Quote:
Originally Posted by alice md
One of the problems is that there are no objective tests to diagnose psychiatric diseases and as I have said elsewhere this creates a very dangerous black hole in the border of neurology and psychiatry.
There is no way to check psychiatric diagnoses off the list. So, once someone considers them it is very hard to show that they do not exist. How can you show that your low mood is a normal response to a devastating illness and not "depression"? In the past it was OK to mourn a loved one, now even that is not legitimate.
As you also say, many serious disease may appear like anxiety so putting this diagnosis high on the list can be very dangerous, as it puts everyone at ease that they know what is wrong with the patient, which can easily lead to serious and even fatal errors.
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There are no objective tests to diagnose many diseases, but they can still be ruled out and they can still be diagnosed by patient report, history, review of symptoms, etc. If Seshien was suffering from anxiety, she would probably feel anxious, and a trained professional would be able to discern that in a diagnostic interview. I've worked with many people who have come into ERs experiencing panic attacks, thinking they were having a heart attack, and they were relieved to find out they were experiencing anxiety. I've also dealt with anxiety in the past myself; it's debilitating and I would not wish it on anyone. To walk around with it untreated and undiagnosed is horrific.
It would be a disservice to anyone to leave it out of the list of possibilities when they are experiencing symptoms that could be anxiety and haven't been explained medically despite a thorough workup. It would also be a disservice to assign the diagnosis simply because no other can be found, which I was not remotely suggesting.
I'm not sure why this seems so offensive, except perhaps it touched people's bad experiences with doctors disregarding them. I know you've been through the ringer with the medical profession.
Anxiety and depression are as valid a diagnosis as any other medical diagnosis, even if this isn't the case for either of you. My reason for mentioning it briefly was that if they were by chance the root cause of these symptoms, it would be a relief to find that out and get proper treatment.
I thought the whole point here was to brainstorm possibilities and share experiences. I also suggested POTS/Dysautonomia as a possibility, and have suggested Lyme Disease to many people...but no one was offended. It feels like people are stigmatizing disorders that originate in our brain as not being valid.
As I said, it's another thing to bring up and check off the list. I never indicated it should be high on the list... not at all.