3 ms·
Funny enough - I suffered for 6 years a pain condition. Luckily it was acute enough at times that it was hard for me to believe it was all mental. But that stil
by nwienert 6y ago
Funny enough - I suffered for 6 years a pain condition. Luckily it was acute enough at times that it was hard for me to believe it was all mental. But that still didn’t stop the sheer force of multiple doctors claiming psychosomatic origins, even flipping my own parents partially in believing that. By the end of it all, I was just about convinced it was mental. I did have a ton of anxiety, it was impossible to figure out the causality.
Ultimately, a genetic test revealed it was a rare autoimmune disorder that causes a wide variety of hard to pin down inflammation-related pain.
I had already come up with a ton of coping mechanisms, and was halfway to accepting it was “just me” or “anxiety”. I’m so glad I finally found what it was, because it would have been devastating to have convinced myself all that was my fault without even any clear genesis.
Not to say yours isn’t. But it makes me wonder: we have no idea the complexity and incidence of smaller phenotypical irregularities that lead to any number of “minor pains” that get ultimately interpreted as “anxiety disorders”. You may even be anxious - who wouldn’t, with an unresolved medical issue spanning years - but you may also have some imbalances driving it that are hard to pin down.
- tarsinge 6y agoYes you are right to point that it can juste be coping mechanism and that there can still be an underlying unknown medical condition, responsible for parts or all the symptoms. In my case the stomach burns and acidic reflux part were not « stress » but a kind of food allergy (kind of like ulcers were « stress » until it was discovered it was a bacteria). Your last paragraph sums it up perfectly.
- mssundaram 6y agoDo you know the name of it and the affected genes? My wife has had autoimmune symptoms for years and the doctors keep saying it's anxiety as well. We've had a genetic test done for the common disorders but didn't find anything
- nwienert 6y agoDont have the genes on hand but it’s Familial Mediterranean Fever, more commonly shows when youngish. Idk if there’s anything that’s come to replace it but if you’re ok with putting data in hands of big med, promethease is what helped me find it (was before they sold out), likely still worth trying.
- treeman79 6y agoDon’t be afraid to push deeper into testing for various autoimmune. Lot of doctors run out of date tests. False negatives are also a big issue. Sjogrens is really bad for that, 30% show negative on the standard test. there is an “Early Sjo” that catches what other tests miss.