How To Know If My Pain Is Caused By Fibromyalgia
- It takes a long while before an expert can diagnose fibromyalgia. This is because the signs and symptoms of fibromyalgia are akin to the symptoms of various other ailments and can be easily mistaken for them.
- Signs of fibromyalgia are inconsistent in nature. This means that the symptoms of this condition appear for a limited duration of time and then vanish. They reappear after a while.
- There is no specific test for diagnosing fibromyalgia. It implies that there is no blood test, scan or X-ray that will tell you that you have fibromyalgia. So, your doctor will rely on symptomatic diagnosis for this condition.
- Ruling out other ailments: There is no other cause for the visible symptoms. All the other ailments are ruled out.Your health care expert will use trial and error method for diagnosing fibromyalgia. It means you will be undergoing tests to rule out other medical conditions to arrive at fibromyalgia diagnosis. These conditions can be:
- Rheumatic diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus which have common symptoms like tenderness and pain just like fibromyalgia.
- Mental illness like depression and anxiety which make you experience fatigue, aches and pains similar to fibromyalgia.
- Neurological disorders like multiple sclerosis have symptoms like numbness and tingling which are common to fibromyalgia.
- Consistency: The symptoms persist for at least three months at a stretch.
- Painful areas: You are experiencing severe pain in 3 to 6 diverse areas of the body or mild pain in 7 or more different areas.
- Widespread pain in the body: It means the pain is present on the right and left side of the body as well as above and below the waist area.
- Presence of other symptoms like fatigue, tiredness after getting at least eight hours of sleep, and having trouble recalling and thinking clearly.
- Tender point method: This method of diagnosis was practiced earlier. It is still used by some doctors today. There are 18 tender points that were identified in your body. Pressure is applied on these tender points. If pain is felt in at least 11 of these 18 points, then you can get tested positive for fibromyalgia. But there are drawbacks of this method. How much pressure to apply is not specific. It may vary from person to person. The pain in tender points may vary from one day to another. For example, 7 tender points may experience pain on one day and 11 different points may be painful on the next.
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