Hello, I'm new to the thread, but I've been browsing the forum for ages.
I am really interested in psycho-somatic illness. It fascinates me and I'd really like to know if there has ever been any peer-reviewed research which suggests it's real. I don't mean 'minor' things like stress headaches and IBS but the pseudo-epileptic seizures, contractures and paralysis that get written about. They've always seemed so strange, I guess I just assumed they were genuinely psycho-somatic and thought nothing more than how strange the brain can be. I know a survivor of incest (who was horrifically assaulted over about 15 years) and in the community of rape-survivors, it seems to be taken as read that psycho-somatic illness exists because of people experiencing things like dissociative states and severe pelvic pain. Again, that contributed to me assuming it existed.
I have EDS and it took 13 years to get a diagnosis. No- one ever mentioned the words 'conversion disorder' or 'hysteria' but it was very much implied, repeatedly by different doctors. I was treated as if I had it. Then, oops, oh no, it turned out I did have something wrong with me. I had prolotherapy and it was (first time round anyway) a miracle. Funny how appropriate treatment helps. It did wear off and subsequent rounds did nothing, but then I got M.E and the fun began all over again.
In hospital before my diagnosis I met at least 1 patient with "conversion disorder." He'd become paralysed at a football match. He had no feeling in his legs but nothing showed up on his scans. The nurses were horrible to him, incidentally; he was treated very much as a fraud although he was 15 years old and couldn't walk.
I do wonder how, if it truly exists, there are such abysmal cure rates. Surely once a patient is told there is categorically nothing wrong with them and they have a listening ear and appropriate therapy, they *should* get better.
I saw Coyne say on his twitter that Sullivan hasn't published any peer-reviewed research. But M.E aside, I really want to look into things like pseudo-epileptic seizures more. I have been reading about Reflex Anoxic Seizures and it strikes me that lots of people who suffer with those might be mis-diagnosed initially with having a psycho-somatic condition. Has anyone ever read *anything* which supports the existence of psycho-somatic epileptic seizures? Or any of the other more strange symptoms? I've always rather assumed that even if it does exist then it's ultimately no threat to M.E patients. Don't get me wrong, I know massive harm is being done at present because we are dismissed as not being truly ill, and that extends to how much funding our illness has had, etc but ultimately the tide is turning and we do have an ever-growing body of evidence which supports the fact that we are suffering from a somatic illness. It won't be possible to ignore that forever.