Functional What-ological Disorder

You know those days when you’re partaking in a prolonged visit to the haberdashery section of John Lewis one minute and 20 minutes later you can’t move your right leg, neck or abdomen? and I know what you’re thinking “yeah obviously, just a standard Saturday night out on the blue VKs Ollie”. But we’re talking hard core department store haberdashery on a Sunday afternoon here. Not even a cheeky intravenous pint involved.

So this is a blog post all about the ongoing “daily struggle” – Sean de Paul 2k16 – of living with a functional neurological disorder. Pretty shook at how long ago that song came out!

What’s Your Story Then?

Good question!

This came on suddenly, within about 20 minutes. It started off with a sort of migraine. I began feeling weak and my peripheral vision began feeling contracted and dark. As I started walking back to my girlfriends flat I began losing the ability to move my right leg and neck. By the time we got to her door I could barely walk. The muscles in my right leg, neck and abs had seized up so much that they were almost impossible to move even with someone’s full weight pushing against them.

Shortly after this an ambulance crew turned up pulled some confused faces and whisked me off to hospital (See cover photo above). We arrived at Birmingham city hospital shortly after and frankly the less said about my experience there the better! In short I was given some diazepam (valium) and when i could sort of move again discharged.

I took the valium for a few days after then decided it was horrible and not helping and stopped taking it. I was signed off work for a fortnight as my GP had diagnosed me with stress and over the next two weeks my condition slowly improved.

• Poor memory/concentration
• bowel/bladder complaints
• muscle weakness
• muscle tremors/ spasms/ jerks
• eye sight issues
• panic attacks
• Breathing issues
• migraines/ headaches
• dizziness
• Tiredness/fatigue

Functional What-ological Disorder?

So what exactly is this functional majiggy malarkey?

Functional Neurological Disorder or FND is first and for-most nearly impossible to explain to that passing stranger who’s just made a comment about you going alpine hiking (a daily occurrence in my life).

Effectively FND is a problem with the software of the nervous system. There is nothing physically wrong, but for whatever reason the brain is not processing signals from the nervous system correctly.

For anyone looking for more information the next 2 paragraphs have some links to a websites with a huge amount more information on. A great website run by the incredible Professor Jon Stone MBChB FRCP PhD is neurosymptoms.org. It has a tonne of up to date information which has helped me understand my condition enormously. I mean obviously look how many letters are after his name!

There’s also FNDHope and FNDAction which both have a wealth of information on them. FND Hope has some really interesting videos from researches talking about their work in the area. Another great resource that quite nicely summarises a lot of this information is the Sheffield Teaching Hospital’s website. There’s a very good video by Dr Richard Grunewald on the basics of the condition. FND dimensions, FNDFriends,

What Help Is Available?

Plenty but you’ll have to wait…

I got NHS Physio, occupational therapy and a 3 week inpatient stay within 8 months but not without a lot of pestering my GP and being diagnosed within 2 weeks of the first onset of the condition.

Propriceptive feedback, Trying to walk to a beat, focusing on relaxing your arms and shoulders, swinging your arms and pushing from your toes.

Can I go back to work?

Absolutely but take it slow and listen to your body!

For me I broke because of an extremely stressful 12 months of work and personal circumstances. It took me over 5 months to say feel like I was starting to recover from it. Don’t underestimate how long it can take to recover from illnesses such as stress.

I’m now back in the office 3 1/2 days a week and a couple of hours working from home on the days in-between. I’ve been very lucky in that my employer is very accommodating to my condition and basically lets me work the hours I feel i can.

The End