My docs believe in it but most regular people don't. I'm in constant pain.

Do a lot of research and plan your speech before you go. Take an advocate with you and the billing code for a Fibromyalgia diagnosis. Not all of the PC providers are ignorant.

I went in with a full list of symptoms stating I thought it was fibromyalgia. They did the usual let's run blood work to rule out other things, blood showed nothing so it was a pretty quick diagnosis for me. Ask for the fibro pressure point test too.

In my experience, Doctors don't like to diagnose it straight away because if they do it's hard from them to get the ok to do other tests, they usually try a few other tests and things first to rule othet things out before giving the diagnose. This is because as soon as you're diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, any problem you got to the Dr with afterwards, they usually brush it off as Fibromyalgia. x

My doctor didn't believe at first. After all kinds of tests, including the pressurepoint test, she sent me to a rheumatologist who diagnosed the fibromyalgia. One of the first things he did was to educate my gp on fibromyalgia. He's constantly keeping up on the latest developments in fibromyalgia research and works with me to try to find treatments that work for me. After my gp retired, I got a new one who not only believes in fibromyalgia but actively tracks the progression of all of my chronic conditions.

Ask for a referral to a rheumatologist. If your doctor doesn’t believe in Fibro, go to another doctor.

Honestly, my experience was awful. The doctor that diagnosed me wasn't very nice as a whole but when I asked, "ok so what's the game plan? What steps can I take to manage it?", she said, "well I don't know because I don't believe in fibromyalgia. And I'm nit giving you pain pills." I didn't want pain pills and never asked for them. Other doctors I've seen sense have been understanding and helped with medications and PT. But I do have other chronic pain issues too. It is different for each person, just make sure you have a doctor that's not going to treat you badly.

Fibromyalgia can be quite difficult to diagnose. Took me 2 years of exhaustion, 10 years of back pain and then all over pain for me to be diagnosed. Fibro is diagnosed when all tests come back negative and you've had pain in all 4 quadrants of the body for at least 6 months. At least that's what the rheumatologist told me (:

I have found nurse practitioners to be more beneficial than the docs they work under. They have more time to listen and work through the process of ruling out other possible diagnoses then the trial and error of management for fibro.

I would ask for a referral to a rheumatologist. My experience is that they blow it off.

👍 And I find that statement to be factual as well a Rheumatologist will not believe that you have Fibromyalgia as when I went to see one she totally dismissed me and felt as thought there wasn't anything wrong with me after doing blood work to see if it was Rheumatoid Arthritis!! 🤷🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️ Seriously 😳... Okay well that was in 2014 and I e gone back to my Primary Care Physician as well as started seeing the same Neurologist who treated my Brother who passed in 2018 with many more issues due to a major Car wreck and 2 motorcycle wrecks , but I started seeing him cause he treated my brother for so many years & I felt like I could trust him with my health since he took good care of my brother. And I do have Fibromyalgia as well as I have POTS and was just diagnosed with that this last March and the Drs missed that after I was sick for 6 months passing out and blood pressure being in the 70's over 50's constantly ! After being in the Hospital a week that idiot Dr wanted to say well it was Covid and I was malnourished 😳🤣😂🤣🤣🤣