Aren't neurological diseases some of the hardest diseases to be diagnosed.
FND is a way for the lazy doctor when given limited time, resources infallible technology.
Given my own experience with being diagnosed with FND, I'd say that neurological diseases can certainly be
very hard to diagnose if you don't, uh, carry out the tests that can detect them. That diagnosis gets even harder if you combine that lack of diagnostics with an assumption based on personal biases that the patient likely has FND.
Every thread about FND on here quite rightfully hones in on the supposed use of 'positive signs', which FND's main proponents loudly profess as to being key to accurately diagnosing FND....nowadays, anyway. In reality it seems that quite a few neurologists are still (2020-2023) willing to diagnose you without any 'positive signs' and without ruling out known neurological diseases by doing appropriate testing.
I had 3 different neurologists - including an FND 'specialist'* and a very senior notable (in the area of neuropathy) neurologist all confidently declare I had FND on the basis of only basic testing and talking to me. Now, the last one also correctly identified the actual physical problem I was eventually diagnosed with (a little later, elsewhere) as a
possibility but decided during the consultation and before the actual further testing he wanted that while I might have the physical disease I
also had FND/FND 'overlay'**.
Now, leaving aside the last one, you'd think that when a patient comes to you complaining of blatant neuropathy symptoms that you would do everything you could to exclude neuropathy as a cause before moving onto the mysterious, messy, barely-evidenced magical realm of FND. Well, you'd be wrong, in my case and in the cases of many other neurology patients, based on my research online.
I'm a layperson. I shouldn't be able to diagnostically out-perform several neurologists (there were others prior to the 3 who diagnosed FND) just by doing some reading online and reflecting on my symptoms. But I did outperform them, both in correctly identifying what was wrong with me and in identifying the necessary diagnostic testing that I needed. I mean needed both in the sense of confirming my own personal theory and surely needed as part of a workup by any professional worth their name that actually wanted to exclude known neurological disease.
What I've discovered after struggling through a health nightmare consisting of multiple terrible symptoms that were investigated by many departments at many hospitals over many years is that, frankly, the medical field seems to be in a state of disarray, particularly neurology. It is a miracle that i'm still here given what I've been through. Despite that, my symptoms seem minor compared to what many of you have to live with, which is humbling - and frightening.
*I was referred to the FND specialist after questioning and objecting to the FND diagnosis. She took an extensive history from me and asked me about my mental health. She requested no further testing. She just rubberstamped the prior FND diagnosis, which in retrospect she was clearly asked to do by the original neurologist. I very naively hoped that she would be more thorough and request more tests including the ones that I knew that I needed to get. Nope.
**As has been noted here many times in threads discussing FND, it seems that you cannot escape the FND diagnosis even if you are diagnosed with clear physical disease before or after you receive it. Or, in my case, during the first tentative diagnosis of the physical disease! Wherever you turn; there's FND.
