An important point of diagnosis is the differences in severity between fatigue and pain.Directly quoting the article:"The difference between chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia is the intensity of fatigue and pain. Chronic fatigue syndrome involves severe fatigue and mild pain; fibromyalgia involves severe pain and mild fatigue. Also, fibromyalgia is accompanied by tenderness in multiple areas of the body."
Of course if you are only suffering from one, how do you know how to compare, as a patient?
It's not easy to communicate intensity and severity of symptoms to your physician, as these things can be subjective, based on your own personal experience. One rule of thumb I like to tell people about communicating severity is that:If you are experiencing a level 10 severity (the highest level, most severe), you would be thinking of going to the emergency room if it were to persist for more than 20 minutes; you would have loss of function; you would feel like cutting off the affected body part to relieve the symptom. A severe pain or fatigue would be slightly less than that, but would definitely impact function and you would be seeking medical treatment for the symptom. On a scale of one to 10, you would report a severe pain or fatigue as a level 7, 8 or 9.
So ask yourself, which is worse- the pain, or the fatigue? And then quantify both on the scale of 1-10, and communicate it to your healthcare provider in that way. If you or a loved one is struggling with either of these issues, II hope this is helpful! <3
http://reference.medscape.com/viewarticle/842828