Fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia is a chronic primary pain condition characterised by widespread pain with fatigue, unrefreshing sleep and cognitive difficulty; it is diagnosed clinically while assessing mimics and coexisting disease, and managed with person-centred exercise, psychological approaches, symptom care and selective medicine review rather than routine analgesics.
Definition
Fibromyalgia is a chronic primary pain condition characterised by widespread pain with fatigue, unrefreshing sleep or sleep disturbance, cognitive difficulty and functional impact. It is diagnosed clinically while assessing for alternative and coexisting conditions; no single test confirms it and fixed tender-point counting is not required.
First principles
The pain is real without a single structural lesion
Fibromyalgia is a type of chronic primary pain: pain or its impact is not adequately explained by an observable injury or disease. Altered central pain processing, sleep, mood, autonomic and other factors may contribute, but there is no single diagnostic biomarker and the mechanism is not fully settled. Validate the pain without implying tissue damage, malingering or that the symptoms are simply psychological.
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