Fibromyalgia and ADHD

[BoL20]

So I came across a couple of videos on TikTok about ADHD symptoms and thought "ok, that sounds like me", so decided to Google fibromyalgia and ADHD. It seems from various studies that they can co-occur. I've never had any ADHD symptoms before my fibro reared its ugly head and was wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience.

[Hazel_Angelstar Administrator FMA UK Staff]

You can have fibromyalgia alongside any other health condition. As you have seen on Google, there are some studies which have considered that there might be a connection between adhd and fibromyalgia, however, I'm not aware of any definite links being confirmed

[BoL20 in reply to Hazel_Angelstar]

Yeah, we all have a host of co-occuring health issues! I might see if I can get it checked. Just don't want to waste the docs time.

[Bruton]

Dyslexia and dyspraxia have allot of symptoms that mirror fibro. I found allot of differentbthings that cross over. Ive had them all treated individually with little relief. Seems a bit chicken and egg. But when i found a site of 251 fibro symptoms and i scored 179 , i think theres probably something in the fibro. Im feeling better for dealing with all my issues under 1 fibro brolley, than each thing individually. Good luck

[Yiadom in reply to Bruton]

Would you be able to share the site info please? I'm currently trying to understand the symptoms of the fibro.

[Bruton in reply to Yiadom]

fibromyalgiaresources.com/l...

[denny_the_wench in reply to Bruton]

Thanks Bruton - flippin 'eck - 93 that bad enough for me

[Bruton in reply to denny_the_wench]

I was shocked at at 179😝

[BoL20 in reply to Bruton]

I got 104, but a lot of the symptoms seemed to be repeated albeit worded slightly differently 🤔

[denny_the_wench in reply to Bruton]

I was interested to see endometriosis in the list... suffered with that since I was 19 and a lot of my health issues now (weight, intestinal, kidneys etc) stem from the treatment I received in the late 70's early 80's for this disease

[desquinn Partner Volunteer FMAUK Trustee in reply to denny_the_wench]

these lists are not clinically relevant or validated and often result in symptom bingo. There is the ACR criteria which you can find here: fmauk.org/acr2016 is the best place to start. In my time with the charity I have seen these lists grow from 50 to 100 to the current 250+ I am guessing that in 10 years we should breach 500+

Using synonyms of symptoms does not mean more. Some are contradictory and some are nonsense. A symptom of a comorbid condition is not a symptom of fibro.

[denny_the_wench in reply to desquinn]

Thanks Des - love the "Symptom Bingo" 😆🤣

[desquinn Partner Volunteer FMAUK Trustee in reply to denny_the_wench]

its a often used exclamation of mine and as well as not being helpful clinically I think it hurts the awareness efforts politically.

[Midori]

ADHD is something you are born with; Fibro is something you develop. Yes thay can occur in the same person, but they are separate conditions.

[JayCeon]

ADHD: Reading closely the studies claiming that around 40%(!) of fibromites have ADHD shows they don't know much about ADHD, which they admit themselves. They have just applied a short adult-ADHD-checklist, meaning without hyperactivity, didn't even ask if ADHD had ever been diagnosed, e.g. as a child (cf. Midori's post). Result is they were questioning for brain fog (= attention deficit) and realizing that ADHD brain fog is like fibro fog. Wow... What this is helpful for tho is that people with fibro fog can use things like tokens as rewards for remembering to do things and setting the right priorities, things which work for people with ADHD. It also means if you feel like you have acquired ADHD it's because you have fibro fog...

Symptom lists: I used one of these long symptom lists (the one with subdivisions) as a starting point for the reference database I'm working on (cause, symptom & treatment lists) and was flabbergasted how it collapsed when I started ordering it sensibly, altho it seemed systematic. Apart from totally unrelated symptom being listed (probably just because the compilers had listed every symptom a group of fibromites had), there were quite a few doubles, things that didn't make sense, etc.