For me the FM came first with muscle aches.
Then came crappy sleep or no sleep. Then
came CFS.

mine all started with intermittent flu like symptoms...devoloped into some serious leg pains...then all over pain with a few more symptoms blended in for good measure...all this breing since 1998 {or earlier}...then in 2004 the mindbending fatigue set in...i will feel Ok...and then it almost feels like someone has drugged me and I simply have no choice but to lay down...am only 43...what is 63 gonna look like ??

Thanks! Mine started with fibro in the neck and upper back, since then it has moved all over my body, now my legs, the fatigue started for me about 2 years ago. Good words msboni mindbending is just right for the explanation. I get extremely tired and feel drugged and then I get to hurting all over. Then I get cold and have to go to bed , I will be freezing and then we I finally get to warm I go to sleep and sleep for hours.

The chicken... hehe which came first the chicken or the egg.. the chicken lol
I am so lost with what came first... I seem to have it all sometimes i really honestly worry myself to death that i have multipal personalities cause one day I am so tierd and for a week i cant sleep one day i am manic then the next i am high and geesh everyday is a symptom of one of my many syndromes.. how can i be cfs and hyper and then have the flashbacks then paranoid and then so carefree so lifeless then so extremly overjoyed all in one week. There has to be one and only one name for all this.. I worry i have multipals a lot. I have been told by my closest friends even one doctor that i very well could be... I am lost so very lost.. I wonder if it started back in the time of my life that i guess i blackouted.. ages birth to about 8. Not all of it I remember some holidays. I am such a bundle of craziness. I feel totally normal non the less. I have tons of friends and they all get a kick out of me and my laughable delimas..

Ah I really don't know which came first. It seemed to come all at once for me. marilyn

In my case, I was just living my life, lalalalala, and then got dizzy one day at work. Thought I had the flu or some kind of bug. Went home. Next day, got up, felt like ten ton truck was parked on my lap. Went back to bed. By the next week with feeling worse and worse and weaker and weaker I finally ended up the emergency room thinking I was about to die.
I didn't die. After much testing and grueling procedures, I was diagnosed with CFIDS. Believe it or not, seven months later, I am still in bed most of the time.
This illness just snuck up and wacked me in the head, and it's still here.
Gotta pray myself through each day. God is my hope. As far as the fibro goes. I don't believe I have that. My pain is in my joints, but I don't have trigger points and several of the other "must haves" to be called fibromyalgia.
Sincerely, Darla

I had flu symptoms for YEARS before knowing I have CFIDS. First pain (not fibro/trigger points), then fatigue. Then diagnosis.

I think chronic fatigue came first, then inability to sleep then the fibromyalgia, for 11 years I was told it was all in my head. One gp even told me I was neurotic! Well middle finger up to that git! (he is barking mad now seen him about the town. holy moly, I think he used to be my gp!!!)