What is fibromyalgia?

What is fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is the most common condition of chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain, stiffness, and fatigue.

We don’t have the stats for Australia at this time, but we do know that over 6 million Americans, 90% of them women in the prime of their life, suffer from FMS and sometimes struggle for years before being correctly diagnosed.

Symptoms usually appear between 20-55 years of age, but children are also diagnosed with fibromyalgia syndrome. Pain and severe fatigue may keep FMS sufferers from their chosen profession and unable to perform common daily tasks.

FMS produces chronic body-wide pain that has a ‘burning’ sensation, which migrates and can be felt from head to toe.

The official definition of fibromyalgia syndrome according to the 1990 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria is:

• widespread pain* for at least 3 months, and


• 11 of 18 possible tender points (9 on each side of the body)

* Widespread pain is defined as pain above and below the waist, on the left and right sides of the body, and axial pain (either on the anterior or posterior aspects of the torso).

The associated symptoms are not essential to the diagnosis but the probability that a patient has FMS is increased if the patient has one or more of them.

Associated symptoms include:

• fatigue


• stiffness


• headaches


• disturbed sleep


• depression


• disturbed bowel function


• cognitive disturbance


• anxiety


• paresthesias


• coldness


• dry mucous membranes


• exercise intolerance


• dysmenorrhea

Fibromyalgia is defined by pain. There are really no visible manifestation of this disease. For that reason, fibromyalgia sufferers are often viewed as hypochondriacs, malingerers, poor souls seeking attention through illness.

Because fibromyalgia patients present as perfectly normal, otherwise healthy individuals who appear to be simply recovering from a bad dose of the flu, this life-altering disease is dismissed by family, friends, work colleagues and often times her GP as either a passing condition or entirely psychosomatic.

One must, therefore, not only contend with the debilitating symptoms of fibromyalgia, day in day out, maybe for the rest of her life, but she must also brace herself for the ignorant backlash she will invariably receive from those who should, during her time of need, be extending emotional and physical support.