Blood Test for Fibromyalgia: What You Need to Know

The FM/a test is still new and subject to research. Many doctors don’t use it yet, and insurers may not cover the cost. Doctors may still use current diagnostic criteria as confirmation.

Fibromyalgia is a neurologic condition that causes pain across most or all of the body. A neurologic condition is one that affects the nervous system.

Fibromyalgia affects 2 to 4 percent of people. More women than men have the condition.

The primary symptoms of fibromyalgia are:

Even though fibromyalgia is a common condition, it’s very challenging to diagnose.

Diagnosis can be a lengthy process of ruling out other diseases and medical conditions. This process could even take years for some people.

In the past, fibromyalgia hasn’t had a specific diagnostic test. However, some doctors and researchers think they may have found one in the FM/a test.

Let’s take a look at current methods of reaching a diagnosis of fibromyalgia as well as the FM/a test.

The symptoms of fibromyalgia are often similar to those of other conditions. Before your healthcare provider considers a diagnosis of fibromyalgia, they’ll want to rule out these conditions.

The conditions that have symptoms that resemble fibromyalgia are:

These conditions can be diagnosed, or ruled out, through blood tests.

Some blood tests your healthcare provider may order to rule out other conditions include:

If these tests are negative for these similar conditions, your healthcare provider will start looking more at a possible fibromyalgia diagnosis.

There have been some promising studies on a possible diagnostic blood test for fibromyalgia. It’s called an FM/a test.

The test collects plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) in a small sample of your blood. It tests the concentration of cytokines within your blood sample.

Significantly lower levels of cytokines may be an indicator of fibromyalgia. Abnormal levels of cytokines have been linked to being a trait in people with fibromyalgia.

Because of this link, researchers are hoping that the FM/a test may prove to be a way to more definitively diagnosis fibromyalgia.

The research that has been done up to this point does show promise that the FM/a test may be able to diagnose fibromyalgia.

However, more clinical trials need to be done before this test will be fully recognized as a diagnostic tool for fibromyalgia.

There are some steps that you can take to help determine if you might have fibromyalgia.

These steps are part of the diagnostic criteria and information that your healthcare provider will need to know before being able to give you a correct diagnosis.

Gathering this information before making an appointment will help your healthcare provider better determine the next steps in your diagnosis.

Some of the steps to test yourself are:

After you collect this information, if you think you may have fibromyalgia, it’s recommended that you make an appointment to see your healthcare provider.

They’ll ask you a number of questions. The information gathered in your journal will help you answer those questions.

Currently, most healthcare providers still use the traditional criteria for diagnosing fibromyalgia.

This diagnostic process includes:

The FM/a test is still new and subject to research. Many healthcare providers may not use it yet, and some insurance companies may not cover the cost.

However, even with the FM/a test, it’s likely that your healthcare provider will still use the current diagnostic criteria as confirmation.

Primary care healthcare providers are now much more familiar with fibromyalgia and its symptoms than they were in the past.

This familiarity will likely help you to get a diagnosis more quickly, while the FM/a test continues through additional clinical trials.

If you’re interested in having the FM/a test, talk to your healthcare provider. It may be an option for you.

Your healthcare provider may also recommend that you get some information on possibly participating in a clinical trial for the test.

Best website speed test tool in 2023

The best website speed test tools make it easy to speed up your webpages to better help users and search engines.

Website speed tests have become increasingly important for marketing, and web development. While there was always supposed to be understanding that it was better to load up your website fast for users, this hasn't always been taken on board by website developers.

Even in the age of the dial-up modem, some web developers still insisted on large images that could take time to load. And the arrival of high-speed broadband has allowed lazy web development to focus on bloating code, rather than the user experience. 

This in itself could be a problem when it comes to marketing, but it's also become an issue in search engine optimization (SEO) because search engines such as Google now take into account page loading speed as a ranking metric. In other words, it your targeted webpage takes a long time to load, Google will preference competitor webpages that don't.

This has caused another resurgence in interest for optimizing the page loading speed of websites. While there are plenty of developers who have always kept to best practices, everyone is now under extra pressure to deliver on page loading time savings - or risk losing important web traffic through search engine results.

We've compared these tools across various points, from the simplicity of their user interface and steepness of the learning curve to their overall performance and the quality of site analysis. We also assessed their diagnostics and performance suggestions and considered their pricing models, among other things.

Here therefore we'll list the best website speed test tools, to ensure you're giving the most for your user experience. 

We've also reviewed the best link building and backlink analysis tools, the best WordPress SEO tools, and the best WordPress form plugins. 

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

1. PageSpeed Insights

The best website performance testing tools

Free

Easy to use

Diagnostics

Suggestions

Slightly inaccurate results when re-analyzing a URL

PageSpeed Insights is a developer tool provider by Google and powered by their Lighthouse platform, which is also available through the Chrome browser as well as in Google Analytics (User Behavior > Site Speed). The standalone PageSpeed Insights webpage, though, is one of the most accessible ways to get more of the information you need on helping to improve your website speed.

Simply enter your target URL in the box provided, and it will provide a report on key areas to look out for, as well as suggestions for improvement. Curiously, though, note that the webpage may provide a different score that accessing Lighthouse either through Chrome or Google Analytics.

Even still, there are helping indicators aside from overall scoring, such as how fast the first text and images appear, as well as how long it takes for the page to become interactive. There are also two main helpful sections such as Opportunities that offer ways to easily improve page speed loading times, and Diagnostics which provide more specific details on areas for improvement.

This is a great free tool for providing a general overview, but it's aimed more at web developers than webmasters, so the casual user shouldn't expect to be able to understand all of the information provided.

2. GTmetrix

The best website speed checker

User-friendly interface

Strong free tier

Comprehensive suggestions

Fewer number of test locations

GTmetrix provides an excellent website speed checker that's easy to use through its clean user interface. Once you've entered your URL, it provides a nicely presented set of information on your speed test, based on its server in Canada. While other locations might be preferable, the information provided is excellent.

For a start, there's a long list of potential issues provided, which are ranked by perceived importance and additionally scored according to how well you're doing. Additionally, each section can be expanded to provided specific examples of files that might require your attention, such as JavaScript or image files.

There are also paid-for plans available, with offer an expanded range of options such as device simulation, user-agent override, screen resolution and pixel ratio, DNS override, and customized presets.

GTmetrix offers a minimal Solo plan costing around $10 per month. The Starter plan, aimed at small businesses allows for a larger number of URLs to be monitored on a more convenient time basis. This plan costs around $21 per month. There are also business packages available monitoring multiple pages and scenarios, starting with the Champion plan with the price set around $64 per month.

Even sticking to the free version, there's plenty to work with, and even better it's likely that most webmasters would be able to understand much of the terminology and so be able to deal with at least some website speed issues directly without having to employ a coder.

3. Dareboost

The best page speed test tool

Global geolocation options

Detailed report

Clear presentation

Fewer number of test locations

Dareboost offers a free page speed test that provides a quality and performance report using a simple and user friendly graphical interface. This involves a long list of key pointers that are clearly presented, and offer useful insights that are accessible for inexperienced users as well as web developers.

Key information is presented in a series of charts that provide a quick visual overview of website performance and page loading speed. Additionally, a list of tips and best practices is shown and how these apply to your website, covering both areas to improve upon as well as areas you're clear on. You can browse through these as a general list, or by category, such as for impact on accessibility, security, or SEO. The information is well presented, and clear explanations are detailed as required.

Dareboost also provides paid-for plans for more extensive monitoring, allowing you to increase the number of pages and the intervals between monitoring checks. You can configure your own plan, or you can use one of the existing default plans, both of which offer multi-user access as well as unlimited analysis reports.

Overall, Dareboost offers a great free tool to provide a general overview that is easy to use for general users, and could be especially useful for novices just trying to gain some useful insights on how to improve their page speeds.

4. Pingdom

The best site speed test

Choice of geolocations

Good for novices

Quick general overview

Pingdom offers a free website speed test that aims to provide useful information for both novice and advanced users to help identify ways in which your website speed can be improved. 

The results themselves are presented in a simple and easy to understand way, providing a concise set of metrics that were tested, along with information on content and file requests using a clear set of charts. This helps identify which file types may especially be slowing your site, whether CSS, images, JavaScript, or even the domains these are loaded from.

A key plus is that you can run the test from different geolocations in order to see not just how fast or slow your website loads, but how it performs according to users from a number of places around the world. This makes it useful not just for helping speed up your website but also to identify potential bottlenecks for global users.

Pingdom's free test is relatively basic and provides less actionable information than some of the others listed here, making it good for inexperienced users to get a handle on their website speed, but perhaps not so useful for developers except to provide a quick general overview. 

However, this tool is just one of a larger set of more complex ones that are available on a paid-for plan, to help with overall website and user-experience monitoring.

The cost for their service starts at as little as around $10 per month if paid annually.

5. Alertra

The best ping test site

Website monitoring

Global ping tests

Service checks

Uptime data's stored only for 3 years (web monitoring)

Alertra offers a simple and free ping service for monitoring the uptime of your website(s). Although it's not technically a webpage speed test, as much as a ping for testing global connections, it is still very much the best and most popular ping service out there.

The free test is basically just to determine whether your website is still online and available for internet users, and provides results from over a dozen global locations, namely based across North America, Europe, and Asia. These then provide response times and rates to help determine how fast your website loads around the world, and highlight any potential connection bottlenecks.

The real value of Alertra, though, is through the use of its subscription plan, which allows you to easily monitor multiple pages along with multiple website services such as HTTP, PING, TCP, SMTP, POP3, IMAP4, TELNET, SSH, DNS, NNTP, FTP, and MySQL. 

While must of this guide is focused simply on improving the loading speed of webpages, a website monitoring service such as Alertra deserves a place in the list due to the fact that it doesn't matter how much you configure your CSS, JavaScript, or image rendering, if a key service fails then your website is not simply likely to slow but also fail to work properly, which has to be a key consideration to watch out for alongside general optimization. 

Prices start at $10 per month.

We've also featured the best webpage change monitoring software.

A website speed test tool helps to evaluate and pinpoint what aspects of a site are causing a slowdown in the loading times. It analyzes the total load time, the load speeds from multiple server locations, the HTTP headers, etc. 

A website's loading speed is a vital factor that influences the site's traffic. The  slower the loading speed, the more likely visitors are going to leave the website. 

When selecting the best website speed test tool, start with assessing whether you want to opt for a paid tool or a free one. Free tools will offer basic functionality and testing, but will likely lack advanced site analysis and high performance. 

You'll want to evaluate the user interface and opt for something simple if you're a beginner, but advanced users will do fine with complex interfaces. 

Look out for the depth of site speed analysis and check if the tool informs you of how fast the first text and images appear and how much time it takes for the page to become interactive. 

Advanced tools will offer opportunities to improve the page speed loading times, and it'll help if you opt for a tool like that. Tools that provide comprehensive diagnostics will help you pinpoint specific areas that need improvement. 

Lastly, you'll want to check whether the tool just offers website speed testing or if it has other capabilities, like website monitoring. 

When testing the best website speed test tools, we looked at their user interface, learning curve, and overall quality of site analysis. 

We evaluated their performance and reliability with results, and gauged what types of users they'd be most suitable for. We considered how in-depth the analysis was, whether the tools would offer clear diagnostics on areas of improvement, and point out opportunities to enhance overall page speeds. 

We checked whether the tools offer other features along with site testing, like website monitoring. We also considered the pricing models, among other aspects.

Read more on how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar.

How We Test Products and Services

For more than 25 years, CNET has built a reputation as the premier source for trustworthy, no-nonsense reviews on everything tech – from phones to TVs to laptops to tablets to streaming services. If you can snap a picture with it, watch it, type on it or subscribe to it, chances are we've reviewed it. 

In addition to every type of technology device, we've expanded over time to cover home products, energy providers, health and wellness, broadband services and personal finance choices, evaluating everything from meal kits to solar panel companies to mattresses to hearing aids to electric cars and scooters. No matter what we're evaluating, we'll always be transparent about the unbiased and unmatched testing standards that went into our review. 

All reviews and "best list" product rankings share the same commitments to excellence: 

Independence: The products and services we recommend are independently, editorially chosen for evaluation, review and recommendation.

Expertise: Our team of experts has decades of combined experience mastering their specialities.

Hands-on tests: We unbox, touch and test the products we cover whenever possible. For services, we subscribe, test and use them ourselves.

Research: When we can't test a product or service hands-on, we make recommendations based on reporting and research. We also consider experiences from industry experts and customers.

Value: We take pricing into account and focus on finding the best option at the most affordable cost. 

What makes CNET unique is our tried-and-true process for evaluating a product with repeatable tests performed by our labs and reviewers with deep understanding of their beats. Our reviewers have built their expertise with hands-on experience and relationships with industry experts we call on for perspective.

Watch this: Go Behind the Scenes at CNET's TV Testing Lab

It starts before the new product is even announced. We're intimately familiar with buying cycles and attuned to rumors and release dates months in advance, covering the lead-up to big product announcements and leveraging our relationships with manufacturers to give readers the scoop. We use this knowledge to pinpoint exactly which products we'll be reviewing and why, considering factors like pricing, popularity and new features.

Many of the devices we review are production samples supplied by manufacturers. They're sent to us as part of a short- or long-term loan agreement. This arrangement lets us publish the review as soon as possible, sometimes even before a product goes on sale, and to compare and retest the product deeper in its life cycle. 

If we identify a product we want to review but can't get it from the manufacturer for some reason, we'll buy it. After a review publishes, we often hang onto the product for updates and follow-up coverage, including comparisons with competing gadgets. Products loaned to CNET are returned to the manufacturer after the loan period ends.

Say hello to our robot vacuum test room. It's specifically designed to simulate furniture and obstacles a robot will encounter in the real world.

Once the product arrives, the review process varies by product category, but all reviews follow a similar structure:

Setup: We unbox the device (often with an unboxing video) and set it up like any user would, connecting it to the internet if appropriate and installing the latest software. Unlike any user, we document the setup process and note how it compares to competing devices.

Look and feel: We use the product and note its design and how it feels to operate, leaning on photos and video to illustrate our findings. 

Features: We note its capabilities and how they compare to similar gadgets, concentrating on new and interesting extras and how (or if) they're actually worthwhile.

Performance: We test those capabilities rigorously, using the device as intended for hours or days and reporting our impressions. We use the same set of tests we have used for similar products to ensure that we find variations in performance across the industry.

Here's the PC test bench at our NYC lab, where we use a series of benchmarks to determine performance and also test battery life and screen brightness.

Lab testing: For many product categories, we capture performance data in a lab using standardized tests. For example, in our New York lab we test battery life and screen brightness for laptops and measure color and gaming lag for TVs. And in our Louisville facility, we created a specialized testing platform lab to compare how much dirt a vacuum picks up -- up to and including tracking the cleaning trails for robot vacuums, too. But whether that testing happens in Manhattan, Kentucky or at myriad off-site locations, we store our data for future comparisons to other products. And soon we'll be using that data to better identify long-term trends within categories, too. 

Verdict: All of those impressions are gathered together in the review. In many cases we publish a numeric rating from 1 to 10, along with what we liked and didn't like. 

If we encounter a major issue during testing, we work with the manufacturer to resolve it and report on that process. At every point in the reviews process, however, our editors and testers maintain full control over the review as it appears on CNET.

We test mattresses by trying various sleeping positions and gather our favorites into our Best Mattresses list.

In most categories, we gather our reviews into best lists, which put our most-recommended products in one place, rank them according to numerous criteria, and designate superlatives such as Best Overall, Best Value and Best Design. These lists are intended to be a one-stop shop for information on categories we cover, including links to how we test that category, frequently asked questions and seasonal price trends.

The traditional CNET review covers physical products you can touch, but a growing number of things you buy today are services, typically available for a monthly fee. We review those too. They include streaming services like Netflix, YouTube TV and Spotify, financial services like credit cards and tax software, home services like meal kits and wine clubs, and utility services like internet service providers (ISPs), cellphone plans, password managers and virtual private networks (VPNs). 

Like with physical devices, our reviews and best lists of services vary depending on what the service provides. With streaming services, we weigh the pricing, catalog and ease of use. With credit cards, we scour the fine print and compare welcome bonuses, interest rates and promos. With VPNs, we test and evaluate numerous factors including speed, privacy, data leaks and value. We focus on reportable facts and, where appropriate, tailor our recommendations to different locations. We have separate lists for the best internet providers in New York City, Atlanta and Houston, for example, and we're adding more locations all the time.

Meal kits are one of the many services we test hands-on.

It all comes down to editorial integrity. We're transparent about how we make money, from advertisements and affiliate commissions, which include clear disclosures. Other companies don't have any say in our reviews, and in cases where content on CNET is sponsored by a third party, we present a disclosure. We do not use generative AI (artificial intelligence) in our hands-on reviews, and when we write about AI in general we have a separate disclosure. 

In some cases we also present multiple perspectives. For example, health journalism is a topic that changes with new studies, so we created the CNET Medical Review Network, a group of health professionals who review and vet our content to make sure it accurately represents current medical guidelines, research and standards of care.

In short, trust is our stock in trade and remains so after a quarter-century of reviews. Call us biased, but we think no other reviewers do it better.

Watch this: How we test all types of vacuums in our custom-built lab

Below, you'll find links to methodologies for many of the product and service categories we write about.