective markers for some of this, which may make diagnosing easier. That doesn’t cure it, of course, but many people find having a label helps to some degree, and there are strategies for managing symptoms. Not nearly as good as a cure, of course, but it’s better than nothing.
Some time in the last two years, an actual physical blood test became commercially available for diagnosing fibronyalgia. Until then, most doctors did diagnose it by eliminating all similar conditions. Many of them did a poor job, in my opinion, because they often. verlooked existing lab tests for diseases with similar symptoms. I have fibromyalgia and got tested during the research that developed the lab test.
For those who are interested, there are some specific, physical conditions that do differentiate fibromyalgia from other diseases and these are the basis for the new lab test. First, anyone with fibro can tell you how tired they get. This is caused by the fact that we have a deficiency of the hormone that generates formation of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the chemical our bodies uses to create energy to do all the things it does. This process is described in detail in the Krebs Cycle. The second thing most people with fibro can tell you is how easily they get sick. That is a constant source of frustration for me. This is caused by a problem in the immune system, but it is totally different from the one AIDS victems have. In our case, the number of killer cells is wrong. It may be high or low! If it is high, it causes allergies, which ties up the killer cells that should be fighting infections. If it is low, then there are not enough killer cells to fight infections. So, whether high or low, the effect is the same — not enough killer cells available to fight off infections. This is why I catch every infectious disease I am exposed to!
I hope this helps others understand fibronyalgia a bit better.
Crosswind signed up just to make this post, he has not posted anymore. The kidney stone guy also signed up just to post on this thread, those are his only two posts. Now Old Geezer signed up just to post here, although he does have a post on another thread.
Neither the original article nor any discussion makes ANY attempt to show Fibromyalgia [sic] is anything but real.
Yes both links seemed to show that the test is reliable, if not expensive, and may only be recommended for those who are missing a key symptom of diagnosis. 99% accurate may not be that great in the medical world though? Maybe that’s the point?
I think it is a catch all for any nasty pain a doctor can’t explain, fix , or have a name for. I was diagnosed with it, and Arthrotec cured it. It didn’t take care of my arthritis, but the severe pain I had was taken care of.
Yes fibro is real- actually there has been no successful straightforward test to definitely say yea or nay about wether or not you have the disease. As far as I know they still must do a process of elimination of different diseases. Drawing from my own experience the disease was associated with mononucleiosis, I also had TB and had to take the TB medicine for a year (INH and Rifampin). Fortunately my FM has been mild and usually only bothers me in the changing spring weather. I truly do feel sorry for those with serious cases of it- it is agonizing and debilitating. I believe the first known cases of it occurred in Iceland in the 1940’s. Another outbreak of it occurred in a school system in California? in the 80’s. Teachers and students with no apparent connections both had it. I believe the medical community suspects it is actually an undiscovered virus of some kind.
Bongo1959