Fibromyalgia and Lyme disease share some symptoms, but they are very different diseases. In this video, family medicine specialist Dr. Jennifer Caudle explains how that affects the way these problems are diagnosed and treated.
So first of all fibromyalgia and lyme disease are two very different conditions. They're not one in the same, and they are very different. One thing that's really important to keep in mind with fibromyalgia in particular is that there is no one blood test or x-ray or cat scan that you can do to diagnose it. Lyme disease on the other hand, while it might have symptoms that are very similar to fibromyalga, lyme disease is a completely different entity, it's an infectious disease, and there are blood test first and foremost to be able to detect it.
So no they are very different conditions, and they are diagnosed in different ways and they even have different causes.
Jennifer Caudle, DO, is a board-certified family medicine physician and graduate of Princeton University. She is currently an assistant professor in the department of Family Medicine at Rowan University-School of Osteopathic Medicine.
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