Fibromyalgia Explained: Diagnosis, Overlapping Conditions, and What Helps

Fibromyalgia can leave you feeling exhausted, foggy, and overwhelmed — especially if you haven’t yet received a clear diagnosis. In this episode, Roberta breaks down what fibromyalgia really is, how it’s diagnosed, what conditions can mimic it, and how to manage it with a gentle, holistic approach.

Whether you've been diagnosed or suspect fibromyalgia may be behind your symptoms, this episode will help you feel more informed and less alone — with practical strategies for managing your health day to day.

What You’ll Learn:

• What fibromyalgia is and how it affects the nervous system
• Key symptoms to look out for, including fatigue, pain, brain fog, and sensitivity
• Why fibromyalgia can be hard to diagnose — and which conditions should be ruled out first
• How perimenopause, chronic fatigue, thyroid issues, and nutrient deficiencies can overlap
• Evidence-informed ways to support yourself through movement, sleep, stress reduction, and pacing
• How physiotherapy, Pilates, and subconscious work (like the CONTROL System) can support symptom management

💬 Struggling with fatigue, pain, or brain fog?
If you're living with fibromyalgia or similar symptoms, support is available. Roberta offers tailored, whole-person support including physiotherapy, Pilates, and subconscious work to help you feel more in control and less overwhelmed.

👉 Explore services at www.thriveandshinewomenswellness.co.uk

www.thriveandshinewomenswellness.co.uk

Supporting Women's Health Transitions with Education, Physiotherapy, Mentoring, Pilates, and Hypnosis.

Transcript

 Welcome to Making Sense of Women's Health. I am Roberta Bass. I'm a women's health physiotherapist, a Pilates instructor, menopause mentor, and a control practitioner. Today's episode is all about fibromyalgia, a condition that many women struggle with silently or find hard to understand. It is a complex condition that can leave you feeling sore, foggy, exhausted, and frustrated.

Especially as it overlaps with other issues and it can be difficult to diagnose. In this episode I'm going to break down what fibromyalgia is, how it's diagnosed, what other conditions might have similar symptoms and need to be ruled out how you can manage it using gentle holistic strategies.

Even if you haven't been diagnosed but feel like your symptoms match, this might help you make sense of what you're experiencing. So firstly, what is fibromyalgia? Fibromyalgia is a long term chronic condition that causes pain all over the body along with a range of other symptoms. The exact cause isn't fully understood.

But it's believed to involve the nervous system where the brain and spinal cord become more sensitive to pain signals, amplifying the way pain is perceived. Now some people describe it as feeling like the volume on pain has been turned up across the whole body and along with widespread musculoskeletal pain,

Other symptoms would include fatigue, even after sleeping, sleep disturbances or non-refreshing sleep, brain fog or difficulty concentrating. Sometimes this is called fibro fog, heightened sensitivity to touch, noise or temperature. Often they will have tender points at certain bits of their body, headaches or migraines and digestive symptoms

Like bloating or IBS. Unfortunately in terms of diagnosis there is no single test for fibromyalgia and it can therefore make diagnosis really challenging. Based on symptoms, medical history and ruling out other conditions.

Health care professionals will consider fibromyalgia as a diagnosis if there's been a history of widespread pain lasting more than three months. If the pain is in multiple areas of the body, not just one location, it's associated with symptoms like fatigue, sleep issues and brain fog. If basic investigations such as blood tests or scans,

That may be used to check for signs of inflammation, thyroid or nutrient deficiencies have come back clear, then they may consider fibromyalgia as a diagnosis. It is normally a diagnosis of exclusion. But what else could it be? So before fibro is diagnosed, it is important to rule out any other condition that it could be that has similar symptoms. And there are

Many different conditions that overlap with these symptoms.

Seen that have been diagnosed with fibro are also perimenopausal. So is it fibromyalgia or is it the perimenopause that is causing these symptoms? Because the symptoms are very similar. So with perimenopause or postmenopause we're getting things like joint pain, fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep, mood changes and

As you can see, they are very similar to the fibrosymptoms.

One way to try and differentiate between the two would be looking at hormone levels through blood tests, although that isn't always accurate, but also looking at other periods changing, having a regular menstrual cycle, symptom timing, so are they worse at different times of the month? That may give an indication to see which one it is. Hypothyroidism, so this is underactive thyroid,

Often presents with similar symptoms as well and this would be one of the first things that they would rule out and this is diagnosed with blood tests but symptoms such as fatigue, weight gain, constipation, dry skin and low mood would potentially indicate hypothyroid but also many of the symptoms overlap with fibro.

Now chronic fatigue and fibro are quite closely linked and share many of the same symptoms including fatigue, poor sleep and brain fog. But the post-exertional is more specific to chronic fatigue as opposed to fibro.

Another thing that may give similar symptoms would be depression or anxiety, because they may also cause fatigue, poor concentration and some physical symptoms such as pain or tension. So a thorough mental health assessment is important, but these conditions could also coexist.

If you have fibromyalgia. That goes with any of these conditions that it may be that you have that and -fibro, but it's important that these conditions are treated because it may well also then relieve some of the symptoms and it turn out not to be fibromyalgia. Another thing that could cause similar symptoms is vitamin D or B12 deficiency, because that again can cause fatigue, aches, weakness or neurological symptoms.

That is easily diagnosed with a blood test and would improve with supplementation. Inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, this would give you joint pain and stiffness, often with swelling and it would have raised inflammatory markers within the blood test. Sometimes having x-rays of the hands and the feet can help differentiate with fibro as well.

Persistent post viral symptoms may be another thing that is mistaken for fibro because that can give you fatigue, pain and brain fog. But there would be a history of some recent illness and generally would gradually get better once that virus has gone. But we know from things like long COVID that that

Can be a long process. These conditions can all overlap with fibro, which is why a whole body thorough assessment is really essential when you're getting persistent pain and fatigue and all of those symptoms of fibro. So how do we treat fibro? Well, unfortunately, there is yet to be a cure for fibromyalgia, but there are effective ways to manage symptoms and what

Works best will vary from each person but some of the things that can be helpful is gentle movement and physical activity. Things like walking, swimming or Pilates can help to reduce pain and can improve function and fibromyalgia. It is important to start gradually and to pace yourself based on how you are feeling and not pushing too far as everyone's tolerance is different.

Looking at your sleep, things like sleep hygiene and addressing sleep disturbances is really important. If you're struggling with sleep, go back and listen to my episode. I've done a couple on sleep and how to improve it, but having a good wind down routine, make sure that you're not on screens before bedtime is really important to help improve your sleep. Looking at reducing your stress.

Now this can be things like breathing exercises, journaling, mindfulness, or something like control, which is a type of hypnosis that I do. It can all be really helpful to reduce your stress.

So the GP will often give you medications and this can help to reduce some of the symptoms. So particularly things like low dose antidepressants or pain modulating drugs, they can help with that nerve pain. Looking at your nutrition, making sure you're eating a balanced diet, an anti-inflammatory diet can be really helpful.

Reduce any low grade inflammation within the body and can help to reduce symptoms. Pacing and energy management. So it is really important to learn to balance your activities and to not overexert yourself and take rest when needed. Otherwise we get this boom and bust and you

If you do too much, then you can't do anything for several days. And it's similar for chronic fatigue. It is trying to get that pacing right so you can manage what you need to do, but not doing too much.

If you are struggling with fibromyalgia and it has been diagnosed or you're getting similar symptoms, there is lots that you can do and there is support out there. There are support groups meeting up with other people with similar conditions. It might be that the GP can refer you on to see a specialist that can help you manage your symptoms. But if you're looking for somebody privately, there are things that I can certainly help you with.

And that is addressing any musculoskeletal or pelvic issues, working with Pilates to help build your strength and flexibility. Also looking at those subconscious patterns, looking at stress management, help improving your sleep and how you're dealing with pain. And that's all done through the control system, which is the type of hypnosis that I do. So if you are feeling overwhelmed or unsure where to start,

The best thing is to visit my website, which is thriveandshinewomenwellness.co.uk and you can learn more about the things that I can offer you or search on Google to see if there's any support groups in your area because fibromyalgia can feel really isolating but there are small steps that you can take to regain a sense of control and improve how you feel day to day, whether that's learning to pace yourself.

Exploring gentle movement or addressing that emotional toll, there is support out there. And if you want to learn more, then do look in the show notes where the links to my website is. But for now, thank you so much for listening. And I hope this episode helps you feel more informed, more empowered and a little less lonely on your journey. Until next time, take care. Bye bye.