The professor of rheumatology I saw diagnosed me with fibromyalgia - much to my mystification. I hadn't reported any excessive pain or soreness in the limbs, I repeatedly answered no to his inquiry whether I had "chronic widespread pain", and I reported only PEM, extreme fatigue, unrefreshing sleep, sore throat, loss of voice, swollen lymph glands, and some of the other usual symptoms consistent with a diagnosis of ME/CFS.Dear Barb,
I am beginning to get an idea of ME/CFS but so far I have not got my head around fibromyalgia. Part of the problem is that a lot of doctors use the term just to have a clever word to say.
And yet I was given a diagnosis of fibromyalgia as well as ME/CFS. I suspect the reason was not so much that he wanted to have a clever word to say as that he sensed I was genuinely ill, couldn't find a reason why, and wanted to offset my disappointment at the impasse by at least sending me away with an impressive-sounding list of polysyllabic ailments; he was such a nice chap that I really wanted to tell him he didn't need to add things to the list gratuitously like that.