If you have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, then you would know that it is a very painful chronic illness, but that it also has strict guidelines for anyone to be diagnosed with it. Ranging from blood tests to an examination of the symptoms, doctors will do whatever tests they can to determine if you have fibromyalgia, but no tests are more effective then identifying the pressure points on the body.
You may think that you have pain all throughout your body, and indeed, you might do. But there are actually very specific pressure points on the body where the doctors will test to see if you have pain. Many medical professionals and researchers believe that these pressure points could lead to a central problem of the pain you are suffering from fibromyalgia.
Fibromyalgia Pressure Points
As part of their test to determine if you have Fibromyalgia, doctors will put pressure on these points to see if you react to a high intensity of pain there. So while you may have pain all around your body, doctors will not be able to diagnose you with Fibromyalgia one way or the other unless they base their decisions on these pressure points. The pressure points include the back of your neck, shoulders, upper chest, just above the knees, the hips, elbows, and the upper part of the buttocks.
Simple lab tests alone will not be able to identify whether or not you have pain in these pressure points. A physical exam will need to be conducted of these pressure points, and shouldn’t take any longer than ten or fifteen minutes. When pressure is applied to these points, you will have to tell your doctor if you feel or don’t feel any pain, at which point they’ll check off the pressure points that you don’t feel any pain under.
In order to officially be diagnosed with fibromyalgia, you will have to have widespread pain in all four quadrants of your body for at least three months, and respond to having high levels of pain when pressure is applied to at least 100 of the 18 pressure points. There has been found to be a high level of accuracy with this method of diagnosing fibromyalgia, as ninety percent of the time doctors will make a correct diagnosis using this method. This is more accurate than blood tests and other forms of testing for diagnosing fibromyalgia as well.
Your doctor won’t apply enough pain to these areas to make you feel pain no matter what. Usually, they’ll only apply enough pressure with their finger to make their fingernail become white. You may even want to try applying pressure to the pressure points in this manner yourself.
Trigger Points
Another important aspect of this treatment is trigger points in your body. Ninety percent of the body’s pressure points are also trigger points, so what’s the real difference? The difference is that trigger points are nodules that you can feel in tight muscles. If you apply pressure to a trigger point, it will not only hurt where you are applying pressure, but also send pain throughout your body.
In comparison, applying pressure to a pressure point will not send pain throughout your body and only cause pain in the area that is having pressure applied to it. Another difference is that trigger points can restrict the motion that you can make, while pressure points do not.
But like we have said, ninety percent of your pressure points are also trigger points. Well, this is actually a beneficial thing. It means that there are a wider range of treatments and therapies available for relieving the pain in your body, and relieving the pain of only one of your trigger points is enough to reduce the pain of other trigger and pressure points as well.
Steps that you can take to relieve the pain of your trigger and pressure points include taking hot showers or baths, having a massage, or doing anything that relieve the tension in the muscles to reduce the pain of the trigger points when pressure is applied to them.
What if you don’t pass the Treatment?
Remember, you need to have a pressure point count of at least 11 out of the 18 in order to be officially diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. But let’s say that your pressure count amounts to anywhere under eleven.
The good news is that you most likely don’t have Fibromyalgia, but the bad news is that you still don’t know what illness you have, and you’re still feeling pain without knowing how you should treat it!
Many medical professionals believe that you can still have fibromyalgia even if your pain from pressure points is fewer than 11. This is why many doctors and medical professionals have tossed out the idea of the pressure points for diagnosing fibromyalgia. Another diagnoses process has yet to be formulated together that will prove to be as effective as the pressure points process was.
You’ll want to stay in touch with the latest Fibromyalgia news and research to see if anything comes up, if you agree with the doctors who believe that the pressure points process is an ineffective means of diagnosing fibromyalgia. Currently, however, a majority of doctors and medical professionals do trust in the pressure points process, so you’ll have to talk to your personal doctor to get their opinion on how to effectively diagnose and then treat fibromyalgia.
Something else that you could have besides fibromyalgia is chronic fatigue system, if you do not pass the test of having more than 11 pressure points with pain. If you don’t have pain in less than 11 of the pressure points, and if other tests are run that seem to support the fact that you officially don’t have fibromyalgia, then doctors might instead test you for chronic fatigue syndrome.
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