What is an anxiety disorder?

Anxiety disorders are a unique group of illnesses that fill people’s lives with persistent, excessive, and unreasonable anxiety, worry, and fear. They include generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social anxiety disorder (SAD), and specific phobias. Anxiety disorders are real, serious medical conditions, but they can be treated. Read a more detailed overview.

What role does anxiety play in fibromyalgia?

In a 2006 study reported in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, participants with fibromyalgia were almost seven times more likely to have an anxiety disorder than participants without the condition. In addition, the National Sleep Foundation reports that about 20 percent of fibromyalgia patients also have an anxiety disorder or depression.

People with fibromyalgia can become anxious when even their own doctors can’t diagnose it correctly or tell them they’re just under a lot of stress. Their friends and family may not understand the condition and say it’s all in their head. “Because fibromyalgia is so confusing, other people wonder if it’s real. This contributes to the sufferer’s emotional distress,” Dr. Dennis Turk, a pain specialist at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, told the Washington Post.

Patients can also become frustrated or depressed when their pain doesn’t respond to treatment or when they can no longer perform their job or family responsibilities.

How can people with fibromyalgia and an anxiety disorder get help?

Anyone suffering from chronic pain and an anxiety disorder should see a medical professional who can properly diagnose the conditions and work with the patient to develop an individual treatment plan. That may mean seeing one doctor for fibromyalgia and another for an anxiety disorder — a rheumatologist, for example, may not know enough about mental health to properly treat an anxiety disorder but can effectively treat fibromyalgia. If that is the case, be sure to inform each physician you see about all the medications you’re taking, or ask that the physicians work together on a treatment plan. Try to find a therapist who specializes in anxiety disorders.