Functional Neurological Disorder vs Stiff Person Syndrome

[Sunshine]

This is an article about a teen who looked like he has SPS. He went up to Mayo who undiagnosed him and said he has Functional Neurological Disorder. They put him in an intensive program of Cog Behavioral Therapy and physical therapy, his symptoms disappeared and he is back to running track again...would love to know if he had elevated GAD65, or whether the SPS dx was based solely on clinical exam and history. The article doesn’t say.

In reading posts on FB SPS pages, many have gone to Mayo and have been told that their GAD65 , while abnormal, isn’t abnormal “enough”, and their gait, while abnormal, isn’t so bad... etc. They und’xd them and said its not SPS but some type of Functional Disorder. I call BS. As do many of these patients...Having these awful unrelenting physical symptoms can certainly change your psyche. I don’t think its the other way around....I know of two patients with MS who went to Mayo Rochester and told they just need pain management therapy , 5 days a week at Mayo for a month. And it was pricey.
I hope Mayo keeps doing research and refine what they are seeing.


Think of all the people with MS who are told its functional because they have normal MRIs. 5-10 years later, and with better MRI techniques, lo and behold their MRIs are very abnormal.

Here is the article on the teen, and then an article on Functional Neurological Disorder:

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[Sunshine]

This is a new limited study on Functional Neurological Disorder (formerly called names such as Hysteria, Conversion disorder etc— i.e. that the patient’s neuro symptoms are caused by psych problems).

It highlights the biological abnormality in the brain correlated with a dx of FND. What we don’t know, is does the abnormality cause the neuro/FND problems (and if so, it is no longer “functional”, i.e. caused by psych issues), or does the psych problem cause the brain change (eye rolling here), or perhaps they are correlated but not causation in either direction (that is, one does not cause the other, simply co-occur)

This would have implications for medication selection to control the neuro symptoms.

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