Fibromyalgia affects an estimated 10 million Americans, yet doctors still do not know its exact cause. The condition has been recognized for centuries, but it had no prescription medication until 2007, and doctors still cannot confirm it with a single diagnostic test. Diagnosis often takes years because physicians must first rule out other conditions, and the name itself reveals almost nothing since it comes from Latin and Greek roots meaning "tissue," "muscle," and "pain." That has left millions of patients living with a life-altering disorder that medicine recognizes as real but still does not fully understand.
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