Anyone else have fibromyalgia?

[The KNEEguru]

These are superb articles, albeit a bit technical for some of us  -

1 Fibromyalgia - the muscle pain epidemic - http://www.healthy.net/scr/Article.asp?Id=587 (Part 1)

2 Understanding and treating chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia - http://www.healthy.net/scr/Article.asp?Id=588 (Part 2)

3 Chronic fatigue / fibromyalgia - http://www.healthy.net/scr/Article.asp?Id=589 (Part 3)

4 What treatment seems most effective in treatment of fibromyalgia - http://www.healthy.net/scr/Article.asp?Id=590 (Part 4)

[daisycake123]

I think there are a lot of people in the world Dx as fibro by a Doc that just put a label on someone w/o doing proper testing, I have been tested 2X and each one was different. I have sore point all over my body as I have a bulged disc in my neck and have nerve apin from that ad have srthritis in my lower back as well as a former fusion and my siatic nerve is always tender.  Have had knee pain and swelling for over a year and they Doctors dont know what is wrong, OA, RA as my sed rate has been elevated for over a year.  I think is is just easier to labe someone that hurts and want help with pain to just call the fobro and problem solved and not look to hard. JMO  But with what have have ead on the subject the fibro is diagnosed by all blood test being normal and a certain amount tender spots out of a certain number and that tender point could be very subjective.

[stgiles16]

actually, the tender points are very specific. i do agree that fibro is Dxed too often but it is a true disease. also, most people who have fibro also have a second autoimmune disease. i have fibro and RA and would gladly give both up at any time lol. latest verdict is also neuropathy but i dont know much about that one yet, have not done much research. whatever they call it, i live in pain 24/7.

[jt801]

I was diagnosed in 2001-for some reason i suffer from the fatigue, sleep problems, and tender points-but not the widespread pain which is the most prominent charactaristic of this syndrome. I do get abnormally sore muscles after heavy bouts of activity. I have continued to stay active despite the fact that i get tired way more easily than i should. What i would like to know is if fibromyalgia weakens your cartilage as i am suffering from cartilage loss in several areas of both knees and have had a microfracture surgery already. Not only that-i know there is a trigger point on the outside back part of the knee, which is the exact location where my mfx was performed. Many days i have identical pains in that area on both knees, so i cant decide if its the cartilage issues or the FMS causing these pains.