Have you tried placing these symptoms into various AI bots? These can provide useful potential diagnoses.
I just asked some AI bots the following question:
What could be the cause of the following list of symptoms, given that many of the medical tests and scans listed below found nothing remarkable:
Symptoms list:
- severe cognitive issues: difficulty thinking, concentrating, short term memory problems, every day this is getting worse (at the start of this year they old listen to audio books, now they can barely keep up with a five minute YouTube video, will often repeat the same question not recalling if they asked or what the answer was, can't remember what happened in the day by the evening)
- the above can have worse episodes of disorientation, confusion, not being able to answer or comprehend simple questions, can act "out of it" or like drunk/high, can become giddy/delirious
- intense feelings of pressure in the head, as though something is expanding in their head, generally felt all over, sometimes also in front with sinus pressure
- worsening blurry vision and double vision
- severe dizziness
- mood changes: uncharacteristic/unprompted anger, aggression, rage
- constant whole body feeling of "fizzing" or "sparkling" similar to pins and needles
- sudden weakness (distinct from fatigue, not related to energy but more an inability to move, sometimes becoming full paralysis, particularly in legs)
Tests and scans list:
- all blood tests and panels for infection, inflammation, nutrition/vitamin deficiency, full blood counts, have come back clear, the only exceptions being a low white cell count, and a high ALP
- recently redone thyroid/hormone testing, all normal
- awaiting results of some more specific blood tests, and some 24hr urine collection tests
- head CT, head MRI with and without contrast, spine MRI without contrast, all clear
- eye check for papilledema all clear
- EEG clear
- ECG clear
- home blood pressure tests suggest frequent low diastolic blood pressure particularly, with occasional large sudden increases in BP
- abdominal ultrasound (investigating high ALP) clear
ChatGPT suggested for example: autoimmune encephalitis (e.g., anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, limbic encephalitis, Hashimoto’s encephalopathy). Plus it gave many other suggestions. You might like to post the same question into ChatGPT, and read the full set of answers it gave.
You can also try entering the symptoms one by one, separated by commas, into https://www.symptoma.com/ , which is an established dedicated medical AI diagnostic too.
Thanks, we've done blood tests for autoimmune encephalitis as that was one of my first thoughts, but negative and no signs of it on the MRI. The NHS neurologist has still agreed to do a lumbar puncture as well thankfully (although this guy is still very insistent he thinks it's FND, so if the lumbar puncture is clear we won't waste more time with him)
