Having been involved in researching different medical conditions for nearly 8 years we thought it would be interesting and important to find out how things have changed over the years.  In particular we were concerned about the ease or difficulty in getting diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

Our research painted a very unhappy picture.  In many cases a diagnosis of Fibromyalgia took years.  In some very worrying cases a number healthcare professionals refused to accept the existence of the Fibro.  So for many people fibro was an invisible illness, both medically and socially.

So our main interest was to what extent has this situation changed as regards to people suffering from fibro.  As we run a Facebook group providing support for people with fibro and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome we decided to ask our members that very simple question “How easy was it to get diagnosed with Fibromyalgia?”.  To check the page out please go to https://www.facebook.com/FibromyalgiaandCFSTalk

I have to say the results were over whelming with over 150 responses in less than 12 hours.  Here are a few of the responses.  One of our members related:

“Oh it was hard…….doctors didn’t believe me….I had an op on my hip, which led to nothing, 15yrs approx later. ( maybe more) .diagnosed with m.e & fibromyalgia”

While another commented:

“I was fortunate… My neighbor has fibro and I was experiencing all the same aches,pains, symptoms as her, she urged me to go to her rheumatologist. That’s when I was officially diagnosed. It was a long road prior to that… Going from doctor to doctor, repeated blood work…tests tests and more tests…. All I heard was your fine… There’s nothing wrong. Thank goodness for my neighbor who helped me!!!”

And maybe there are still issues with the medical profession. As one  reader shared:

“Even now doctors donot believe in Fibromyalgia or dont know much about it…A very senior doctor told me its another fashionable tag given to arthritis…Mostly I did my research on net. ..Recently i went to a rheumatoloy clinin who agreed it was either fibro or CFS..Its frustratinf when people around you are so ill informed about your suffering and ill ness..”

But there are positive signs as one commenter said:

“I was lucky that I had a good family doc that knew the right specialists to send me to. I think he did his homework actually and when I started to get worse, he sent me to those specialists cuz I only had the waiting time to get in to see the specialist until I had a diagnosis. That was about a month.”

So it seems that while there are signs that it is getting easier to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia but the overall situation is still not great.  The aim of this blog is to get your take on the issue.  We would like you to answer that very simple question “How easy was it to get diagnosed with Fibromyalgia?”.

You may also want to consider some of the following questions as well:-

• Did you have problems with healthcare professionals in getting a diagnosis?
• How long did the diagnosis take?
• What tests were used to get your diagnosis?

Feel free to use the comments box to answer these questions and add any other opinions which you think may be of interest to other people with fibro.  If you have any useful links please do include them.