arthritis v fibromyalgia

cassey

good evening, can enyone help me. i have arthritis in my spine cevical and lumber,iv been getting terrible pain in my hands and feet etc. i seen a rhumatologhist ( sorry my spelling isnt great) who said i have fibromyalgia, im a little confussed as when i looked up fibro on there webb page it states fibro is linked to arthritis and yet when i looked on the arthritis site it said it isnt.i any help on this matter would be appriciated thankyou. this rhummy bassed his diognoses on my ccp been normal and yet the athritis showed on my mri.thanx cassey :eek:

helpline_team

Dear Cassey,

Thanks for your post to us, and I'll do my best to answer as fully as possible.

If I've understood correctly it seems like you may have been given two diagnoses. The primary diagnosis sounds like it's the osteoarthritis in your back (spine). And the secondary condition fibromyalgia. When a pain clinic specialist has described the relationship between arthritis and fibromyalgia that was one way they put it (though there are many ways of discussing this subject).

So where some people's primary arthritis is causing a lot of problems (badly managed pain, sleep disturbance etc) some people may develop secondary problems and that's one way of describing the beginnings of fibromyalgia).

The key to any explanation is whether it's helpful to you. People's experience of arthritis is individual.

I wonder whether you'd like some of our information about ways of self managing arthritis?
Private message us if you'd like us to post you out a pack of information.
And do see more about self management: http://www.arthritiscare.org.uk/LivingwithArthritis/Self-management

I hope that helps
Guy