No one really posts on here.  I tried and never got much replies.  My rhuemy never even checkd for tender points.  He just said thats what it is and walked out.  I wouldn't know if I truly did or didn't.  Best of luck.

Nicole

I don't know if you can have fibro without tender points but i'm pretty sure that those tender points are an important part of the diagnostic criteria. However, I am wondering if you have the diagnosis of RA, then why does the rheumatologist want to know if you have fibro too? Would it make some kind of difference in your treatment? Was the question brought up because you have pain that he feels goes beyond what should be there with the amt of disease activity of the RA? I had many doctors diagnose me with fibro because I had pain in a few of the tender points, but none of the other symptoms. But they also didn't actually have a clue about what was wrong with me and so they said that I had fibro in order to explain why I had pain. However, because the rheumatologists never did any MRIs on my joints, they had no idea that those tender points were actually just the result of my tendons turning into scar tissue. So, my tender points weren't even really tender points.
Aside from that though, if the question was brought up in response to you having more pain than he felt you should have according to your amt of disease activity and if you actually would benefit from something like lyrica, neurontin could be an option. My ex ex rheumatologist had me on a ton of lyrica for my joint pain and it made me really stupid, but then later on my neurologist switched me to neurontin and I find that it helps more with the pain without knocking so many points off of my IQ and without putting me in low gear.