It can be hard enough getting your head around what functional neurological symptoms/ FND is without having to explain it to other people.
Unfortunately, if you have something like a weak leg and people hear that the ‘tests are normal’, they may be less sympathetic or even start to wonder if you really have the symptom.
This can be extremely difficult to deal with as a patient. You know that the symptoms are real, that you experience a loss of control of your body. It makes it even worse to think that some people might be thinking you are in control after all.
It is worth thinking about how you are going to explain this to friends, family and employers.
One pragmatic approach is as follows:
They may find this website helpful reading too.
It may be that your main issue is fatigue and that a doctor has diagnosed you as having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. In this case, you may wish to emphasise this as the main cause of your disability.
Similarly, if your main problem is pain, and a doctor has diagnosed you with Fibromyalgia or a Chronic Pain Syndrome it may be more straightforward to highlight that as the main issue.
For FND, there is still a lack of awareness of the diagnosis which can sometimes mean that the diagnosis is not understood or accepted as it should be as a genuine cause of disability and/or distress. That is slowly changing
If you only have symptoms like weakness or blackouts then the official term for the condition which may be recognised by insurance companies or benefits agencies is Functional Neurological Symptom Disorder (Conversion Disorder) – DSM 5-300.11.
Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) has now gained a lot of acceptance as a term for example with charities like FND Hope, FND Action, FND Dimensions. We also have the international FND society – see the Links page
We will be re-directing you to the University of Edinburgh’s donate page, which enable donations in a secure manner on our behalf. We use donations for keeping the site running and further FND research.