Fibromyalgia (FM or FMS) is a debilitating chronic syndrome characterized by diffuse or specific muscle, joint, or bone pain, fatigue, and a wide range of other symptoms. It is not contagious, and recent studies suggest that people with fibromyalgia may be genetically predisposed
Most patients with FMS say that they ache all over. Their muscles may feel like they have been pulled or overworked and sometimes the muscles twitch or burn.
While the severity of symptoms fluctuates, FMS may resemble a post-viral state. This similarity is the reason experts in the field of FMS and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) believe that these two syndromes may be one and the same.
Fibromyalgia has been studied since the early 1800s and referred to by a variety of former names, including muscular rheumatism and fibrositis. The term fibromyalgia was given in 1976 to more accurately describe the symptoms, from the Latin word fibra, meaning fiber, myo, meaning muscle, and the Greek word algos, meaning pain.

Fibromyalgia was first recognized by the American Medical Association as a "true" illness and the cause of disability in 1987. In an article the same year, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a physician named Goldenberg called the syndrome fibromyalgia