diagnosed in january, but that was actually year five, not year one. nobody tells you fibromyalgia is a diagnosis of exclusion until you’re the one sitting through the exclusions. lupus panel, twice. rheumatoid factor.
thyroid, twice. an MRI of my spine that came back clean, which somehow felt worse than finding something, because clean meant nobody had an answer yet. a GP who thought it was just stress for about eighteen months of that. a rheumatologist who finally did the tender point exam properly and said the actual word out loud.
what’s sticking with me now, six months post diagnosis, is how much of those five years I spent believing each new test would be the one that explained it. bloods came back normal, and some part of me was almost disappointed, like normal meant i was making it up. i wasn’t tracking anything back then either, just describing pain from memory in ten minute appointments, which in hindsight probably added a year or two by itself. i started actually logging flares in january right after the dx and it’s the single thing i wish i’d done in year one instead of year four.
curious how many rule outs everyone else went through before fibromyalgia. did any of you get a name for it faster because a GP recognized the pattern instead of chasing every other test first?