possibly fibromyalgia

I am waiting to see my doctor and don't worry, I'm not panicking and googling too much either.

Long story short, my best friends aunt is a doctor, I've had some weird pain for a few months now and talking to her a few times, in depth, she seems positive that I have fibromyalgia.

Today has been really bad though, so bad that I almost went to the emergency room.

It started yesterday as pain by/under my left shoulder blade. I thought I had pulled a muscle but wasn't sure how as I didn't do anything strenuous.
This morning I woke up, same way but more sore.
As the day went on it started to feel like there was a band strapped around my upper body - my shoulder blades are really aching and my chest wall is super sore.
If I laugh or cough, it feels like someone is pushing hard on a sore bruise, right between my shoulder blades.

I get a similar feeling across my chest and my upper back (leading and lessening the lower it goes) when I just move normally, even slowly moving.

It helped immensely getting my bra off and he isn't tight to begin with.

I just want to know if this feeling is "normal" for fibromyalgia (if I even have it)?

Hi, Bibia, and welcome! Joy is right. Fibro should not be diagnosed without going through a myriad of testing. There are other illnesses out there with many of the same symptoms as fibro. These need to be ruled out through testing because there is no good test for fibro. This is extremely important because the treatment for these illnesses is different than what is done with fibro. Once the other illnesses, like Lyme disease and lupus, are ruled out then a diagnosis of fibro is usually given. We had a member here that was diagnosed by a doctor to have fibro and it turned out she really had Lyme disease. She was given the proper medication and is doing much better.

I have extreme back pain and thought it was from fibro but then I was getting worse and worse and fibro is t considered a progressive illness so I saw a rheumatologist and found out the majority of my back pain was caused by ankylosing spondylitis. I was given the proper medication and am so much better now.

You might have something called costochondritis going on too. I have that and so do some of our members.

With fibro you have pain in all four quadrants of the body and you usually have some cognitive memory problems too. These two things generally will get a doctor thinking you might possibly have fibro but they need to do the testing mentioned above.

Be sure to read Fibro 101...the first thread on the forum. There are links to good info about fibro and you will learn a lot there. Good starting links would be Symptoms, What Else Could It Be, and A Thorough Explanation of Fibromyalgia. You might see yourself there. There also is a link about costochondritis and you could see if this sounds like what you are experiencing.

No matter what, I suggest you see a good board certified rheumatologist or Internist. Make sure they treat fibro patients because there are still doctors out there in the Dark Ages when it come to this illness.

Do let us know what you find out because we do care about you. I'm looking forward to getting to know you better. Don't hesitate to ask questions because we are here to help you. Hope to hear more from you soon.

Sherrine