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How Do You Get Diagnosed with Fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia is a long-term condition that causes pain all over your body, makes certain areas very sensitive, and leaves you feeling exhausted.
Diagnosing fibromyalgia can be tricky because there aren’t any specific lab or imaging tests for it. Instead, your doctor will need to ask you about your symptoms and how bad they are.
Other illnesses have similar symptoms to fibromyalgia, such as:
- HIV
- AIDS
- Lyme disease
- Some cancers
- Spine diseases
- Thyroid problems
Doctors can run tests to rule out these other conditions, but it takes time, effort, and money. According to the National Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain Association, it usually takes about five years for someone with fibromyalgia to get an accurate diagnosis.
How Do Doctors Diagnose Fibromyalgia?
In 2010, the American College of Rheumatology created new guidelines for diagnosing fibromyalgia, published in the journal Arthritis Care and Research.
According to these guidelines, you have fibromyalgia if:
1. You have a widespread pain index (WPI) score of seven or higher, a symptom severity scale (SS) score of five or higher, a WPI score of three to six, and an SS score of nine or higher.
2. You’ve had symptoms at this level for at least three months.
3. No other disorder can explain your symptoms.
Before these new guidelines, doctors used a “tender point” system to diagnose fibromyalgia. This required patients to have widespread pain and tenderness at 11 out of 18 specific points on the body when pressed.
However, many doctors didn’t know how to check these tender points properly or were unwilling to do so. The old system also didn’t consider essential symptoms like fatigue or depression, which are now recognized as key features of fibromyalgia.
Researchers believe the new system is a better way to diagnose fibromyalgia.
