an interesting article about conversion disorder

[sixpack]

Where I live there has been an incidence where 18 students have come down with a lot of neurological symptoms.  A few of the kids had pre-existing symptoms with one having Tourrette's.  The kids had many medical tests and were evaluated by neuro groups in the area.  One is a very well respected one and actually the one my daughter goes to.  At any rate the kids were dx'd with conversion disorder indvidually but "mass psychogenic illness".  In other words their minds caused their symtpoms.  Of course it is greatly hard to imagine such things can happen.  Even Erin Brockovich was in the area looking for toxins.  I've copied a good bit of the article except for the toxin questions which seem to be more of a smoke screen from scared parents anyway.

I'm posting it here in HOPES that folks here will get a glimmer of how our minds are quite powerful and really can produce so many odd things.  In this case they are primarily neurological symptoms but that isn't to say those of you who are fretting over your hearts or lungs etc can't have conversion disorder symptoms mucking with you.  Remember our brain controls our bodies.   

so maybe this will help you all a bit.  AT least it seems to me to be very eye opening.

By Sandra Tan

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Published:February 8, 2012, 11:41 PM

Updated: February 10, 2012, 5:37 PM


The national media spotlight has been shining on rural Le Roy for weeks, lending heat to the questions surrounding the strange illness that has led to 18 students exhibiting uncontrollable gestures, sounds and seizures.
 
The teenage Le Roy girls have made for riveting TV in recent weeks, with close-ups of one-time cheerleaders and student-athletes now twitching and pleading for answers.
 
The scrutiny has led to debates about whether the media are helping parents find answers to a "mystery illness" or exploiting vulnerable families and worsening the plight of sick children.
 
This week, WGRZ-TV announced it will stop repeatedly showing footage of twitching girls they've interviewed.
 
The initial diagnosis of the majority of the afflicted students was that individually, they suffered from conversion disorder, and collectively, they suffered from mass psychogenic illness. A few others had pre-existing conditions, including one with Tourette's syndrome.
 
Speculation persists about whether other triggers could have led to this cluster of illnesses.
 
The Buffalo News has attempted to summarize much of what's happening in Le Roy, based on data from the Department of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, the school district and interviews with nearly a dozen neurologists, researchers, psychiatrists and other physician specialists.
 
Q: What's the difference between conversion disorder, mass hysteria and mass psychogenic illness?
 
A: Conversion disorder occurs when someone develops neurologic symptoms, such as involuntary movements and sounds -- "tics" -- that have no known physical cause. Conversion disorder is believed to be the physical manifestation of psychological stress.
 
 "These types of symptoms are a very important part of our humanity," said Dr. John T. Walkup, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and chairman of the Medical Advisory Board of the Tourette Syndrome Association. "People who are vulnerable to this are usually highly smart, vulnerable to suggestion and very sensitive."
 
Symptoms in these cases are not fake but are believed to be produced by the brain's subconscious.
 
When conversion disorder occurs in a group of people, typically from a close-knit community, the diagnosis for the group is mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness. Mass psychogenic illness is the preferred medical term because of the negative connotations associated with mass hysteria.
 
Mass psychogenic illness is far more common in females than males.
 
Q: How common are these conditions?
 
A: Conversion disorder is common. Neurologists see such cases on a regular basis. Some, however, are careful when they explain the diagnosis to a patient because they don't want patients reacting negatively.
 
"I like to describe it as a subconscious movement disorder," said Dr. Thomas Guttuso Jr., a neurologist and movement disorder specialist with the Jacobs Neurological Institute. "I, generally, very much try to avoid terms like 'psychogenic,' certainly 'hysterical.' They tend to imply some kind of character weakness in the patient."
 
Most people experience conversion disorder on a much lower level. If asked to give a speech, for instance, some develop temporary hand tremors, rapid heart rates and shortness of breath.

Mass psychogenic illness is far more rare, but it's probably more common than people think. The condition has been documented for hundreds of years all around the globe and attributed to everything from unknown chemical warfare agents to demonic possession.
 
In recent decades, most cases of mass psychogenic illness have been found to affect female students in rural schools.
 
Q: How is conversion disorder diagnosed?
 
A: Neurologists are trained to recognize the difference between involuntary gestures or tics stemming from physical brain malfunctions and the abnormal movements generated from psychological triggers.
 
True tic disorders, such as Tourette's syndrome, look different than what these students exhibit.

"In neurology, this is what we do, this is what we've been trained to know," said Dr. Lazlo Mechtler, vice president of Dent Neurologic Institute, which has evaluated and treated many of the Le Roy girls. "It's a science that's been passed down for 300 years. To us, it's our bread and butter."
 
Neurologists recalled watching a news segment of one of the affected Le Roy girls with a flailing right arm. The video subsequently showed the same girl carefully applying eye liner with the same arm. They said that diversity of movement cannot be explained by any other neurological condition.
 
 Neurologists usually order blood work and imaging tests to double-check their initial findings and rule out other causes as a precaution, but the tests rarely contradict the initial diagnosis.
 
In the Le Roy outbreak, far more tests than usual were done on these girls because so many got sick. More environmental factors needed to be ruled out. Most of the afflicted students were seen and tested by multiple physicians.
 
Three of the original 12 were found to have pre-existing tic-related disorders, including one with Tourette's syndrome. The rest were repeatedly diagnosed as having conversion disorder by more than one physician.
 
Most of the patients seen at Dent were tested for thyroid disorders, lupus, Lyme disease, liver abnormalities, heavy metals such as lead and mercury, autoimmune disorders and strep, Mechtler said. They also had MRI brain imaging and EEG brainwave monitoring.
 
Q: Given family and community concerns in Le Roy, why not do more tests, just to make sure?
 
A: Neurologists worry that conducting too many medical tests can reinforce a patient's false belief that something undiscovered is at the heart of the condition and worsen symptoms.
  Patients who demand more tests over the recommendation of their physicians will sometimes also refuse treatment until the "real cause" is found.
 
"As the hunt goes on to find cause, often the people with conversion are waiting and not engaging in any treatment to get better," said Walkup, who is also director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
 
Of all the afflicted Le Roy students, the ones who have accepted their diagnoses and continued to receive treatment are the ones who have improved or been cured, said Mechtler and his colleague, Dr. Jennifer McVige.
 
   If enough tests are conducted on an individual, eventually, a test will turn up something abnormal. Doing all the testing required to check and see if every other patient has the same abnormality and determine a plausible link among them all is both time consuming and unnecessary, physicians say.
 
Q: Some of these girls say they don't believe they've led stressful lives. How could this be the cause?
 
A: Physicians say it is not unusual for a patient to initially inform them that they don't know of any trauma or stress that could be the underlying cause for their condition. Sometimes, a major life stress is subconscious -- it exists beyond a patient's awareness -- and does not come to light without more probing discussion or conversation with a physician or mental health professional.
 
The Health Department report released late last week noted that most of the students diagnosed with conversion disorder "all had significant life stressors, a common factor with conversion disorder."
 
Q: How can something completely mental lead to such physical symptoms?
 
A. The brain is extremely powerful. There have been countless documented medical cases of physically healthy patients suffering from numbness, paralysis and even blindness that can be attributed solely to a psychological cause

[greend]

This is an interesting article.  It is nice to see in words, that our minds can play nasty tricks on us.  I need this reinforced in my brain on a regular basis.  Hopefully, one day soon I won't need this type of reassurance, but for now I do.  Thanks for the posting!

[Ravens Lady]

Indeed, that is very interesting.   

Thanks sixpack.

I saw bits and pieces of that story on television.

All I know about the human mind is that it is a mysterious, amazing thing.  A lot of what it does is voluntary and within our control.  And then there is this bridge where the voluntary meets the involuntary, and where the subconscious mind creates things on its own and communicates with the rest of the body.  And what is interesting is that what we control voluntarily (like googling medical stuff or speaking negatively) can affect the involuntary mind-body connection (like perhaps creating "symptoms" where we fear them). 

***********************

Back when I was bitten by a stray cat, I suddenly started developing the indicators of rabies down to the details.  I really was beside myself.  To this day, I do not know whether I was exhibiting those issues because A) my body was repairing itself from the bite or B) the stress was influencing new "symptoms" of anxiety that just presented themselves in new ways.  I just found it interesting that I started to exhibit the exact issues that I remember learning about from a human physiology class in terms of rabies. 

When I later was relieved to find that I couldn't have had rabies, I started looking into conversion disorder and I was really just dumbfounded by what I was reading.  To think that a person could think themselves blind is really beyond me.    It was after this that I sought out this website, because I wanted to do more research on all of this.  :)

To this day I am still trying to grapple with the complexity of the human mind.  I'll probably never fully understand it, but I'll have fun trying.   

-Ravens Lady

[myWorldofWorry]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I have neuro symptoms (pin prick pains) that so far the doc cannot find a cause for. Makes me wonder if something like this is possible, although it's just so hard to believe. But I recognize it's possible. Thanks again for sharing.

Although now I'm starting to get paranoid that my mind is going to make me "go blind." 

[Ravens Lady]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I have neuro symptoms (pin prick pains) that so far the doc cannot find a cause for. Makes me wonder if something like this is possible, although it's just so hard to believe. But I recognize it's possible. Thanks again for sharing.

Although now I'm starting to get paranoid that my mind is going to make me "go blind." 

I wouldn't worry about that issue.  I haven't read about those types of cases in awhile, but from what I remember, some of the people with those issues had some serious traumatic events and I think I recall reading that part of the possible explanations were that their bodies were creating these issues as a sort of distraction from the psychological issues they had.  (example, if someone saw something traumatic like something violent, the temporary blindness could have been a means for the mind to deal with not wanting to see anything like that again) - but its been a year or so since I read up on it so I'm not sure how accurate that is. 

Regardless, I think extreme cases like that are very rare, and also can be temporary, so I don't think one should be concerned with it.

[LindaRK]

I, too, saw this in the news and immediately started thinking conversion disorder.  Pretty incredible.

[loveya14]

Kinda like when you hear of someone having something and you think you have symptoms that are the same . Thats me for sure . Recently I have read about a few celebrities with newly diagnosed Bipolar , one of my old worry obsessions , so then it triggered my worry of it again . I can do that with any type of problem not even just HA ( lucky me !!  ) , if I hear of a married couple I no of who are getting a divorce I will start to worry " What if I get a divorce etc...

[ClassicNerd]

Love that article! My bf always said if you think hard enough about a diesease you will end up getting that disease. I guess to some extent that is true. My mother and I both suffer from HA, and whenever someone has a cold we automatically come down with the cold symptoms. Is it because we're both fighting off the virus before it turns into a full blown cold, or is it because we tricked ourselves into believing we were getting sick? Who knows! 

[SickofSick]

Thank you for posting this article.  I actually saw this story on Nightline and would you believe within a couple of days I had a couple of tics over a 3 or 4 day period.   I am gaining more and more respect for the mind-body connection of health everyday.

[sixpack]

While this story has been in the news around here a lot, I didn't just happen onto the article.  My 8th grader had an assignment for Health and she and her partner had decided to do it on the LeRoy case.  Once my daughter and I found an article, I knew it was a good thing to show you all.  I think it is soooo important for people to understand, REALLY understand, that anxiety disorders are powerful and capable of affecting people quite dramatically.  It is a difficult thing to wrap one's head around.  Even people, those not experiencing conversion, can't really..  So many people are convinced that some spill that happened in the 1970's or some vaccine caused this.  Many are still screeching that it can't be possible. Conspiracy theories are rampant.  Hell, you've got Erin Brockovich poking around.  So if it is hard for peeps without any diagnosable anxiety disorder to believe the mind can do this so dramatically, it is no wonder a person caught in that vicious HA faulty thinking loop would be dubious.    

 AND I know some around here will pick this story apart saying "well my symptoms aren't exactly...or this was a group of people or teenagers.... OR......."  Well, that is kind of what is expected with what BEASTY does... casting doubt.    So my purpose wasn't really to reassure but to teach or give information that the mind can and does this with regularity. Most will never experience temporary blindness as that comes with very severe trauma or illness (probably for the exact reason as raven said).  But as I've said before, most of us (everybody on the planet really) suffer from it to some degree.  The article even said as much with the example of "giving a speech".  The thing is peeps with anxiety disorders are caught up in such bad thinking habits and look at life through "anxiety colored glasses" that rational thinking is not often seen and a body IS going to react physically.  Which came first the thinking or the symptoms???  That can almost be the chicken and the egg argument.  One may never figure that part out.  In the end everybody here, once they've been to a med doctor and had a physical, been checked out ONCE for illness and STILL exhibit symptoms and/or been dx'd with anxiety, you have to quit doubting and start working on the REAL issue---the anxiety disorder.  If you don't, well......


Good luck all.   

[Mosley]

I'm trying to get my wife help with conversion disorder right now.

[sixpack]

Thought I'd give you an update on the girls that the OP was talking about.

I was looking for a written piece but looks like I can't find that.  However about a week ago there was a piece on our local news.  It seems those "pesky neurologists" were correct despite all of the hysteria about these girls and the strange tourette like symptoms.  THere were around 12 +girls suffering.  This begin with three girls who actually HAVE a disorder and the other nine girls (who were having some stresses going on in their lives) began exhibiting symptoms. 

Once the media stepped back realizing the attention the girls were getting was only aiding and abetting the problem AND once the girls got into therapy, the symptoms subsided and went away.  The girls are fine and happy.  When the news station asked to interview the parents, they all said, "we are done with this, therapy helped our kids.  We've put all of this behind us." 

Yep people DO have extreme physical symptoms as a result of anxiety disorders and with proper treatment, things get better.

[greend]

Thanks for posting this up-date sixpack.  It makes me feel better when I get confirmation that stresses and anxiety can manifest themselves in physical symptoms.  I sometimes have to remind myself of this.

[AbnormallyAnxious]

Love that article! My bf always said if you think hard enough about a diesease you will end up getting that disease.  I guess to some extent that is true. My mother and I both suffer from HA, and whenever someone has a cold we automatically come down with the cold symptoms. Is it because we're both fighting off the virus before it turns into a full blown cold, or is it because we tricked ourselves into believing we were getting sick? Who knows! 

o.O

[Echo Hotel]

Thanks so much for posting. This is great.

[LVMomra]

Thanks for the post, sixpack. It's crazy how much our brains can do without our even realizing it. I found it interesting that the article talked about the symptoms not being fake but being produced my the subconscious. So we often don't know that our own brain is working against us! Much good "food for thought" in this article.

[Cattia]

Wow, I have never heard of this but as a teacher I have come across a few students who have experienced seizures which were diagnosed as anxiety related so I guess this must be the same sort of thing. I have also heard of neighbourhoods where clusters of people have developed ME / CFS so makes me wonder if this could be related too. Thanks for sharing.

[SighNoMore]

I realize this thread is from a year ago, but I also wanted to chime in. While I feel that conversion disorders can and do happen a lot of what I read about this also strikes me to believe that some of these gals are suffering from PANDAS. I am not the only person to feel that. I won't post my conspiracy theories and what not, but I do find some of their symptoms interesting given that their are true neurological diseases that go along with them. That is not to say that conversion disorders don't and can't happen.

[AbnormallyAnxious]

Love that article! My bf always said if you think hard enough about a diesease you will end up getting that disease.  I guess to some extent that is true. My mother and I both suffer from HA, and whenever someone has a cold we automatically come down with the cold symptoms. Is it because we're both fighting off the virus before it turns into a full blown cold, or is it because we tricked ourselves into believing we were getting sick? Who knows! 

o.O

Is it true that if you think hard enough about a disease you will end up having it?

[SighNoMore]

I have never heard that, and although the mind is powerful I am not sure you can think yourself into an illness. You can have HA and think you have an illness, but I don't believe you can actually make yourself have the disease.

[sassparella]

No AA you can't get a disease just by thinking about it... well except anxiety.

[AbnormallyAnxious]

I have never heard that, and although the mind is powerful I am not sure you can think yourself into an illness. You can have HA and think you have an illness, but I don't believe you can actually make yourself have the disease.

You're not sure?

[SighNoMore]

I am sure! Poor choice of words! You can't think yourself into whatever you fear. Please do not go panic now!

[AbnormallyAnxious]

I am sure! Poor choice of words! You can't think yourself into whatever you fear. Please do not go panic now!

You can't think yourself into whatever you fear?

[SighNoMore]

I don't want to get tangled up in semantics. Simply put you can think you are sick; this suffering from HA, but you can't think yourself into actually having that disease.

Please don't pick my words apart. You and your heart are fine!