Factors associated with severity of symptoms in patients with chronic unexplained muscular aching.

Subjects with chronic, diffuse, unexplained muscular aching were recruited--21 from a primary care practice, nine from a rheumatology practice, and two from a pain clinic. No additional criteria were used to select subjects. Subjects with mild or moderate symptoms differed from those with severe symptoms with respect to the following characteristics: the presence of fatigue on awakening, the number of tender points, difficulty in sleeping, and the degree of tenderness in typical fibromyalgia areas as measured by a dolorimeter. These findings suggest that muscular aching is likely to be of greater severity if other symptoms or signs of fibromyalgia are also present.

Undetected fibrositis in primary care practice.

The prevalence of symptoms related to fibrositis was investigated for patients seen in a primary care setting. Of 692 adult patients evaluated, 33 (4.6 percent) had symptoms of unexplained, chronic, diffuse muscular pain. Only three patients had been diagnosed as having fibrositis by their physician. Eighteen of 31 patients had symptoms sufficiently severe to interfere with their ability to perform their job or household chores. The percentages of these patients who met the fibrositis criteria ranged from 17 to 55 percent. These results suggest that unexplained, diffuse muscular aching is a common problem, that it is rarely diagnosed, and that the use of several criteria to define fibrositis excludes many patients with the typical primary symptoms.