Often times people look at the symptoms of life, non-specific general and common things

like pain, fatigue, and stress, and design to it a diagnosis of some new condition they

invent. For a long time this is how many in the medical profession viewed the non-specific

chronic pain condition, now called fibromyalgia. Today we're going to check in and see what's

the latest on this mysterious condition. That's coming up next on Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid. I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com. That elusive fibromyalgia.

Today we're going to head down to our doctor's office with a complaint that he hears all too often.

We have pain, we're tired, we get headaches, and our hands and feet might be numb in the

morning. And along with that pain comes some stiffness. It's like, doc, I just don't feel

all that great. Don't fret because your doctor has heard it all before, but also don't expect

to be able to guess what your doctor is going to say. The diagnosis of fibromyalgia,

non-specific pain that doesn't seem to have any particular source, is as controversial as

just about any other subject at your doctor's office. Some believe it's a real physical condition,

some believe it's purely psychogenic, and some think it doesn't exist at all. What is really known

about this popular but vague diagnosis? Everything about fibromyalgia is rife with red flags.

Sham treatments for it are offered in magazine ads and on late-night television info

commercials. You'll see it advertised on billboards. Books, websites, special diets, and

worthless supplements are all marketed to sufferers just as aggressively as is the condition

itself. The more people can be convinced that they have it, the more product they'll buy.

Chapter in verse, fibromyalgia bears every single warning sign of a pseudoscience. But where

it veers from this course and enters the realm of real science is that a growing number of medical

researchers believe that there is something real here, and some cases are now even proving to be

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