Could i have Fibromyalgia or CFS?

I am a 26 year old female from Australia who would like some advice, all my life i have suffered from joint and muscle pain in my legs, as a child i have seen many doctors, physios and naturapaths who had told me that it was just growing pains. when i was 18 i contracted glandula fever also known as Mono, this no longer shows up as active on my blood tests although i dont feel i have ever recovered from it. Now that i am older i have almost constant pain in my back neck and shoulders, i get headaches alot and i have symptoms of irratable bowel syndrome not to mention i am always tired and lethargic which is not relieved by rest or sleep (what i would do to wake up feeling refreshed). My main issue is that i want to find a doctor that understands this condition so that i can be tested for it instead of constantly seeing doctor after doctor who just tell me i have depression and try to push anti-depressants on me. I am sick and tired of everyone thinking i am a lazy hypercondriac and that there is nothing wrong with me as my blood test and xrays have all come back clear. I did once have a doctor tell my that cfs was a possability but he never went onto actually diagnose me with it (this is how i first found out it existed). I do believe i may have this condition but i dont want to say i have without being diagnosed by a doctor. Any advice or support would be great as i want to know if i should continue seeking this diagnosis and how i should go about doing so.

KJDB, Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome is a diagnosis of exclusion. Most doctors will only say you have it after eliminating every other possibility.
It used to be called chronic Epstein Barr (Mono). I am assuming your doctor did an EBV test to check blood titers.
The symptoms of Fibro and CFIDS are very similar.
Some doctors call it Fibro if pain is predominant (and poor sleep) but call it CFIDS if fatigue (and sleeping a lot) is predominant.
Most people don't fit neatly into one category.

Have you tried a good Olive Leaf Extract? I used Gaia brand Olive Leaf Extract (liquid in capsules) for 3 months and after about 3-4 weeks of using it, the crashing fatigue vanished.
I've been off of the OLE now for about a week, and the fatigue has not returned.
Olive Leaf Extract is known to be a natural anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and anti-parasitical.
It might be worth a try.

The other thing you might want to try (if you haven't already) is a gluten free diet. Celiac and/or gluten intolerance can cause all the symptoms you have as well.
Have you been tested for celiac?

KJDB,

Yup, that's what you need to do - find a good doctor. I hope you do. It sounds like fibro to me, too, but as Sherrine said, you can't be sure until all the other possibilities have been eliminated.

It does get very old, just trying to live a normal life and not being able to because of some mysterious condition. :( We know!!

Debbie

p.s. I should add I am not saying this is the only thing that could be wrong. It is one thing that can add a lot of distress if not detected and addressed.
I still have fibromyalgia with a lot of other symptoms, but the gut situation ("IBS") has been resolved.
And yes, I had to discover this myself through trial and error because after my biopsy came back normal, my gastroenterologist told me I could eat anything I wanted.
He was clearly of the old school, trained in med school to believe that celiac is rare, and he would be lucky to see one case in his lifetime of practice!
(He got really excited when he thought I was that *one*. And after tests came back negative, he lost interest in the subject.)
It took another 3 years of suffering for me to finally conclude that gluten was definitely an issue, celiac or not.