Personal Account of Misdiagnosed Neurological Condition by a Medical Student
Anon. Kazakh Med Student
Medical student
A bit about myself. I live in Kazakhstan, a country in Central Asia. I'm 21, a student, in my 4th year of medical school. As they say, when there are no problems, we create many imaginary ones, but when a real problem appears, the others magically disappear.
I lived like an ordinary person, nothing remarkable. Routine, studies, work, etc. But then came a moment when the storm hit. On September 3, 2025, while taking a shower, I was suddenly overcome by numbness in the entire left side of my body. Everything went numb, from the top of my head to the toes on my foot. The numbness felt like I could still sense something, but as if through a layer of something else. Since I'm in my 4th year of med school, I started checking my tongue, smile, and muscle strength for symmetry, suspecting a stroke. Those were all normal except for the numbness. I somehow immediately understood it wasn't a stroke. But I still called an ambulance. Believe me, if you've never experienced neurological numbness, it's truly terrifying and frightening. The ambulance took me to the hospital. Fortunately, the doctor on duty and the neurologists were competent. Along with the numbness, I also developed increased muscle tone (hypertonia) on the left side, in the same area as the numbness. The main suspicion was encephalitis or meningitis. They did a spinal tap (lumbar puncture); as expected, they found nothing. Since there were no paralyses or pathological pyramidal signs, they didn't do a CT or MRI. They discharged me the same day after the puncture and told me to get an MRI of the brain with contrast. They probably suspected multiple sclerosis then but didn't tell me. A few days later, I went to see a neurologist as an outpatient. All those days, the symptoms hadn't gone anywhere. The neurologist immediately suspected a demyelinating disease. Also sent me for an MRI with contrast and, in addition, of the cervical spine. On September 9, I was already in that machine. The result: nothing, not even any suspicious areas. Went to the neurologist, he said it's not MS, go home, sleep peacefully. I asked him, what is it then? He shrugged, said psychosomatic. Well, and prescribed me muscle relaxants, as the hypertonia hadn't gone away. And here's the most important thing: the tone really did decrease on the muscle relaxants. Why am I mentioning this? It's a sign of the medication acting on an organic lesion, just as you described with your wife. This should have immediately ruled out a psychogenic cause, because psychiatric pathology doesn't behave like that. Well, I took the course, everything went away, everything stabilized as before. But not for long.
Already on October 5, I noticed it became difficult to swallow and my speech was slightly slurred. As it turned out, my tongue deviated to the right. This is a symptom of damage to the pyramidal tract responsible for muscle movement. And on top of that, hypotonia (reduced tone) and weakness appeared in the muscles on the left side. I only managed to see a neurologist on October 14. This time, the neurologist was very rude. He got annoyed, asking why someone so young is going to doctors. In short, an unpleasant character. Well, somehow he examined me and sent me again for an MRI of the head and neck, but this time with angiography and venography. On October 21, I went into that machine with all my symptoms. And again, the result was clear. On November 5, I saw a third neurologist. He didn't even really look at the papers. Almost from the doorway, he started asking if there was stress, family problems, if I had experienced violence. I was quite surprised, what does that have to do with anything? I sat down. I showed him the MRIs, he barely looked at them, sat down opposite me, and gave a very superficial examination. He didn't check reflexes, didn't check for pathological pyramidal signs, even though he should have, he was obligated to. I, even as a student with no experience working with neurological patients, understand that perfectly well. And he told me: you have FND. I asked what that is, he said it's all due to stress, and go home as quickly as possible. I immediately understood, even on an intuitive level, that something was wrong here. I said you didn't check the tone, didn't do anything, listed all the arguments for an organic lesion. He said there isn't one, where's the proof?
Well, in short, I left there completely disappointed. In the following months, the weakness in my limbs didn't go away. And the tone increased again. Now I understand it's spasticity, as my gait has changed, and it's become difficult to make sharp movements with my limbs. Today is January 21, and things are very bad. Even people around me notice changes in my speech, my gait, my tremor.
I have several overlapping symptoms with your wife. For several months before this nightmare started, my right eye began closing poorly during sleep, it's just open when I sleep. So it's been drying out for about a year now, but I still see fine. Also, like your wife, I have problems with the intestines and stomach, and quite severe ones. And my current symptoms are distantly, but still, similar. Forgot to add, there's a droop of the left corner of my mouth, moderately pronounced, but present; otherwise, facial expressions are preserved.
Honestly, I have objective signs of an organic lesion, like the tongue deviation and spasticity. And honestly, I don't know what it is. Possibly Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), possibly MS. Possibly an unknown disease. Maybe your wife and I have the same illness.
Regarding your wife, I read everything carefully, analyzed it. Regarding my "FND," I don't believe in it. Psychiatric problems like depression and anxiety appeared in me against the backdrop of months of uncertainty and suffering from the symptoms. Even though I'm a student without much experience with hospital patients, I understand physiology, pathophysiology, and the mechanism of symptom development perfectly well. Looking at your wife's history, it's clear this is definitely not FND. The presence of facial asymmetry is a lesion of the pyramidal tracts, which, believe me, cannot be fabricated psychogenically. Also, blaming vision, gait, and speech problems on psychiatry is simply a crime. You clearly need further investigation. I looked at your wife's brain MRI. I have some small experience in this; I would definitely see something suspicious. Based on the MRI data, I can say there is no focal lesion or tumor in the brain. I noticed something strange. In the right frontal area, more precisely closer to the cerebral cortex, I noticed a certain oddity. The architecture of the cortex in one area is clearly different from others. It's more convoluted, and the differentiation there is frankly irregular. Maybe you noticed it yourself. However, I'd like to clarify something. What did the radiologist write about this? Did they even notice it? It's a shame I can't attach a screenshot with my notes here. It's important to clarify whether this is a congenital defect or an acquired one. If acquired, one could think either of some localized and specific neurodegeneration, or the consequences of some trauma or inflammatory process.
Regarding your thoughts about FND, I share your opinion. This condition is not a diagnosis. What some fantasists say about neurons restructuring in the cortex is untrue. They do reorganize networks, but locally, only in the frontal lobes, and even then in small areas, with low activity, and this process finishes after the age of 25. But the motor cortex responsible for movement and muscle strength never restructures. These connections formed in the womb, they are very strong, and they can only reorganize if an organic lesion occurs and they (the connections) bypass that organic damage via a different, detour pathway.
In Western countries, they often diagnose FND in such conditions. In our post-Soviet space, both in Russia and in my country, there's an analogue of FND. Here, it's called vegetative-vascular dystonia (VSD), which has 150 symptoms, from headaches to complete paralysis. And as you understand, here too doctors mistakenly take organic diagnoses for hysterical ones. The description of FND by psychiatrists themselves—through sexual incontinence, "hysteria of the uterus," male lust, some long-unspoken resentment, theatricality, and all that—sounds like the ravings of a madman. The connection between objective loss of strength and memory loss with not having taken revenge on someone or not having had intercourse with someone in time is completely incomprehensible. It's something on the level of mystical thinking.
I wish you luck. I wish your wife a full recovery.
