What is "fibromyalgia"?

What is "fibromyalgia"?

Jerry Pryde, MD, MPH, CIME (Clinical Chief, Department of Rehabilitation, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center) gives expert video advice on: What is "fibromyalgia"?; How can physical rehabilitation help me with chronic pain and fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain syndrome, the cause of which we don't really know exactly. The criterion for fibromyalgia is that the physician has ruled out any other possible source of the pain. If you're not able to identify an inciting cause for the fibromyalgia and the patient meets specific physical examination criteria, then you could give the patient a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. However that's what we call a diagnosis of exclusion. You only give somebody a diagnosis of fibromyalgia if you have looked for every other possible cause of that physical pain and all tests have been negative for any possibility of other causes.