Fibromyalgia Tender Points Test Yourself

See resources for a link to maps of these points.

Fibromyalgia tender points test yourself. If you have fibromyalgia you may have tender points at the back of the neck where the base of the skull and the neck meet. The test collects plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cells pbmc in a small sample of your blood. A patient has to have 11 out of the 18 characteristic tender points and have suffered from the symptoms for more than 3 months to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia. In the past at least 11 of these 18 spots had to test positive for tenderness to diagnose fibromyalgia.

Your doctor can test the painful tender points during a physical exam. There are no reliable diagnostic test for fibromyalgia just yet. Fibromyalgia tender points are located in clusters around the neck chest shoulders elbows hips and knees. Educational materials by dr.

They re located on both sides of the body both above and below the waist. This concise video clip demonstrates how to screen for and identify the 14 tender points that patients with fibromyalgia a chronic pain condition experience. Apply pressure with the pad of your thumb to the 18 tender points associated with fibromyalgia. Hold the pressure for four seconds then rank the pain associated with the pressure on a scale from zero to 10 where zero represents no pain at all and 10 is the worst pain you ve ever experienced.

But you also need to tell her about the exact pain you feel in those areas. It tests the concentration of cytokines within your blood sample. Old guidelines required tender points fibromyalgia is also often characterized by additional pain when firm pressure is applied to specific areas of your body called tender points. Instead the diagnosis is made by a physical exam of pressure points that takes about five minutes.