But despite some similarities, “for the most part, there is no mistaking symptoms of MS with fibromyalgia,” says Philip Cohen, MD, a rheumatologist, professor of medicine and professor of microbiology and immunology at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia.
The symptoms can be similar, but people with fibromyalgia are more likely to experience depression, irritable bowel syndrome, and widespread, persistent pain. Symptoms more common with MS include weakness, vision problems, muscle spasms, and bowel or bladder issues.
A wide range of conditions can be mistaken for MS, including: migraine, cerebral small vessel disease, fibromyalgia, functional neurological disorders, and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders, along with uncommon inflammatory, infectious and metabolic conditions (1, 3).
Several rheumatic diseases can mimic fibromyalgia. These include sero-negative rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, Lyme disease, polymyalgia rheumatica and lupus. They have symptoms of widespread pain along with joint involvement.
Multiple Sclerosis News Today reported on a Canadian study in July 2018 that looked at the early warning signs of MS. Researchers found that fibromyalgia, a condition involving widespread musculoskeletal pain, was more than three times as common in people who were later diagnosed with MS.
FACT: Fibromyalgia is a neurological disease affecting a person's sensory processing system. Fibromyalgia does not involve inflammation or damage to joints. Brain imaging and studies have shown that fibromyalgia is a disorder of the central nervous system.
However, because fibromyalgia can cause chronic pain and fatigue similar to arthritis, some people may advise you to see a rheumatologist. As a result, often a rheumatologist detects this disease (and rules out rheumatic diseases).
Fibromyalgia can be associated with ocular symptoms (foreign body sensation, irritation) and visual disturbances (blurred vision), coexisting with dry eye syndrome and reduced corneal sensitivity. Cases of scleritis, including the necrotizing form, accompanying fibromyalgia have been reported.
These include fibromyalgia and vitamin B12 deficiency, muscular dystrophy (MD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), migraine, hypo-thyroidism, hypertension, Beçhets, Arnold-Chiari deformity, and mitochondrial disorders, although your neurologist can usually rule them out quite easily.
MRI scan. An MRI scan is a painless scan that uses strong magnetic fields and radio waves to produce detailed images of the inside of the body. It can show whether there's any damage or scarring of the myelin sheath (the layer surrounding your nerves) in your brain and spinal cord.
People should consider the diagnosis of MS if they have one or more of these symptoms: vision loss in one or both eyes. acute paralysis in the legs or along one side of the body. acute numbness and tingling in a limb.
The pain from fibromyalgia is what typically prompts people to visit a neurologist, and this specialist may prescribe medications to control your pain. Pain Management doctors treats all forms of pain, including that caused by fibromyalgia.
Pain that comes from weakness, stiffness or other mobility problems from MS is considered musculoskeletal pain. Both types of pain can be acute, having a rapid onset and short duration, or chronic, starting gradually and persisting daily or almost every day.
It means that an MRI may help both with diagnosing fibromyalgia, as well as the identification of the individual patient's unique subtype of the syndrome. This level of detail will potentially help doctors create more customized treatment plans for their fibromyalgia patients.
In many cases, fibromyalgia can occur simultaneously with autoimmune disorders. Common conditions associated with fibromyalgia pain include: rheumatoid arthritis. lupus.
Fibromyalgia is diagnosed based primarily on having pain all over the body, along with other symptoms. Currently, there are no specific laboratory or imaging tests for fibromyalgia.
Fibromyalgia can affect people of all ages, including children. However, most people are diagnosed during middle age and you are more likely to have fibromyalgia as you get older. Lupus or Rheumatoid Arthritis. If you have lupus or rheumatoid arthritis (RA), you are more likely to develop fibromyalgia.
There are no lab tests that can diagnose fibromyalgia. However, because many other conditions have symptoms similar to those or fibromyalgia, your doctor may order tests to rule out other causes of your symptoms.
People suspected of having fibromyalgia may have blood tests and x-rays to look for other possible causes of the muscle and bone pain. A doctor may diagnose fibromyalgia when they think that the pattern of pain and tiredness fits the condition and doesn't fit other conditions.
There is no widely accepted medical test to diagnose fibromyalgia. Instead, diagnostic tests are performed to see if another condition could be causing the symptoms. Blood tests are usually ordered to rule out conditions with similar symptoms.
As a result, patients with fibromyalgia may lose their ability to walk faster or their capacity to maintain balance while standing as their gait changes, according to a study published in Frontiers in Human Science. They may also have difficulty moving about due to pain and stiffness.
In addition, fibromyalgia patients demonstrated significantly less gray matter density than healthy controls in several brain regions, including the cingulate, insular and medial frontal cortices, and parahippocampal gyri.