Why don't some people believe that fibromyalgia is real?

Non-specific.: Despite all the pain \studies (brain scans, pet scans. Fluids in the spinal cord, none are specific for fibromyalgia. They occur in all chronic pain states. Finally, in my practice, 2/3 of patients referred, have undiagnosed problems rather than firbomyalgia.

See below: The reason for this i think is that there are no blood tests, no xrays or mris or any other tests that can confirm this diagnosis. Since it happens most often in women, most doctors think that it is just a physical expression of depression. While many people with depression have pain, i see many people with fibromyalgia who had no depressive symptoms prior to the onset of diffuse muscle pain.

Fibromyalgia: People want to know cause-effect of an illness, such as high sugar-diabetes, so as to avoid being labeled hypochondriac or settling for unexplained phenomena, especially chronic ones.

Ignorance of data: The symptom constellation is diverse and heavily ladened with psychologic disarray, unhappiness, and outright depression. Within the practice of medicine there is an unfortunate tendency to ascribe, to the mind, complex symptoms for which there are no tests of proof. "hypochondria" is nowadays a term little used, but the concept continues to shadow "fibromyalgia" in the minds of some doctors.

Fibromyalgia: Ignorance, generally speaking. Things that are not readily diagnosable, out of the western world medical mainstream, or that have gotten a great deal of press as a "vogue diagnosis" aggravate this tendency. It doe not make fibro any less real to the sufferer.