[Can we still give a fibromyalgia diagnosis?].
This article is an attempt at a critical analysis of the fibromyalgia concept. The author applies himself to describing how the profile of this syndrome, associating chronic widespread pain to allodynia, became more and more precise, until it obtained the status of disease. He emphasizes that the concept lost its initial meaning when the criteria, resulting from an ambitious scientific methodology, were used to establish a diagnosis on an individual scale. He comes to the conclusion that after a century of existence, fibromyalgia does not possess any specific quality that would distinguish it from other chronic widespread pain syndromes to make it a pure nosological entity. It is an artificial construct that adds nothing to the understanding of a pain phenomenon and allows no rational therapeutic approach.
Buchard
P A
PA
Service ambulatoire, Clinique romande de réadaptation, case postale 352, 1951 Sion.
D005356:Fibromyalgia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans