Medical Mystery -Phys or Psych?
 

[SIZE="5"]I'm writing in the hopes that anyone, anywhere has experience or advice. My friend is a 26 y/o female. She has an excellent health history and a history of mild anxiety. She is intelligent and coherent. 2 years ago she experienced a distressing life event that she reports as not traumatic, but very disturbing. Shortly after this, she began experiencing these strange "episodes" or "events". She reports having little to no warning that they are coming on. She will begin having extremely painful brain sensations and feelings that she describes as feeling like "someone injecting poison into my brain and killing my brain tissue". These are accompanied by distressing feelings of brain fog and of being "detached from myself". They can stay all day, 10 minutes, or hours. They can leave as rapidly as they began. Side effects of these episodes are chronic fatigue, insomnia, inability to function normally, distorted perceptions regarding interactions happening (ie: obsessions, paranoia, etc regarding communication w others)
This is just the general descriptions. This illness is wreaking havoc. MRI was negative. Psychiatrist wont really listen and says its a somatic manifestation or somatic disorder.
This woman is feeling like she cant be heard in the medical community. Explaining these symptoms is difficult and embarrassing and she's usually "diagnosed" before being able to fully explain what's happening. I believe her when she says that this feels like a physical condition is creating these MH-type symptoms.
Please help

All I can suggest is to keep trying other doctors or perhaps naturopathy or other alternative , acupuncture?
Start totally fresh with new doctors , so less of a carry over from past office notes/opinions?
A symptoms journal or log of main issues with a clear description..might be helpful.

If psych is a possibility we have a sister site based more on that focus -
Psych Central - Trusted mental health, depression, bipolar, ADHD & psychology information

Sarah, welcome to NeuroTalk :).

You could also suggest to your friend that she sees a clinical psychologist who has specific experience of working with clients with PTSD.

The distressing life event that she experienced could be relevant in this context.

All the best.

thanks! as mentioned, she's been to many!! I believe her when she feels that this is beyond MH

I was lucky. Before i was diagnosed with MS my GP was willing to believe and listen to me that my bladder issues were not due to my age or twins but as I said "Neurological" I had no proof (neurological doesn't always present "hard" evidence)but she continued sending me to Neurologists. I was diagnosed. Some doctors would have not listened.

Has your friend been checked for Lyme Disease? Does she have a good primary doctor who will do some basic testing? There could be more than one thing going on here. Sometimes when doctors can't fit symptoms into a neat and tidy clinical diagnosis, they place inappropriate and unscientific labels on symptoms—that takes less of their time!

If she can find a good internist who will stick with her throughout the investigation stage, that will help tremendously. I hope she is keeping a journal of what the symptoms are, what day and time they occur, etc.

If any tests have been done, make sure that she gets her medical records. There are things some doctors don't tell patients.

Simply because an MRI is clear does not mean that all is well in the central nervous system. A good neurologist will conduct further tests.

I hope she will receive the help she deserves!

Annie