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Rheumatology 2001; 40: 348
© 2001 British Society for Rheumatology

Letters to the Editor

Fibromyalgia syndrome

M. G. Wright

12 Den Close, Beckenham, Kent BR3 6RP, UK

SIR, J. Taylor et al. [1] are to be congratulated on showing that 10% of a group of SLE patients could be classified as suffering from fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Croft and colleagues [2, 3] report that tender points are found in the population at large and may be considered a sign of distress rather than disease.

One can but wonder at such a low incidence of distress in a group of patients, most if not all of whom would be suffering pain. Fatigue and sleep disturbance are surely a feature of most chronic diseases.

Is it not time to consign FMS to the historical waste bin? There is, of course, a significant proportion of the population who fulfil the criteria. There is also a significant proportion of sufferers from osteoarthritis who fulfil the ACR criteria for rheumatoid arthritis, but clearly do not have rheumatoid arthritis.

FMS was well defined by D. Blake [personal communication]—‘It's what we all suffer on a bad day’! Let us not make a group of sensitive people into patients for whom there is no treatment. Mäkelä, as quoted by ‘Robin Goodfellow’ [4], has summed up reasonably.

References

  1. Taylor J, Skan J, Erb N et al. Lupus patients with fatigue—is there a link with fibromyalgia syndrome? Rheumatology2000;39:620–3.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  2. Croft P, Burt J, Schollum J, Thomas E et al. More pain, more tender points: is fibromyalgia just one end of a continuous spectrum? Ann Rheum Dis1996;55:482–5.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  3. Croft P, Schollum J, Silman A. Population study of tender point counts and pain as evidence of fibromyalgia. Br Med J1994; 309:696–9.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  4. ‘Robin Goodfellow’. Rheumatology2000;39:686.[Free Full Text]
Accepted 2 September 2000


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