A few days ago, Lacey posted a question on one of the fibro support groups on Facebook:

I’m just wondering besides fibromyalgia what is everyone’s other diagnoses?

Good question.  Here are a few statistics I took from the responses:

• 126 responses
• 213 different diagnoses other than fibromyalgia
• 749 total mentions of each diagnosis

This gives each person who responded to Lacey’s question an average of about 6 diagnoses each.  I took the diagnoses and grouped them into 37 categories so they would be more manageable.  As always, I’m not a doctor, so there could be inaccuracies and nuances I just wouldn’t know about.  One of the categories is “miscellaneous” – these are diagnoses that are mentioned 2 or fewer times.  The top 10 results are:

psychological	157 (c)
back/spine	60 (t)
gastrointestinal disease	58 (t or c)
arthritis	54 (p)
miscellaneous	52
headache/migraine	39 (t or c)
sleep disorders	30 (t)
joint disorders	29 (p)
specific female disorders	28 (p)
thyroid disorders	23 (t)

The different diagnoses can be looked at in a different way too, besides frequency:

• possible trigger for fibromyalgia symptoms (t)
• possible consequence of fibromyalgia (c)
• possible primary diagnosis, making fibro a secondary diagnosis (p)

Reading through the responses was overwhelming.  I often wondered how it’s even possible to give a fibro diagnosis with so many other painful diagnoses people have to deal with.  In addition, it struck me how many of these additional diagnoses are also not “curable,” but rather they are also chronic pain disorders that can at best be managed.  As always the thought goes through my head, if there was just one of these diagnoses that could be “cured” to make all the other symptoms just go away.  A momentary flight of fancy…

I’m still working on this incredible list, looking for patterns.  I always think fibro is like a complex code that just needs to be broken or a puzzle scattered all over the floor.  These additional diagnoses could be parts of the puzzle, and I think it would be interesting to take a closer look.

 

psychological	157
back/spine	60
GI	58
arthritis	54
misc	52
headache	39
sleep	30
joint	29
female	28
thyroid	23
asthma	18
gen pain	16
skin	16
allergies	15
fatigue	15
inflammatory	14
nerve	13
autoimmune	12
heart	11
hypertension	10
iron	10
surgery	10
bladder	9
diabetes	8
connective tissue	7
bone	6
cancer	6
COPD	5
kidney	5
sinus	4
vitamin	4
carpal tunnel	3
Raynaud’s	3
high cholesterol	3
liver	3
obesity	3
pancreas	3