How Long Does It Take to Diagnose Fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is a very difficult condition to diagnose, since there isn't a specific test to confirm it. In this video, family medicine specialist Jennifer Caudle, DO, discusses why it may take a while to get a proper diagnosis for fibromyalgia.

Transcript

00:00

Fibromyalgia can actually be one of the more tough

00:08

conditions to diagnose. And one of the reasons why is because there's not a blood test or a lab or an X-ray

00:15

that we can do to tell you you have fibromyalgia. It's a condition where we have to look at a number of symptoms-- not only the pain,

00:22

but the other symptoms I mentioned as well, like fatigue and anxiety, depression, et cetera. And then we have to put them together while we're making sure nothing else is going on underneath.

00:31

So honestly, sometimes it can take a while to make the diagnosis. And there certainly are reports of patients saying that they've seen multiple doctors before they

00:39

got a proper diagnosis. I think what's really important for patients is to stay in tune with your body,

00:46

to always keep in mind what's really going on with you, and make sure that you kind of never give up. Really make sure that you're finding