Fibromyalgia is often overlooked or misdiagnosed for various 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 exam that tests the patient’s trigger points, and exclusion.
Today I’m going to focus on him exclusion part of the fibromyalgia diagnosis. 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 very bad and are experiencing a variety of symptoms common to fibromyalgia, you will need to 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 look for when diagnosing fibromyalgia?
The following diseases and conditions share some of the symptoms of fibromyalgia and should be excluded. Sometimes doctors who are not as familiar with fibromyalgia cannot exclude some of these serious and life-threatening conditions. As a patient, you have every right to ask your doctor to test you for the following:
Diabetes
Easily analyzed with a blood test
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
There is currently no blood test for this condition, however they recently discovered that CFS is caused by an autoimmune virus and I suspect a blood test will be coming soon. Talk to your doctor about chronic fatigue syndrome.
Hepititis B and C
Easily analyzed with a blood test
Lyme disease
Doctors often miss Lyme disease and do not test for it. This is careless on your part and you should request to be tested.
Lupus
There is no definitive test for lupus, however your doctor should perform an ANTIBODY 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 use MRI to detect MS. While you shouldn’t rush out and get an MRI just yet, talk to your doctor about multiple sclerosis.
Ruematoid arthritis
Easily analyzed with a blood test
Sjogrens autoimmune disorder
Easily analyzed with a blood test
Thyroid disease
Most doctors only examine 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 alongside fibromyalgia, so in-depth testing is a must. Ask your doctor to perform the following tests:
LEVELS OF FREE THYROXINE
T3 and T4
ANTI-TRIOGLOBULIN ANTIBODY
ANTI-TRIOGLOBULIN ANTIBODY
Other blood tests your doctor should perform for a fibromyalgia diagnosis:
CBC: Check her complete blood count. Looking for problems like anemia and other diseases.
INTEGRAL METABOLIC PANEL: Assess your kidney, liver, and general health.
HEME + ELECT DIFF PROFILE: Checks for unusual activity in your white or red blood cells.
FOLATE: If it’s not listed on your CBC, check your folate levels.
SEDIMENTATION FAILED: Check for inflammation in your body.
PROTEIN ELECTROPHORESIS IN SERUM:Tests for autoimmune diseases
B12 VITAMIN:Check your B12 levels if you didn’t do it on your CBC.
VITAMIN D: Check your D levels. Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin. Ask your doctor to perform the vitamin D test that checks your D3 and D2 levels. This is a hot topic because scientists are reevaluating what they previously believed. Research shows that while your combined D level is within the normal range, your D3 and D2 levels may be individually low and this could be a problem. (My D2 is zero).