Co-morbid Fibromyalgia Save

Rheumatoid Arthritis and SLE can be quite challenging to manage in clinical practice, but our arsenal of medications to tone down inflammation is becoming quite broad. However we frequently encounter patients with the difficult to manage co-morbidity of fibromyalgia.

 

Abstract 160 from Rush University Medical Center shows how common the combination of RA and fibromyalgia or SLE and Fibromyalgia may be.  Using the Fibromyalgia screening form form developed in conjunction with the ACR in 2011 to confirm a diagnosis of fibromyalgia the group from Rush found that 23.3% of patients with inflammatory arthritis, SLE, or Osteoarthritis also had fibromyalgia.

 

Concomitant fibromyalgia may be the principal reason leading to clinical failure of a biologic in a patient with RA even though the inflammatory features may have responded. Patients with fibromyalgia have more drug-reported side effects and pain-related treatment failures. This may have significant impact on the outcomes of large drug study programs. In clinical practice co-morbid fibromyalgia may make it difficult to sort out an individual patient’s pain and fatigue. It is the  feeling of the Rush Group that screening for concomitant Fibromyalgia in large scale drug studies evaluating the safety and efficacy of new medications is critically important if one is to only evaluate drug effect on disease state. 

 

This form may also be employed in clinical practice in helping to sort out possible drug failures or side effects in patients showing discordance between exam findings and voiced complaints.