Aquarians were the first animals to develop a nervous system. An external stimulus could be detected and converted into an electrical impulse in the nervous system which resulted in a response. Evolution has for millions of years led to the development of more complex and refined nervous systems. When stimuli are processed in our brain, they lead to different responses depending on situation, mood, expectations, attention, etc. A cyclist who crashes and incurs a collar leg does not feel the same pain if he falls during a stage in the Tour de France as he goes to his aunt's birthday. Nerve signals are thus modulated in a complex way, whose precise mechanisms we do not yet know. This happens completely automatically and cannot be modulated with the power of will alone. Personally, I think it's amazingly fascinating.
If we recognize that this system exists, we must also recognize that errors may occur in the system. When something goes wrong at this level, it can lead to a functional neurological disorder (FND). FND causes neurological symptoms that cannot be explained by a lesion or degeneration, but rather as a malfunction of the brain. There are no blood tests or common scans that can detect the disease. Functional symptoms are quite frequent and constitute 10-20 per cent. of new neurological inquiries. Although FND is quite common, they are not generally known.
FND includes functional movement disorders (eg tremor and paralysis), non-epileptic seizures and until March 14 this year, myalgic encephalopathy (ME) / chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). ME / CFS has just been removed from the category, among other things by a parliamentary vote because ME / CFS patients do not receive the appropriate treatment and are stigmatized.
Many symptoms arise from the same mechanisms without necessarily causing disease. In order to start from my own experiences, I myself have previously had an inexplicable, intermittent dry cough as well as strange sounding, singular hiccups, which fortunately has declined.
Since there are still insufficient laboratory studies to diagnose FND and ME / CFS, the investigation process is often long and the patient can see many doctors and may have tried different treatments without effect.
Patients with FND are highly stigmatized. Since the disease is often referred to as "medically unexplained", people have often been rewarded with the disease being psychiatric. But does it make any sense to separate the brain from the mind? It all happens in the same body. Because the FND crosses an artificial boundary between brain and mind, it does not mean that it is a less genuine or debilitating disease.
I believe that much can be done to improve the investigation and treatment of people with FND. People with FND may not currently receive the same benefits from the state, as people with other diseases, even if they are just as disabled. More scientific attention is needed, the diagnosis has to be made earlier, as this provides a better prognosis and there must be several interdisciplinary treatment options. There must be a political commitment and thus also popular support for this to be possible. Although the treatment is expensive, it will ultimately lead to a positive socio-economic gain. FND should not be a rubbish bin diagnosis, but a disease that is taken seriously and recognized at the same level as other diseases. Greater general understanding will also help fight the taboo that still surrounds the FND.
Whether ME / CFS is an FND or not, there is a great deal of disagreement among researchers, doctors and patients. Removing ME / CFS from the FND category with, among other things, the argument that reducing the stigma will unfortunately lead to further stigmatization of the diseases that are still referred to as FND.
(The theory behind FND is based on the English professor and dr. with. Mark Edwards model.)
