Understanding the Fibromyalgia Diagnosis Process

There is a blood test that doctors can do to identify specific markers that are produced by the immune system in patients with FM, a study showed that it can distinguish the markers of FM from markers for other pain disorders with similar symptoms such as rheumatoid arthritis. The doctor may also want to do a CBC to measure the amount of red cell, white cells, hemoglobin and platelets. In order to rule out other diseases and disorders that cause pain reactions, tests of the kidneys, thyroid  and liver may also be tested.

Because FM mimics inflammatory arthritis greatly, doctors may also want to do a red cell sedimentation rate to get an indexing of the inflammation present in the body. In Other disorder the result of this test will be abnormal, but in the case of FM and osteoarthritis it will be normal. A test for antinuclear antibody may also be run to see if the antibody in the blood is abnormal, this is a test that is run mostly to eliminate lupus and if the patient has lupus and not FM it will come back positive.