Functional Neurological Disorder

For the first day of our task is to explain what FND ( functional neurological disorder) is. I want to explain it in the simplest easiest form. I want you to understand it better so maybe if I come up in conversation and somebody asks “what is that FND things?” You can actually give them a great easy explanation. Most doctors can’t even do that right now across the country with this disorder. They’ve never even heard of FND. So you’re one step closer to being a doctor. You can skip your grey’s Anatomy lesson this week. Just kidding Who would ever skip an episode LOL!

WHAT IS FND?

FND is due to a problem with the Central nervous system. Functional symptoms derive from The brains in ability to send and receive messages properly. Pretty simple right ? Let’s break it down a little more for people who just don’t grasp this concept.

Take a computer for example.The hardware is working ( my brain ) but the software is not . The gmail ( think of the nerves sending wrong messages) is sending spam every! Those are my symptoms. Drop that computer in water. That’s a flair up. Put that computer in Rice to soak up the water. That would be my therapy team helping me like Speech, occupational and physical therapy.

This is my body everyday. Some days are good days and some bad. Some days are really bad and I can’t get out of bed. FND is a disorder that waxes and Wanes so you need a wheelchair a walker and a cane. Every person suffers differently and has completely different symptoms no two FND people are alike. There are hundreds of symptoms and the severity changes throughout the flares. FND is a disabling disorder but people have found remission. I haven’t figured out that secret yet.

It can take up to three years at least to get diagnosed with functional neurological disorder because you just get passed around and misdiagnosed. It is the second reason people go to the neurology clinic the first is for MS.

I’ll talk about the symptoms tomorrow but our brain mimics the big five please don’t confuse that with making up or pretending . It actually makes all the symptoms of these disorder without creating the blood work or the actual anomaly on the brain. At the beginning people thought I had MS. That’s because of the big five which is MS, ME/CFS, parkinson’s, epilepsy, stroke. We can have every single one of those symptoms going on at the same time. Yet when they do bloodwork, x-rays, MRI, and every other test under the sun it comes back negative. That’s how they know you have FND.

Functional neurological disorder is complicated to say the least. FND can disrupt your whole body because whatever your brain controls can go wrong. That’s where the FND is. They don’t know why it happens. They don’t have a cure. They don’t have a medication. It’s not studied enough. All I can do is build awareness. Please help me build awareness.

Don’t forget I would love for you to post pictures to my wall or your feed of you wearing orange! I don’t care what color orange just light up my world! Anytime this month if you have have a chance just put on something orange and use the hashtags that are official #FND2020 #FNDaware .