WTF Diagnoses: Fibromyalgia
Aug. 6th, 2019 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
justlyssaAs promised, here's the follow-up to my last WTF Diagnosis post, which was about ME/CFS. Today I'm going to tell you all about fibromyalgia!
Of all my WTF Diagnoses, this is probably the one you're the most likely to have heard of. Although it is still a rare condition, it has received increase awareness over the last several years. It's the most "common" of my health issues, affecting approximately one person out of every 50—although it's twice as likely to affect women as it is to affect men (Source).
The primary symptom of fibromyalgia is PAIN: chronic, widespread pain throughout your body, with particular emphasis in these areas:
(Source)
Fibromyalgia can also cause migraines, something I am prone to. I tend to get neck pain with migraines (which I should note is typically triggered by migraines, not vice versa), which is also a symptom of fibromyalgia, so... since I only started getting migraines in my mid-twenties, not long before I started noticing the other symptoms of fibromyalgia, I'll buy that.
According to the CDC:
My doctor explained to me that it's believed to be caused by overly sensitive nerves causing pain receptors to fire in circumstances where they ordinarily should not.
Diagnosis of fibromyalgia can be a difficult process because there's not a straightforward, standard test for the condition. Diagnosis can be made by testing for other conditions to rule them out, and by your doctor pressing typically tender areas to see if you experience a painful reaction. In my case, I was tested for arthritis as well as other conditions that cause chronic pain, and those conditions were ruled out. In terms of the "poke" test, let's just say... I had a very painful reaction to an unrelated test (one that is ordinarily painless for patients without fibromyalgia) that made my doctor say, "Oh yeah. You've got fibro, all right." Somewhat embarrassing, but it worked that I did receive a straightforward diagnosis because of it.
While there's no cure for fibromyalgia, there are treatments that can help mitigate the pain. One of these is graded exercise, which has not been an effective treatment for me due to also having ME/CFS, which can be aggravated by exercise (that whole post-exertional malaise thing). However, higher pain levels than normal recently have cut back on my ability to do even the mild exercise I had been able to (walking, swimming and yoga), and over-the-counter pain relief such as Tylenol and Advil had no effect. So my doctor recently prescribed gabapentin, which my doctor described as a nerve relaxant which will help block some of the pain receptors in my brain. I've heard good things about gabapentin from others with fibromyalgia and/or chronic pain, so I'm really hoping this will be an effective treatment for me. I would love to start being more active again.
While there are more treatment options for fibromyalgia than there are for my other WTF Diagnoses, it's clear just from the conflicting information a quick Google search provides that this condition is not well understood. Like my other WTF Diagnoses, it's unknown what the underlying cause for this condition is. There are a number of proposed causes, but none of them have been definitively proven. It more than likely has more than one cause. (I do have a suspicion I know what my trigger is, but it's just speculation on my part—I'll go into my hypothesis at a later date!)
A major concern is the number of people—both medical professionals and laypeople—who don't believe fibromyalgia is a real condition. Fortunately, this is becoming less of an issue, with it becoming a more accepted diagnosis and receiving more awareness from the general public in recent years.
Of all my WTF Diagnoses, this is probably the one you're the most likely to have heard of. Although it is still a rare condition, it has received increase awareness over the last several years. It's the most "common" of my health issues, affecting approximately one person out of every 50—although it's twice as likely to affect women as it is to affect men (Source).
The primary symptom of fibromyalgia is PAIN: chronic, widespread pain throughout your body, with particular emphasis in these areas:
• back of the head
• tops of shoulders
• upper chest
• hips
• knees
• outer elbows
(Source)
Fibromyalgia can also cause migraines, something I am prone to. I tend to get neck pain with migraines (which I should note is typically triggered by migraines, not vice versa), which is also a symptom of fibromyalgia, so... since I only started getting migraines in my mid-twenties, not long before I started noticing the other symptoms of fibromyalgia, I'll buy that.
According to the CDC:
People with fibromyalgia may be more sensitive to pain than people without fibromyalgia. This is called abnormal pain perception processing.
My doctor explained to me that it's believed to be caused by overly sensitive nerves causing pain receptors to fire in circumstances where they ordinarily should not.
Diagnosis of fibromyalgia can be a difficult process because there's not a straightforward, standard test for the condition. Diagnosis can be made by testing for other conditions to rule them out, and by your doctor pressing typically tender areas to see if you experience a painful reaction. In my case, I was tested for arthritis as well as other conditions that cause chronic pain, and those conditions were ruled out. In terms of the "poke" test, let's just say... I had a very painful reaction to an unrelated test (one that is ordinarily painless for patients without fibromyalgia) that made my doctor say, "Oh yeah. You've got fibro, all right." Somewhat embarrassing, but it worked that I did receive a straightforward diagnosis because of it.
While there's no cure for fibromyalgia, there are treatments that can help mitigate the pain. One of these is graded exercise, which has not been an effective treatment for me due to also having ME/CFS, which can be aggravated by exercise (that whole post-exertional malaise thing). However, higher pain levels than normal recently have cut back on my ability to do even the mild exercise I had been able to (walking, swimming and yoga), and over-the-counter pain relief such as Tylenol and Advil had no effect. So my doctor recently prescribed gabapentin, which my doctor described as a nerve relaxant which will help block some of the pain receptors in my brain. I've heard good things about gabapentin from others with fibromyalgia and/or chronic pain, so I'm really hoping this will be an effective treatment for me. I would love to start being more active again.
While there are more treatment options for fibromyalgia than there are for my other WTF Diagnoses, it's clear just from the conflicting information a quick Google search provides that this condition is not well understood. Like my other WTF Diagnoses, it's unknown what the underlying cause for this condition is. There are a number of proposed causes, but none of them have been definitively proven. It more than likely has more than one cause. (I do have a suspicion I know what my trigger is, but it's just speculation on my part—I'll go into my hypothesis at a later date!)
A major concern is the number of people—both medical professionals and laypeople—who don't believe fibromyalgia is a real condition. Fortunately, this is becoming less of an issue, with it becoming a more accepted diagnosis and receiving more awareness from the general public in recent years.
