Back at the time of my half-hearted diagnosis in 2000, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia were viewed as two similar yet separate conditions. I remember reading all about Fibro to see if I had that or CFS. It was clear that I had all the symptoms of it but also all the viral symptoms that were part of CFS, so yes all of those symptoms and more. That’s how I saw it.
From my research I saw that Fibromyalgia was very much more focused on the joints and bones and associated pain whereas CFS covered this and had a wider spectrum of vague symptoms of exhaustion and flulike, viral symptoms. It was easy for me to make the distinction between the two. I remember explaining the difference to a friend I had made whose sister suffers with Fibro, in fact she herself went on to also be diagnosed with Fibro and with arthritic conditions also, which as an identical twin seemed inevitable.
Years later I met someone who told me she had CFS and Fibro, I was most curious about this and when she asserted her diagnosis as both I went directly to my G.P to question my own diagnosis and Fibromyalgia was added to my condition list. It seems times have changed and both conditions are seen as lying alongside each other.
There seems to have been an uptake in people in my area being diagnosed with Fibro and I put this down to a new Fibro aware consultant. There is something about the term Fibromyalgia that commands more respect and understanding as an illness. People seem to think of it as a serious condition, unlike CFS which has been most maligned throughout history. I put it down to the word ‘fatigue’, this word leads people to assume, ‘tiredness’ which seems vague and elusive, while Fibromyalgia seems solid, the Latin gives it a credibility and authority.
Its funny to me, when I was diagnosed I clung to the American term CFS over the British M.E, somehow it sounded more assertive, especially when just spoken as letters. M.E had been referred to as the ‘Yuppie Flu’ here during the eighties and the stigma never seemed to wear off. People thought of M.E as something in the head, a mental incapacity rather than physical. I eagerly ditched the British term and embraced CFS. The title Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, sounds very grand and stern but it was broadly thought that this description was incorrect, basically meaning pain and swelling on the brain, contemporary theory denigrates this description. and maybe the brain reference is what mislead to the phycological. Strangely, now though the younger generation seem to have spurned the term, CFS in favour of the older M.E. I now refer to either and both which ever seems more suitable at the time.
So can people diagnosed with Fibro also have CFS, well yes if they experience the viral symptoms with indistinct throats, swelling glands, flu and all the rest. I think now the two are inexorably linked.
So if you currently have one, look into the other in some detail, before you satisfy yourself with diagnosis. Scrap the notion of either/or and claim both if the cap fits.
Living With ME 