Six steps to treat functional symptoms
If you have been putting up with symptoms, it’s perfectly understandable that you just want to get effective treatment. Surely there must be a straightforward treatment you can take to get better? Well, the reason that functional conditions are not well managed overall is that they require a change in thinking about what causes these symptoms.
Remember Kirralee’s story in blog post 2? The reason she was not getting better initially was that she was focusing on the result of her condition, not the cause. As she was suffering from heart symptoms (racing heartbeat), she believed, quite understandably, that the problem must lie with her heart. And even when cardiologist after cardiologist reassured her that her heart was fine, she took a long time to find a means to manage her condition.
And then there is Leila, another patient whose wrist fracture had healed but she had worsening pain. Doctors are beginning to know what causes these difficult-to-understand symptoms.
If you are going to begin the recovery process, you will need to adopt a radically different approach to your health problem. One of the reasons this has been so difficult is that both doctors and patients alike often believe that without a test to prove a physical condition, there is no ‘real’ illness.
The good news is that experts in the field of medicine treating functional conditions* all agree that the prime treatment focus needs to be on addressing the causes of the symptoms, rather than the symptoms themselves. When Kirralee turned her focus towards the causes and conditions that led to her symptoms, and learnt to modify them, she slowly recovered.
Six steps
Below, I highlight the six steps needed to recover. But before I do this, it is vital that you gain a better understanding of the reasons behind this approach. After you have read Parts I and II, you will see why all the specialist units treating functional conditions around the world take an approach that is similar to this:
STEP 1: GET A CLEAR DIAGNOSIS- sadly, this often will mean that you will be told “All your tests are normal, so there is nothing wrong with you.” I can only encourage you to accept the good news of the first part of the statement and then follow the other 5 steps below, confident in the knowledge that your body is ok and you need to:
STEP 2: SHIFT THE FOCUS FROM TREATING THE SYMPTOM TO TREATING THE CAUSE – one of the features of functional symptoms is that they can get worse if you focus on them. Test this out for yourself. As will be clear when you read my book, understanding more about how symptoms arise will help you to accept this step and then focus instead on:
STEP 3: IDENTIFY WHICH OF YOUR BODY STRESS SYSTEMS ARE ACTIVATED – I briefly introduced you to the 7 body stress systems that govern how your body responds to stressors. As you read in my book, you will come to understand more about how your symptoms were triggered and through what causes.
STEP 4: LEARN HOW TO TREAT YOUR FUNCTIONAL CONDITION – the third part of my book is where you can find the many ways that have been successfully used to restore normal functioning of your body
STEP 5: BUILD YOUR TEAM – once you have accepted that you have a functional condition, and you are ready to seek ways to recover from it, you will find many sources that help you. In Part three of my book, I describe the journeys of my patients who utilised many different strategies and forms of treatment. One of the challenges you face will be to find health care professionals who have well-founded skills and knowledge. There is a lot of pseudoscience, dubious blood testing and other therapeutic claims which can cost a fortune but have no proven benefits. Buyer beware!
STEP 6: RESTORE YOUR SEVEN BODY STRESS SYSTEMS – as you seek different ways to restore your natural restorative mode and learn how to reprogram your body, my book will guide you to apply some of the wisdom gained by others so that you persevere, seeking ways that work for you. With your new understanding about how each of your 7 body stress systems need to be restored, you will be begin to enjoy levels of health that have evaded you for so long.
(Some of my patients continue to have symptoms, but as Carmen says, now she understands why they are occurring they cease to control her life: she no longer worries about them, knowing that they are not a sign of anything wrong with her body, but just how it has become programmed. Her symptoms now a prompt to continue to focus on the path to recovery. )
The main message that I want to emphasise again here is that the first step towards your recovery is to take a new approach to your health problem.
The purpose of my book is to try to change the thinking around this:
Functional conditions are real
While tests have often been done by your doctor to prove your body is ok, your symptoms have arisen from a disruption in the functioning of your Body Stress Systems
Working on returning your body Stress Systems to restorative mode is necessary to begin your recovery.
For some people, the understanding that their symptoms can arise due to changes in their body’s functioning, rather than a disease process, is deeply reassuring and encourages them to seek out the causes. Simply being given the positive diagnosis of a functional condition can allow return to normal functioning. For example, in 54 patients with functional seizures, 27% achieved seizure remission in the week following communication of their correct diagnosis1. It is so important that doctors and patients alike come to a better understanding of what these conditions are and how to treat them.
In the next newsletter, I will focus on the story of Vero, how unwell she became and what causes in her life led to her symptoms. Her journey to recovery is not only inspiring – it is a beautiful illustration of what is required to find a path to recovery. Best wishes to you.
*The reason that I don’t use the term ‘functional medicine’ is summed up by this Wikipedia definition: Functional medicine is a form of alternative medicine that encompasses a number of unproven and disproven methods and treatments. It has been described as pseudoscience, quackery, and at its essence a rebranding of complementary and alternative medicine. Wikipedia
1 BMJ 2022;376:o64 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o64