Fibromyalgia is often overlooked or misdiagnosed for a number of reasons. There are no definitive blood tests or X-rays to diagnose fibromyalgia, and it shares symptoms with many other diseases and conditions.
The diagnosis of fibromyalgia is a combination of taking the patient’s symptom history, a physical examination that tests for the patient’s trigger points, and exclusion.
Today I am going to focus on exclusion part of the diagnosis of fibromyalgia. Sometimes people are diagnosed with fibromyalgia because their doctor did not perform the necessary tests to discover a different and perhaps serious condition.
If you feel terrible and are experiencing a variety of symptoms common to fibromyalgia, you should see your doctor.
After taking your history, your doctor will want to run some tests to begin to rule out disease.
What diseases and conditions should your doctor evaluate when diagnosing fibromyalgia?
The following diseases and conditions share some of the symptoms of fibromyalgia and should be excluded. Sometimes doctors who aren’t as familiar with fibromyalgia can’t rule out some of these serious and life-threatening conditions. You have every right as a patient to ask your doctor to test you for all of the following:
Diabetes
Easily proven with a blood test
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
There is currently no blood test for this condition, however they recently found out that chronic fatigue syndrome is caused by an autoimmune virus and I suspect there will be a blood test coming soon. Talk to your doctor about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
Hepatitis B and C
Easily proven with a blood test
Lyme diseases
Doctors often overlook Lyme disease and don’t test for it. This is an oversight on your part and you should ask to be tested.
Lupus
There is no definitive test for lupus, however your doctor should perform an ANTI-NUCLEAR ANTIBODY test. If you have high autoimmune activity in your blood (a trait of lupus), this test will detect it.
Multiple sclerosis
MS is also difficult to diagnose, however they do use MRIs to detect MS. While you shouldn’t rush out and get an MRI just yet, talk to your doctor about multiple sclerosis.
Rheumatoid arthritis
Easily proven with a blood test
Sjogren’s autoimmune disorder
Easily proven with a blood test
thyroid disease
Most doctors only test your thyroid with a THYROID STIMULATING HORMONE test. However, you may have a thyroid problem even if your thyroid is working properly. I do! Fibromyalgia patients often have thyroid problems along with fibromyalgia, so extensive testing is imperative. Ask your doctor to perform the following tests:
FREE THYROXINE LEVELS
T3 and T4
ANTI-THYROGLOBULIN ANTIBODY
ANTI-THYROGLOBULIN ANTIBODY
Other blood tests your doctor should perform for a fibromyalgia diagnosis:
KBC: Check his complete blood count. Looking for problems like anemia and other diseases.
COMPREHENSIVE METABOLIC PANEL: It tests your kidney, liver and general health.
HEMO PROFILE + CHOSEN DIFFERENCE: It checks for unusual activity in your white or red blood cells.
FOLATE: If it’s not included in your CBC, check your folate levels.
SEDIMENTATION RATE: Check if there is inflammation in your body.
SERUM PROTEIN ELECTROPHORESIS:Tests for autoimmune diseases
B12 VITAMIN:Check your B12 levels if you didn’t on your CBC.
VITAMIN D: Check your D levels. Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin. Ask your doctor to do a vitamin D test that checks your D3 and D2 levels. This is a hot topic because scientists are re-evaluating what they previously believed. Research shows that while your combined D level is within the normal range, if your D3 and D2 levels can be low individually and this could be a problem. (My D2 is zero).