A Tokyo woman’s long struggle to find an explanation for severe, persistent pain is drawing renewed attention to fibromyalgia and the challenges faced by patients whose symptoms can be difficult to recognize through routine medical tests.
Reina Serikyaku, a 30-year-old certified care worker, says her symptoms began when she was a junior high school student on Ishigaki Island in Okinawa. During class, she suddenly experienced intense chest pain and was taken to a hospital by ambulance.
But the initial examinations offered no clear explanation. Blood tests and an electrocardiogram did not show abnormalities.
As the years passed, the pain did not disappear. After moving to Tokyo, Serikyaku says the symptoms spread throughout her body. She visited numerous medical institutions and underwent examinations, but a clear diagnosis remained elusive.
At one point, she was reportedly told that the symptoms were psychological and that she should not take them too seriously. For Serikyaku, that experience became one of the most painful parts of the ordeal because she felt that her illness itself was being denied.
Eventually, she stopped going to hospitals.
Her situation changed about a year and a half ago when her husband, concerned about the pain he saw her experiencing, found a medical facility specializing in fibromyalgia. More than a decade after her symptoms first appeared, Serikyaku finally received a diagnosis.
She described the diagnosis as finally reaching the starting line for confronting her illness.
Why Fibromyalgia Can Be So Difficult to Diagnose
Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain condition associated with widespread pain and can also involve fatigue, unrefreshing sleep, cognitive difficulties and other symptoms. Unlike many diseases that can be confirmed through a single blood test or imaging scan, fibromyalgia is generally diagnosed through a clinical assessment of symptoms while other possible causes are considered and ruled out.
Research published in Scientific Reports has also highlighted the complexity of the condition. A Japanese observational study found distinct patterns among fibromyalgia patients involving pain sensitivity and communication between brain regions involved in attention and pain processing, underscoring that patients can experience severe pain through different underlying mechanisms.
That complexity helps explain why a patient can experience debilitating symptoms even when conventional examinations do not reveal an obvious physical abnormality.
Japan’s Fibromyalgia Patients Face More Than Pain
According to the Jiji Press report carried by Nippon.com, Japan is estimated to have around 2 million people living with fibromyalgia. Because symptoms can be difficult for others to see or measure, patients may also face misunderstanding from family members, colleagues and even within the healthcare system.
Access to specialized care can present another challenge.
The Japanese Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain Society has established a nationwide medical network involving roughly 130 medical institutions with trained physicians, although the availability of specialist facilities varies by region, according to the Jiji report.
For patients whose symptoms interfere with employment, the consequences can extend beyond healthcare. The report also points to financial and workplace difficulties associated with living with persistent symptoms.
Serikyaku has now begun sharing her experience through social media, where she says she regularly receives messages from people struggling to find hospitals capable of treating them or trying to convince family members that their symptoms are real.
Her own online writing describes the difficulty of living with a condition that may not be obvious from the outside and her desire to use her experience to help others who feel alone.
Fibromyalgia Research Is Moving Forward
While Serikyaku’s story centers on awareness and access to care, scientific research is also producing new clues about fibromyalgia.
A major study published in Nature Medicine in July 2026 analyzed genetic information from more than 2.5 million people, including 54,629 individuals with fibromyalgia. Researchers identified 26 genetic risk loci and found that the genetic signals were particularly enriched in brain tissue and neural cell types. The authors said the findings provide genetic evidence supporting fibromyalgia as a disorder involving the central nervous system.
The finding does not mean that fibromyalgia has been reduced to a single genetic cause. Instead, it adds evidence to the growing understanding that the condition is biologically complex and involves how the nervous system processes pain.
Treatment research is also continuing in Japan. A Phase IIa clinical trial of ONO-1110 for Japanese patients with fibromyalgia was registered in Japan’s clinical research system, with the study examining the drug’s efficacy, safety and pharmacokinetics. The registry lists the study as completed, but a completed clinical trial should not be interpreted as proof that a new treatment has been approved or established as effective without reviewing the full results and regulatory status.
Other recent international research has explored non-drug approaches. A 2026 randomized clinical trial involving 459 people with fibromyalgia found that adding transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, or TENS, to routine physical therapy produced a statistically significant and clinically meaningful reduction in movement-related pain, with benefits sustained for at least six months.
The Bigger Issue Is Recognition
For Serikyaku, however, the immediate issue is not simply finding another treatment. It is making sure people experiencing unexplained, persistent pain are taken seriously and can reach appropriate medical care.
Her experience illustrates a difficult reality of fibromyalgia: the absence of an obvious abnormality on routine testing does not mean a patient’s pain is imaginary.
By speaking publicly about the years she spent without a diagnosis, Serikyaku hopes other patients will have an easier path to medical care and support.
For the estimated millions of people affected in Japan, that recognition could be just as important as the next medical breakthrough.
And after more than a decade of searching for an answer, her story raises a question that goes beyond one patient: how many people are still living with severe pain while waiting for someone to recognize what they are experiencing?
WWC ONE MEDIA MJE
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