I was, and I know of others. (1) There could be more than one reason for this: there may be pain and inflammation and swelling BEFORE damage shows up on diagnostic x-rays.  So the pain could be attributed to FM until the clinical picture of RA is apparent.

(2)  I seem to have more FM symptoms when my RA is better controlled.  Whether that's because I am moving more, or because the energy of the disease takes another pathway, I don't know.  (3)  Fibromyalgia can be triggered by similar things, infection, trauma, stress, as RA.  It can also develop with any situation where there is a lot of long-standing pain, because the nervous system gets 'stressed', oversensitized, and overreacts.  There is evidence (I'm told by my dr.) that the neurons will keep on firing "pain' signals even after the cause of the pain has gone. 

     In my case the diagnosis was only a couple months apart.  I had been having pain and tendinitis in various parts of my body for a number of years - shoulder, ankle, toe, neck, wrist, thumb - You always hear that RA affects the joints, only rarely do you hear that it can also inflame tendons, etc.  (Lene has mentioned it !)

     The immediate trigger for my FM was a colonoscopy, but that was preceded by a sense of overwhelming stress & doom that I cannot even begin to describe, except as bone-chilling fear, coming from some difficult things in my past, mostly psychological stress.  But which is the chicken and which is the egg?  I know for sure that my brain is NOT what it once was.  It's not always 'fibro-fog', I'd be more likely to call it 'arthritis of the brain' - I think more slowly, not necessarily fuzzily (though indeed sometimes that's the case, LOL!)  It's more that, my brain used to move at lightning speed, and I couldn't even tell you how, why, I couldn't keep up with it myself.  Maybe it had to burn itself out.  But on the other hand, I am paying attention to things that I barely acknowledged before, more the value/emotional side of things.  RA is a tough price to pay for finally giving my emotions their due - and I still have great trouble speaking my deepest feelings, (writing works much better) but (as a few others have said) perhaps there is a purpose in all of this, and faith is a part of that, that we can learn to trust and seek.  I am a believer in Jesus Christ and would not be what I am today without the faith that is a gift - not that I go harping on it, but it's there.

Yes I was diagnosed with FM then later being treated for RA.  Can't pinpoint the first trigger, had a few surgeries, but boy do I get the brain fog, so hard to think & concentrate and I also had a pituitary tumor removed before all the other stuff started, I really believe that hormones are a factor!

YES! They kept telling me that I had Fibro, mainly because my Dr. was lazy and was just trying to pacify me. I asked him to test me for Fibro, because I was in a LOT of pain for sooo long, and this lady told me I sounded like her, and she had Fibromyalgia. So he said yep, you have it, and when I looked around on the net to learn about it, I realized it was a last-resort dx. So I went back and confronted him about it, he checked me out again, and kept saying, wow, you are STIFF! You need to work out more!" So I went to another Dr. who sent me to an orthopedist and rheumy, Orthopedist says : DDD and herniated disk around the T7, T8, and T9. and scoliosis. Rheumy gave me tests and examinations, says I have RA. I have no idea what to about them all or how to see ONE Dr. to handle them all.  It is aggravating! But yeah I think some Dr.'s dx patients with Fibro just to get rid of them or think they are pill seekers and treat them like crap. It is unfortunate...

HI my name is shawn. I was diagnosed with r/a first and then i was told it was fibromyalgia. I need to know also. take care.