The weird thing about this disease is that you can have a huge amount of pain in your back one day, but than in your neck the next day. You never seem to know where or when the pain is going to be next. Morning stiffness is also very common. The stiffness may diminish as you move, but the pain will not go away completely. You can also have extreme fatigue and exhaustion that occurs day after day. You may also have frequent or constant trouble sleeping. But, your doctor is the only person that can diagnose you with fibromyalgia. Sometimes people wonder if they are imagining how bad the symptoms really are, feeling terrible one day and not so bad the next. So you may start to think you might have been imagining how bad you felt the day before. You may experience ups and downs of pain and other symptoms that accompany fibromyalgia and begin to worry that perhaps the problem isn't that big of a deal. You may think, "Maybe if I just ignore the problem it will go away." But the problem will not go away and you must go and see your doctor.
If you feel that you can have the disease, ask yourself these few questions:.
-Do you have a lot of pain in certain specific areas of your body?.
-Is your body pain sometimes severe?.
-Do you have trouble sleeping on three or more nights per week?.
-Do you feel exhausted about half the time, or more?.
-Do people often ask you if you're sick?.
-Do you turn down social invitations rather than risking having to go out and be achy and tired?.
-Do you find yourself wondering if your aches and pains are ever going to go away?.
-Are you always losing things or forgetting things?.
-Are you having trouble finding a pattern to your pain?.
-Are you "down" about the pain and fatigue you are feeling?.
If you answered yes to more than 4 of these questions, you should make an appointment with your doctor.
In order to be diagnosed with the disease, you must have widespread pain in all four quadrants of your body for a minimum of three months.