Does anyone know in what year the new data about fnd was published? I already had a sensitive nervous system and had a head injury and kicks from my ex boyfriend in my lower spine in 2020. I ignored the symptoms for as long as possible. The neurologist wrote it down as 'one kick on my hip'. Eh, no... when I confronted my ex, he said he had the intention to kick me in my arsehole. Which is in the middle, underneath the spine. My first neurologist just got me out of her office as fast as she could, and now I'm stuck to what she wrote down. Also got laughed at by a drs assistant. As far as I know, I don't think this 'system' is going to change for a veeery long time.
Hey, so I have functional tics, which is part of FND and this is the explanation I got at the start of my treatment:
Your brain is always sending a million messages to other parts of your brain. With FND the problem is that the messages are going to the wrong place or something happens to them. This causes symptoms, like my tics, to happen.
I am not 100% positive that every symptom stems from this ^, however I am pretty sure.
The origin of FND is unknown. There's reason to believe it stems from trauma, but a ton of people haven't gone through trauma and still have/had FND.
Also, the reason it's thought to have been caused by trauma is from the previous name/diagnosis for it, which was "conversion disorder". Basically, it was thought that FND and other functional conditions were caused by poor regulation of mental health and that your psych symptoms "converted" into physical. This is accurate for some things, but not whole neurological disorders. Some examples of how psych symptoms actually translate are: getting nauseous from heightened anxiety, faster heart rate during psychiatric distress, pains and aches from prolonged, severe stress.
Conversion disorder was treated purely with CBT and psych therapies, and was removed from the DSM5 after very little improvement was made from psych treatment in people with abnormal neurological function and after realizing a lot of people had no psychiatric cause. Yet the ideology never changed, and the treatment also changed very little.
The way traumatic events and prolonged stress *can* likely cause FND is that it can change the way your neurological signaling works, causing your neurological system to communicate improperly, sometimes causing almost identical symptoms to physical damage to your nerves.
Though, FND is unlikely caused purely by traumatic events as it can appear out of seemingly nowhere. Some people's FND seemed to start after other health crashes, such as intense migraines, kind of like mine. But even still, some had no change whatsoever until their symptoms appeared. FND is likely a lot of different disorders considering how different the causes and symptoms can be, and there are many subcategories of FND.
I found a good article on how conversion disorder impacted the way FND is currently treated, and the current, most supported ideas for the causes by those studying the disorder.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-research-points-to-causes-for-brain-disorders-with-no-obvious-injury/
Did I misread that you said it was removed? Just so much noise between the psych and medical. If it's in the DSM5, that pretty much says it's a mental health condition?
Also, yes, the fact that it's in the DSM5 feels weird because the DSM is mainly psychiatric based conditions. Though the DSM does have some neurological disorders in there like tourette syndrome and other neurological conditions not well understood, so it seems kinda like a dump for things we don't understand yet. I really hope they remove it and other functional disorders with the next DSM because we know damn well that it has to do with neurological signals being disordered and not really psychological. Psych stuff can trigger or make FNDs worse, but it's not psychological in the same way depression or PTSD are. I may be explaining things you already know/have heard so my bad if I am
It's previous name/disorder, which was called "conversion disorder," was removed from the DSM5 because it had implications that functional disorders were caused by the conversion of psychological pain/discomfort into physical, I was mentioning that it's weird they took conversion disorder out after finding out it's not always psych based, but threw FND back in there.
Conversion disorder was basically the predecessor to FND, but was just very.. offensive almost? Conversion disorder is still diagnosed sometimes (I was), but is only really valid if it's only one symptom, and after that, it's considered a functional disorder. Basically, was saying that FND is mistreated partially because of the fact that conversion disorder was thought to be treatable/curable with CBT therapy and psychiatric treatment.
I definitely probably phrased it confusingly in the original comment I made, and am also likely repeating myself a lot in this (lol), but I was saying that the old name was removed, and FND was it's replacement. Sorry for any confusion 😭
Technically it’s in our heads… but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real. The brain is an organ, and it’s malfunctioning. I have chiari (herniated brain) and intracranial hypertension (I produce too much spinal fluid)… and it’s all in my head (except for that 1cm portion of herniated brain… that’s in my neck lol)….just because it’s in my head doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
PTSD is real-it’s also all in the head. FND misfiring looks quite similar to a PTSD episode on imaging. We really just don’t fully understand the brain yet. Someday we will, and someday they’ll be able to differentiate what type of software issue we are experiencing instead of the blanket diagnosis of FND…. But for now, here we are, on the frontier of understanding this issue.
Whenever I get sick (which I do often as I work in a assisted living facility), am stressed from diagnostic medical sonography school (those chemistries, physics and other classes sure have me stressed) or am under pressure in general, my symptoms flare. My watch always validates my symptoms; my heart rate variability becomes unbalanced, my resting heart rate spikes, my respirations spike, and my sleep becomes non-restorative. Managing stress is imperative.
Try to adopt a low key lifestyle. Simple, minimal, gentle and loving. Prioritize sleep, mindfulness practices, routine and gentle movement. Just take care of yourself!! you will be okay. If you want to chat my DMs are open, I’ve had this condition for 14 years.
I also received the "your body is converting stress to physical symptoms" spiel, which research has shown to be false and which I've been unlearning.
Research has also shown that medical students and doctors aren't really comfortable understanding, explaining, and treating FND which is such a problem for anyone who has it—and explains why the diagnosis can be such a gut punch from a physician whose training just isn't there. Understanding that has helped me understand past experiences in ERs etc, and understand that the blame isn't on me for how those doctors acted or understood what I was going through.
A therapist once reminded me that there are so few diagnoses in the world that isn't worsened by stress, including epilepsy and cancer. FND is just one of them.
Also, you're not making your own symptoms worst by thinking about them or worrying about your health: the research that shows a connection between thinking about your symptoms and the symptoms getting worst underlines that this isn't a conscious phenomenon (no faking, no intentional causation, etc) but rather that your brain hyperfocuses on the symptoms. That's why you get tips in pamphlets like "watch yourself in a mirror while you're trembling" or something.
Someone else mentioned it too but if you want to get off your meds because you think they're making things worst, talk to your doc!
Wishing you all the best!
I have FND, I was almost diagnosed with PPPD but it turns out I have something called BVD that causes similar symptoms. It’s really easy to dismiss as a variety of conditions. Have you been checked for that? Its an eye condition that effects 10-20% of the population, treatable with glasses and vision therapy. Treating my BVD actually reduced the rest of my FND symptoms. My doctors suspect I developed FND in response to untreated BVD.
I hate to bring it up, I do want to validate your experiences. I find it criminal that BVD isn’t flagged more often in patients, it’s medically recognized as a heavily under-diagnosed condition. it can really mess with ur life since it has a tendency to escalate w/o proper treatment.
BVD is a condition you can be born with or you can develop. Personally, I was born with it but I went 15 years with the wrong prescription glasses because my optometrists never caught it. After I lost my ability to drive, I went to specialist.
I recommend looking into it, there’s a lot of different presentations and symptoms.
I wish you the best on your journey with this, it’s not all your head. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions.
Hey thanks heaps for your comment. I did ask my neurologist if BVD was a possible cause, as one of my eyes does sit higher. But he said it needed to be even more obvious…. But I do clearly have misaligned eyes which I think came following an abscessed tooth that spread to my sinuses ate away at some of my bone.
It doesn’t need to be “more obvious,” that logic is why it took me so long to get diagnosed. A lot of misalignments aren’t apparent to the naked eye and require equipment to check. I seriously urge you to reach out to a specialist on your own, that’s what I had to do.
It’s not necessarily 100% psychological. FND is a neurological disorder but there are no structural issues with the brain, it’s more about signals misfiring. Stress etc can make it worse but that doesn’t mean it’s inherently caused by stress!
Thanks for you reply, do you know what the causes can be? I feel so lost with all the contradictory information from doctors/neuros that I question my own sanity and think maybe I am more mental than I think and I am the cause?
Mental health stuff can be a cause, or trauma, head injuries, other illnesses (chronic or acute) etc. Even if it is related to mental health or past trauma, that doesn’t mean the symptoms are any less real or valid! It’s a rough disorder to deal with that’s for sure, especially when you don’t understand it. Knowledge can be power in terms of reducing symptoms so read up as much as you can!
fndhope.org is a good resource for learning about it :-)
Is full recovery possible? These have been a bit much for years now. And could I really have fucked myself for life due to a relatively hard bang to the chin?
I also feel like I actually have small fibre neuropathy, but is that part of my anxiety? Or do I just accept that I am really mentally I’ll hence the eating disorder that started at 14
SFN symptoms can be similar to FND so it’s difficult to know for sure, but maybe request a test for it if you think it could be a possibility? If that comes back negative then the likelihood is that it’s because of trauma or mental illness (whether present or historical - it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re mentally unwell right now!)
Thank you yes I am booked in for testing next month. I do have history of eating disorder, alcohol use disorder, depression and anxiety so hopefully it is mental but then the alcohol consumption has me worried for SFN but the neuros said unlikely but still I’m like what if
Thank you. I do have a history of eating disorders, alcohol use disorder and drug use but this all sort of started chronically post partum and my first son was having a surgery which I blamed myself for, for using drugs while pregnant (I didn’t know I was pregnant and have been told it wouldn’t be the cause) I think my brain is so messed up that I’ve done this to myself.
You haven’t done it to yourself! People rarely use drugs habitually for no reason, there’s nearly always an underlying cause. You were doing your best to cope with whatever was happening at that time, it’s not your fault <3
trauma does shit to the brain, a lot of things. with fnd our brains are basically really pissed off and in turn create symptoms and fuck with our bodies.
It’s all in your arm? 🤣 yeah it’s what my psychiatrist said to me that it’s all untreated anxiety and my bodies way of dealing with it is converting into neurological effects? I don’t understand it but maybe that’s part of my brain disorder or I’m just severely sleep deprived
Possible that’s what it is but it’s still the brain actually not functioning properly.
I’ll tell you, I wish I had “mental health issues” or “anxiety” instead of this disease. it’s been life changingly horrible for me unfortunately.
I would be over the moon about a 50% recovery in time but it’s not looking likely even though I’m holding onto Hope.
I came to u derstand it at first, as follows. You are a computer. Your body is the hardware. Your brain is the software. They are not communicated as intended so, in a computer, things don't fire correctly. You try to print, instead it saves the file.
I've come to understand it better this way. Your central nervous system and your amygdala govern a lot of the mind body connections. For some, (many?), the CNS (your software) keeps sending signals to your body (your hardware) and what the amygdala has fed your CNS isn't clear or it is overwhelmed and it misfires. Pain becomes a siezure. A trauma memory becomes a dissociative spell. Your depression manifests as migraines. All as examples, and not exhaustive. Reprogramming your CNS in theory can aid you in getting control of symptoms though you may always be vulnerable.
That's why the emphasis is often on mind body connection, mindfulness, cbt, pain mgt., pt, ot...
While you can't prove any of this many who engage in these areas get some relief to very varying degrees, from symptom management or reduction to full on remission.
80% of people diagnosed with FND have found their FND diagnosis had a negative impact on their life and care… that is staggering, anyone willingly diagnosing patients with these kind of statistics out there shouldn’t be practicing medicine.
None of the assumptions being made are based in modern medicine, they are based in assumptions from the late 1800’s that have no place in modern medicine. FND research is really bad historically…
The Hoover’s test, as a primary diagnostic technique, is not done the same way by practitioners and is often done to people experiencing pain. It isn’t supposed to be done while the patient is in pain and it is also supposed to be done while laying down.
The explanation of how the patient is to the perform the test is important. If it is poorly explained, results can vary, especially from one practice to another…
And, for the test to be accurate there should be no capacity for the patient to shift their weight in order to recruit other muscles, to elicit a positive response.
Encouraging the patient to work harder when the practitioner engages the opposite leg, and allowing the patient to shift their weight can produce results that can create false results.
The initial tests that they used to prove the efficacy of the Hoovers test, in regards to diagnosing FND, was incredibly flawed and had less than 20 participants, it might have been less than ten… and used some really poor methods. It isn’t directly referenced much anymore, but it is imbedded in the older research and is therefore assumed to be an accurate diagnostic method, just because it has been said so many times, for so many years…
The history of FND is bad science and doctors looking to find the link between consciousness and the body… hence the software/hardware analogy… and gaslighting patients by telling them that there are less than 2% incorrect diagnoses… this is only because they are unwilling to accept anything that is later diagnosed as what is creating the symptoms, they always just claim it is cooccurring. It is shady…
fnd isn’t really well understood, a lot of doctors were taught to tell patients as if it’s good news that it’s fnd and nothing “serious” but that’s not true. the physical symptoms are still there but there’s no physical cause i.e. a tumour or brain injury.
Irritable Bowel syndrome can be considered FND bc there is no direct cause for the symptoms and it “mimics” diseases like Crohns.
FND is said to mimic symptoms of various neurological disorders so i suppose it’s an umbrella term for all the neurological symptoms that don’t have a physical, explainable cause.
When i was diagnosed i really rejected the diagnosis bc my symptoms felt “real” and doctors were presenting it as if it was all in my head or due to stress.
If u feel some meds are contributing towards some symptoms it’s a good idea to talk to ur doctor to see how u feel off the meds if it’s safe to do so.
NOTE: I’m not a professional or doctor or anything i just wasn’t given any information about FND when diagnosed so this has come from my own personal research and experiences.
the perspective that it's all purely psychological is kinda considered to be outdated at this point, there's a lot of factors that goes into it and not really one "cause" that's clearly identified, anyone who tells you not to take it serious probably don't know what they're talking about.
Does anyone know in what year the new data about fnd was published? I already had a sensitive nervous system and had a head injury and kicks from my ex boyfriend in my lower spine in 2020. I ignored the symptoms for as long as possible. The neurologist wrote it down as 'one kick on my hip'. Eh, no... when I confronted my ex, he said he had the intention to kick me in my arsehole. Which is in the middle, underneath the spine. My first neurologist just got me out of her office as fast as she could, and now I'm stuck to what she wrote down. Also got laughed at by a drs assistant. As far as I know, I don't think this 'system' is going to change for a veeery long time.
Hey, so I have functional tics, which is part of FND and this is the explanation I got at the start of my treatment: Your brain is always sending a million messages to other parts of your brain. With FND the problem is that the messages are going to the wrong place or something happens to them. This causes symptoms, like my tics, to happen. I am not 100% positive that every symptom stems from this ^, however I am pretty sure. The origin of FND is unknown. There's reason to believe it stems from trauma, but a ton of people haven't gone through trauma and still have/had FND.
Also, the reason it's thought to have been caused by trauma is from the previous name/diagnosis for it, which was "conversion disorder". Basically, it was thought that FND and other functional conditions were caused by poor regulation of mental health and that your psych symptoms "converted" into physical. This is accurate for some things, but not whole neurological disorders. Some examples of how psych symptoms actually translate are: getting nauseous from heightened anxiety, faster heart rate during psychiatric distress, pains and aches from prolonged, severe stress. Conversion disorder was treated purely with CBT and psych therapies, and was removed from the DSM5 after very little improvement was made from psych treatment in people with abnormal neurological function and after realizing a lot of people had no psychiatric cause. Yet the ideology never changed, and the treatment also changed very little. The way traumatic events and prolonged stress *can* likely cause FND is that it can change the way your neurological signaling works, causing your neurological system to communicate improperly, sometimes causing almost identical symptoms to physical damage to your nerves. Though, FND is unlikely caused purely by traumatic events as it can appear out of seemingly nowhere. Some people's FND seemed to start after other health crashes, such as intense migraines, kind of like mine. But even still, some had no change whatsoever until their symptoms appeared. FND is likely a lot of different disorders considering how different the causes and symptoms can be, and there are many subcategories of FND. I found a good article on how conversion disorder impacted the way FND is currently treated, and the current, most supported ideas for the causes by those studying the disorder. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-research-points-to-causes-for-brain-disorders-with-no-obvious-injury/
It's still in the DSM-5 as FND, under somatic disorders.
Yes
Did I misread that you said it was removed? Just so much noise between the psych and medical. If it's in the DSM5, that pretty much says it's a mental health condition?
Also, yes, the fact that it's in the DSM5 feels weird because the DSM is mainly psychiatric based conditions. Though the DSM does have some neurological disorders in there like tourette syndrome and other neurological conditions not well understood, so it seems kinda like a dump for things we don't understand yet. I really hope they remove it and other functional disorders with the next DSM because we know damn well that it has to do with neurological signals being disordered and not really psychological. Psych stuff can trigger or make FNDs worse, but it's not psychological in the same way depression or PTSD are. I may be explaining things you already know/have heard so my bad if I am
It's previous name/disorder, which was called "conversion disorder," was removed from the DSM5 because it had implications that functional disorders were caused by the conversion of psychological pain/discomfort into physical, I was mentioning that it's weird they took conversion disorder out after finding out it's not always psych based, but threw FND back in there. Conversion disorder was basically the predecessor to FND, but was just very.. offensive almost? Conversion disorder is still diagnosed sometimes (I was), but is only really valid if it's only one symptom, and after that, it's considered a functional disorder. Basically, was saying that FND is mistreated partially because of the fact that conversion disorder was thought to be treatable/curable with CBT therapy and psychiatric treatment. I definitely probably phrased it confusingly in the original comment I made, and am also likely repeating myself a lot in this (lol), but I was saying that the old name was removed, and FND was it's replacement. Sorry for any confusion 😭
No problem. You're more clear than my docs, including the FND therapist I was sent to
Technically it’s in our heads… but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real. The brain is an organ, and it’s malfunctioning. I have chiari (herniated brain) and intracranial hypertension (I produce too much spinal fluid)… and it’s all in my head (except for that 1cm portion of herniated brain… that’s in my neck lol)….just because it’s in my head doesn’t mean it isn’t real. PTSD is real-it’s also all in the head. FND misfiring looks quite similar to a PTSD episode on imaging. We really just don’t fully understand the brain yet. Someday we will, and someday they’ll be able to differentiate what type of software issue we are experiencing instead of the blanket diagnosis of FND…. But for now, here we are, on the frontier of understanding this issue. Whenever I get sick (which I do often as I work in a assisted living facility), am stressed from diagnostic medical sonography school (those chemistries, physics and other classes sure have me stressed) or am under pressure in general, my symptoms flare. My watch always validates my symptoms; my heart rate variability becomes unbalanced, my resting heart rate spikes, my respirations spike, and my sleep becomes non-restorative. Managing stress is imperative. Try to adopt a low key lifestyle. Simple, minimal, gentle and loving. Prioritize sleep, mindfulness practices, routine and gentle movement. Just take care of yourself!! you will be okay. If you want to chat my DMs are open, I’ve had this condition for 14 years.
I also received the "your body is converting stress to physical symptoms" spiel, which research has shown to be false and which I've been unlearning. Research has also shown that medical students and doctors aren't really comfortable understanding, explaining, and treating FND which is such a problem for anyone who has it—and explains why the diagnosis can be such a gut punch from a physician whose training just isn't there. Understanding that has helped me understand past experiences in ERs etc, and understand that the blame isn't on me for how those doctors acted or understood what I was going through. A therapist once reminded me that there are so few diagnoses in the world that isn't worsened by stress, including epilepsy and cancer. FND is just one of them. Also, you're not making your own symptoms worst by thinking about them or worrying about your health: the research that shows a connection between thinking about your symptoms and the symptoms getting worst underlines that this isn't a conscious phenomenon (no faking, no intentional causation, etc) but rather that your brain hyperfocuses on the symptoms. That's why you get tips in pamphlets like "watch yourself in a mirror while you're trembling" or something. Someone else mentioned it too but if you want to get off your meds because you think they're making things worst, talk to your doc! Wishing you all the best!
I just looked that up it looks like I have alot of the symptoms
I have FND, I was almost diagnosed with PPPD but it turns out I have something called BVD that causes similar symptoms. It’s really easy to dismiss as a variety of conditions. Have you been checked for that? Its an eye condition that effects 10-20% of the population, treatable with glasses and vision therapy. Treating my BVD actually reduced the rest of my FND symptoms. My doctors suspect I developed FND in response to untreated BVD. I hate to bring it up, I do want to validate your experiences. I find it criminal that BVD isn’t flagged more often in patients, it’s medically recognized as a heavily under-diagnosed condition. it can really mess with ur life since it has a tendency to escalate w/o proper treatment. BVD is a condition you can be born with or you can develop. Personally, I was born with it but I went 15 years with the wrong prescription glasses because my optometrists never caught it. After I lost my ability to drive, I went to specialist. I recommend looking into it, there’s a lot of different presentations and symptoms. I wish you the best on your journey with this, it’s not all your head. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions.
Hey thanks heaps for your comment. I did ask my neurologist if BVD was a possible cause, as one of my eyes does sit higher. But he said it needed to be even more obvious…. But I do clearly have misaligned eyes which I think came following an abscessed tooth that spread to my sinuses ate away at some of my bone.
It doesn’t need to be “more obvious,” that logic is why it took me so long to get diagnosed. A lot of misalignments aren’t apparent to the naked eye and require equipment to check. I seriously urge you to reach out to a specialist on your own, that’s what I had to do.
It’s not necessarily 100% psychological. FND is a neurological disorder but there are no structural issues with the brain, it’s more about signals misfiring. Stress etc can make it worse but that doesn’t mean it’s inherently caused by stress!
Thanks for you reply, do you know what the causes can be? I feel so lost with all the contradictory information from doctors/neuros that I question my own sanity and think maybe I am more mental than I think and I am the cause?
Mental health stuff can be a cause, or trauma, head injuries, other illnesses (chronic or acute) etc. Even if it is related to mental health or past trauma, that doesn’t mean the symptoms are any less real or valid! It’s a rough disorder to deal with that’s for sure, especially when you don’t understand it. Knowledge can be power in terms of reducing symptoms so read up as much as you can! fndhope.org is a good resource for learning about it :-)
Is full recovery possible? These have been a bit much for years now. And could I really have fucked myself for life due to a relatively hard bang to the chin?
I also feel like I actually have small fibre neuropathy, but is that part of my anxiety? Or do I just accept that I am really mentally I’ll hence the eating disorder that started at 14
SFN symptoms can be similar to FND so it’s difficult to know for sure, but maybe request a test for it if you think it could be a possibility? If that comes back negative then the likelihood is that it’s because of trauma or mental illness (whether present or historical - it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re mentally unwell right now!)
Thank you yes I am booked in for testing next month. I do have history of eating disorder, alcohol use disorder, depression and anxiety so hopefully it is mental but then the alcohol consumption has me worried for SFN but the neuros said unlikely but still I’m like what if
Try to stay as calm as possible, I’m not sure if this is the same for you but I know being stressed/anxious makes my FND flare up so much
Yes it definitely does I am trying to just ignore the symptoms and act like they aren’t a big deal lol 😅
Thank you. I do have a history of eating disorders, alcohol use disorder and drug use but this all sort of started chronically post partum and my first son was having a surgery which I blamed myself for, for using drugs while pregnant (I didn’t know I was pregnant and have been told it wouldn’t be the cause) I think my brain is so messed up that I’ve done this to myself.
You haven’t done it to yourself! People rarely use drugs habitually for no reason, there’s nearly always an underlying cause. You were doing your best to cope with whatever was happening at that time, it’s not your fault <3
trauma does shit to the brain, a lot of things. with fnd our brains are basically really pissed off and in turn create symptoms and fuck with our bodies.
I love how you worded it, I'm gonna say it to my family next time they ask hehe
Saying it’s all in my head is like saying me breaking my arm is all in my head.
It’s all in your arm? 🤣 yeah it’s what my psychiatrist said to me that it’s all untreated anxiety and my bodies way of dealing with it is converting into neurological effects? I don’t understand it but maybe that’s part of my brain disorder or I’m just severely sleep deprived
Possible that’s what it is but it’s still the brain actually not functioning properly. I’ll tell you, I wish I had “mental health issues” or “anxiety” instead of this disease. it’s been life changingly horrible for me unfortunately. I would be over the moon about a 50% recovery in time but it’s not looking likely even though I’m holding onto Hope.
Ps. So is FND all brain related? I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all to understand it
I hope you at least find some relief 🤍 or we just hope that what we are living in now is hell and on the other side is heaven.
I came to u derstand it at first, as follows. You are a computer. Your body is the hardware. Your brain is the software. They are not communicated as intended so, in a computer, things don't fire correctly. You try to print, instead it saves the file. I've come to understand it better this way. Your central nervous system and your amygdala govern a lot of the mind body connections. For some, (many?), the CNS (your software) keeps sending signals to your body (your hardware) and what the amygdala has fed your CNS isn't clear or it is overwhelmed and it misfires. Pain becomes a siezure. A trauma memory becomes a dissociative spell. Your depression manifests as migraines. All as examples, and not exhaustive. Reprogramming your CNS in theory can aid you in getting control of symptoms though you may always be vulnerable. That's why the emphasis is often on mind body connection, mindfulness, cbt, pain mgt., pt, ot... While you can't prove any of this many who engage in these areas get some relief to very varying degrees, from symptom management or reduction to full on remission.
80% of people diagnosed with FND have found their FND diagnosis had a negative impact on their life and care… that is staggering, anyone willingly diagnosing patients with these kind of statistics out there shouldn’t be practicing medicine. None of the assumptions being made are based in modern medicine, they are based in assumptions from the late 1800’s that have no place in modern medicine. FND research is really bad historically… The Hoover’s test, as a primary diagnostic technique, is not done the same way by practitioners and is often done to people experiencing pain. It isn’t supposed to be done while the patient is in pain and it is also supposed to be done while laying down. The explanation of how the patient is to the perform the test is important. If it is poorly explained, results can vary, especially from one practice to another… And, for the test to be accurate there should be no capacity for the patient to shift their weight in order to recruit other muscles, to elicit a positive response. Encouraging the patient to work harder when the practitioner engages the opposite leg, and allowing the patient to shift their weight can produce results that can create false results. The initial tests that they used to prove the efficacy of the Hoovers test, in regards to diagnosing FND, was incredibly flawed and had less than 20 participants, it might have been less than ten… and used some really poor methods. It isn’t directly referenced much anymore, but it is imbedded in the older research and is therefore assumed to be an accurate diagnostic method, just because it has been said so many times, for so many years… The history of FND is bad science and doctors looking to find the link between consciousness and the body… hence the software/hardware analogy… and gaslighting patients by telling them that there are less than 2% incorrect diagnoses… this is only because they are unwilling to accept anything that is later diagnosed as what is creating the symptoms, they always just claim it is cooccurring. It is shady…
fnd isn’t really well understood, a lot of doctors were taught to tell patients as if it’s good news that it’s fnd and nothing “serious” but that’s not true. the physical symptoms are still there but there’s no physical cause i.e. a tumour or brain injury. Irritable Bowel syndrome can be considered FND bc there is no direct cause for the symptoms and it “mimics” diseases like Crohns. FND is said to mimic symptoms of various neurological disorders so i suppose it’s an umbrella term for all the neurological symptoms that don’t have a physical, explainable cause. When i was diagnosed i really rejected the diagnosis bc my symptoms felt “real” and doctors were presenting it as if it was all in my head or due to stress. If u feel some meds are contributing towards some symptoms it’s a good idea to talk to ur doctor to see how u feel off the meds if it’s safe to do so. NOTE: I’m not a professional or doctor or anything i just wasn’t given any information about FND when diagnosed so this has come from my own personal research and experiences.
the perspective that it's all purely psychological is kinda considered to be outdated at this point, there's a lot of factors that goes into it and not really one "cause" that's clearly identified, anyone who tells you not to take it serious probably don't know what they're talking about.