Conditions with Similar Symptoms
Between 10 - 30% of all doctors' office visits are due to symptoms that resemble those of fibromyalgia, including fatigue, malaise, and widespread muscle pain. Since no laboratory test can confirm a diagnosis of fibromyalgia, doctors will usually first test for similar conditions. It should be noted that a diagnosis of many of these below disorders may not always rule out fibromyalgia, since it can accompany other common and similar conditions.
Diseases with Similar Symptoms to Fibromyalgia
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Disease
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Specific Subtypes
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Osteoarthritis
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Infectious Arthritis
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Lyme disease, septic arthritis, bacterial endocarditis, mycobacterial and fungal arthritis, viral arthritis
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Postinfectious or Reactive Arthritis
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Reiter's syndrome (a disorder characterized by arthritis and inflammation in the eye and urinary tract), rheumatic fever, inflammatory bowel disease
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Crystal Induced Arthritis
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Gout and pseudogout
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Rheumatic Autoimmune Diseases
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Rheumatoid arthritis, systemic vasculitis, systemic lupus erythematosus, scleroderma, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (also called Still's Disease), Behcet's disease
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Other Diseases
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Chronic fatigue syndrome, hepatitis C, familial Mediterranean fever, cancers, AIDS, leukemia, bunions, Whipple's disease, dermatomyositis, Henoch-Schonlein purpura, Kawasaki's disease, erythema nodosum, erythema multiforme, pyoderma gangrenosum, pustular psoriasis
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Conditions That Do Not Rule Out Fibromyalgia
Chronic fatigue syndrome, myofascial pain syndrome, depression, primary headaches, and, certain stress-related disorders commonly occur with fibromyalgia and have overlapping symptoms. In fact, some experts believe these disorders so often interact that they may all be part of one general condition.
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