Is fibro over-diagnosed

[MercyL]

One thing that irritates me is how people, knowing about fibromyalgia, chronic pain syndrome and/or chronic fatigue syndrome, claim they have all of the symptoms and, because these disorders/diseases can result in social security payments, use these conditions to scam the system.

It makes life more difficult for us, who truly need help with their conditions. Some of the over diagnosing might be due to these people looking for an easy way out of contributing to society.

Pretty sad when you consider how many of us fight our conditions by balancing work with the days we cannot leave our bedrooms, much less commute to a job!

 

[Dyanne]

I work full time, its very difficult at times I use my sick leave and then have to use my holidays when I am suffering badly. My Diagnosis came about from a few blood tests that kept coming up with Lupas and then on the secondary specific test for Lupas it came up negative, this happened over a 12 month period... very confusing why would Lupas come up on the blanket test and then not in the specific test? The other thing that led to the diagnosis was extreme fatigue causing depression and the fact that my symptoms will completely disappear for months on end and then suddenly come back and basically floor me! When I am having a flare up it can last a week or 3 months... very difficult to hold the job down let me tell you!

 

[GingerSnaps614]

I think that this could actually go both ways. I can see it being over-diagnosed when the doc can't find
anything wrong (which means it certainly could be Fibro as well as anything else)... but at the same time
I have to wonder if it's being *under-diagnosed* often, too.

Some doctors just haven't bothered coming up to speed on what Fibro is. Seems that it would be much
easier to throw out something like "you have severe arthritis" or "this is how depression manifests
sometimes", etc. than to admit you don't know much about Fibro.

Absolutely! It's used sometimes as "well, iunno, so yeah, you got fibro" and sometimes a doctor will even refuse to acknowledge that fibromyalgia is real!

 

[GingerSnaps614]

Sometimes you just have to realize that doctors are people too and the person that graduates medical school with the lowest grade is still considered a doctor. I've had a few pretty bad experiences with doctors (Not in dealing with fibromyalgia. I participate in these forums because I'm curious about finding an herbal or homemade cure or treatment for the disease) and I realized that they're human. As a kid, they're doctors, super smart super able to help you, but they're just people with a different education. I do think it's possible that some doctors might take the lazy route if they can't figure out what's wrong.

lol every time I have a bad experience with a doctor, my dad reminds me of that! That the doctor with the lowest grades and the doctor with the highest grades are all still doctors!

 

[GingerSnaps614]

Hopefully, I don't offend anyone. But, I think in some regards it may be over-diagnosed and in some instances it may be under-diagnosed. Depending on variables such as the physician, the patient's demographics and insurance, there are going to be some people w/o fibro that are getting false diagnoses. On the other hand, there are going to be those w/ fibro that are disregarded as having mental health issues or are "drug-seeking." Although this is not directly fibro related, but is related to my inflammatory arthritis. I have found I can get slapped with a "drug-seeking" label for asking specifically for a stronger anti-inflammatory medicine than what I can buy OTC. I'm fairly certain the word "narcotic" didn't appear anywhere within my request. But, the next thing out of the doctor's mouth was "We don't prescribe narcotics." Oh, well...the nightmare continues.

What a prick! Yes, I know people with fibro and other painful diseases who have been hit with that.... such a bunch of crap. I would've went off on the guy...

 

[Ohyesuare]

I think the problem is maybe some people are using it to get on disability by looking up the symptoms and trying to emulate them. With some conditions doctors only have the word of the patient to go by and can't really diagnose it any other way. It is unfortunate, but if you have seen someone in pain who really has it then it is pretty easy to tell the difference I think.

 

[MassageGnome]

I don't know, it took me years to be diagnosed but the doctors didn't do the other tests first to rule out things like lupus or MS. I had to beg them to do them afterward because I was convinced that there was/is still something that they are missing because there is no way that all these symptoms could be happening in my body that has no reason to it. I did recently get told by my wellness worker that Mayo Clinic has classified Fibro as an autoimmune disorder. I think that could very well be an accurate thing. When we work to hard our immune system attacks our bodies. That is how I have always felt. Too much of any stimulation causes me to crash. Too much reading=brain fog, too much walking=no strength in my legs and I will fall or trip a lot. and so on. The weather plays a huge roll in it to so I don't exactly know what to think on it but I do know that I don't get things like the common cold, flu, strep, chicken pox or anything like that so I think that immune system is overly revved up. Anyone else think that?