Most guidelines suggest that Fibromyalgia affects people over 40 and affects 9 times as many women as men. It might be time to revise that traditional thinking according to a Daily Mail article.

A recent study found 6% of school age children in Mexico, Finland, and Israel reported muscular pain. Often when school age children complain of muscular pain they are told that it is growing pains, but it could well be Fibromyalgia.

Physicians sometimes dismiss a child’s complaint of pain because they feel the child is exaggerating their condition to gain attention or special favor, or possibly believe that it is psychosomatic, or that they are making the whole condition up. The tendency is to discount a child’s complaint of muscular pain because they are expected to be active, full of life, and far too young to suffer from Fibromyalgia.

Often a child with Fibromyalgia has symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and is sent to a gastroenterologists. The specialist the child needs to see is a rheumatologists. As most adults will testify it is difficult to find a physician who can identify Fibromyalgia symptoms. One can only imagine what a child experiences trying to find the reason for their painful condition when their is not a blood test that provides an absolute diagnosis.

To compound the problems of many children who have undiagnosed Fibromyalgia they are treated with painkillers, which is not helpful in treating the long-term condition.