Diagnostic Dogma
A tag exploring how medical diagnoses can become entrenched frameworks, sometimes treated as settled conclusions rather than continually testable hypotheses. Posts examine the role of clinical authority, diagnostic criteria, evidentiary standards, and alt
Dismantling FND: When ME/CFS Starts Trespassing on Functional Neurology's Territory
FND Nope
Moderator
Dr. Brayden Yellman and Paige Zuckerman challenge FND, its diagnostic assumptions, and its overlap with ME/CFS. From seizure-like episodes explained by orthostatic intolerance to patients receiving alternative diagnoses, the question is simple: what happens when medicine starts explaining symptoms previously called functional?
10 Suspicious Things You Apparently Shouldn't Do Around an FND Specialist
Quackademic
Sunglasses, wheelchairs, handwritten notes, music and even office chairs have all found their way into medical discussions of functional neurological symptoms. The real problem isn't that these observations necessarily diagnose FND, but that they can influence the wider clinical picture. A sarcastic, referenced tour of ten examples where ordinary behaviour risks becoming suspicious.
The Weaponization of FND: Selma Blair, MS, and Hysteria With Better Branding
Quackademic
An FND-focused healthcare professional accuses Selma Blair of seeking sympathy, questions her MS history using dancing videos and declares her symptoms textbook FND. Apparently, hysteria got a rebrand, not a retirement.
Diagnosed With FND After Her Son’s Suicide. It Was Fatal Frontotemporal Dementia
FND Nope
Moderator
A 47-year-old woman’s progressive neurological deterioration was attributed to conversion disorder after her son’s suicide. Despite abnormal findings and failed psychiatric treatments, the diagnosis persisted. Genetic testing eventually confirmed frontotemporal dementia. Her doctors later acknowledged the cognitive biases behind their diagnostic failure.
Diagnosed With FND After Losing Her Daughter. Years Later, Elly Had 15 Brain Lesions and Multiple Sclerosis
FND Nope
Moderator
Elly Littlejohn was diagnosed with FND after losing her daughter to a drunk driver, despite abnormal MRI findings. Years of worsening symptoms, additional brain lesions and abnormal spinal fluid results eventually led to an MS diagnosis. Her story raises serious questions about diagnostic anchoring, trauma-based assumptions and delayed treatment.
When a 50-Minute Seizure Becomes “Textbook FND”: Diagnostic Certainty Without Evidence
Quackademic
A Doctor of Physical Therapy claims a 50-minute seizure can only be functional. But prolonged epileptic seizures are medically documented. This raises serious questions about professional authority, diagnostic overreach, positive signs, and the dangers of diagnosing patients on social media.
Havana Syndrome: When an Unexplained Neurological Illness Becomes FND
FND Nope
Moderator
NIH researchers classified 28% of Havana syndrome patients as having FND, despite unresolved questions about the origins of their symptoms, conflicting earlier research and warnings that different conditions may have been grouped together. Does identifying a functional phenotype actually explain what happened?
When Ignorance Becomes a Diagnosis: FND Experts Warn of Diagnostic Failure
Quackademic
FND researchers acknowledge that weak functional signs lack specificity, neurologists disagree, and unfamiliar diseases risk being labelled functional. The diagnostic problem is hiding in plain sight.
When Defending FND Means Missing the Point
Quackademic
David Healy's warning that drug toxicity can disappear behind an FND diagnosis has provoked predictable criticism. But much of the response confuses how FND is supposed to be diagnosed with how it is actually diagnosed. The literature itself shows misdiagnosis, overdiagnosis and diagnostic overshadowing occur. You can dislike Healy's language. You still have to answer his argument.
FND Hope's Founder, a Misdiagnosis, and Sneddon's Syndrome
FND Nope
Moderator
FND treatment is built around assumptions about why symptoms occur. But what happens when those assumptions are wrong? Bridget Mildon's Sneddon's syndrome and Rebel's later ALS diagnosis raise an uncomfortable patient-safety question: how safe is mechanism-specific treatment when the mechanism itself remains uncertain?
