Getting Diagnosed With Fibromyalgia
The first step in getting suspected fibromyalgia diagnosed is
to find a physician, nurse practitioner or other health care
provider who is knowledgeable and compassionate. Maybe it
should be the other way around: compassionate and
knowledgeable.
The only sure way to find the right health care provider is by
trial and error. You can narrow the field by talking to other
people, especially people with fibromyalgia or who suffer some
kind of chronic pain, and asking for recommendations.
Rheumatologists are specialists in treating fibromyalgia, but
many times an internist or family doctor is just as
knowledgeable and helpful as a specialist.
Make an appointment with your chosen health care provider and
tell him or her your story. Describe your pain and other
symptoms and tell her how long you have had them. Answer their
questions, and get a sense for how you are being treated. If
you feel disrespected, or that you are not being taken
seriously, make an appointment with a different health care
provider. Keep going until you find a professional that you can
relate to. Diagnosing and treating fibromyalgia is a partnership
between you and your healthcare provider, and you need to be
able to work together on this.
You can expect that a health care provider who is knowledgeable
about fibromyalgia will take a health history, perform a
physical examination, do some blood work and perform a point
tenderness test. That?s the minimum.
The blood work will usually be to make sure there aren?t other
problems, like rheumatoid arthritis, causing your symptoms. The
real ?test? for fibromyalgia is trigger point tenderness. The
doctor will press on 18 specific areas of your body to test for
tenderness. If you have achiness all over and are unusually
tender over 11 or more of these trigger points, they will
usually conclude that you have fibromyalgia.
Even this is a bit tenuous, though, because, as you know, the
pain of fibromyalgia comes and goes. There are many other
trigger points over your body that may be tender. The ones that
are used for diagnosis were chosen by researchers as the ones
most commonly affected.
Until recently, there have been no diagnostic tests for
fibromyalgia, other than trigger point tenderness. A few tests
are beginning to be used now, though. Your doctor may or may
not order these tests; they are not widely used yet and their
usefulness hasn?t been proven. The tests are:
* Cytokine levels, which are often abnormal in people with
fibromyalgia.
* APA assay (antipolymer antibody). APA levels are thought to
be elevated in people with fibromyalgia.
* Sleep study. This may be done both because most FMS patients
have sleep abnormalities, so an abnormal sleep test makes the
diagnosis clearer, and to identify and treat specific sleep
problems.
* MRI or PET scan. People with fibromyalgia have abnormalities
in both MRI and PET scan.
* EEG. Some researchers have discovered EEG abnormalities in
people with fibromyalgia.
As more research is done, better, more definitive tests for
fibromyalgia may become available. That would be a huge benefit
for both patients and health care providers, because diagnosing
fibromyalgia would be easier and more certain.
About The Author: Jane Thompson has an interest in
Fibromyalgia. For further information on Fibromyalgia please
visit http://www.eliminatefibromyalgia.com/fibromyalgia.html or
http://www.eliminatefibromyalgia.com/blog/2006/09/13/getting-diagnosed-with-fibromyalgia/
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