Written Off with FND: The Hidden Dental Abscess That Changed Everything

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14 Aug 2026 3 comments

Our "FND" story. It's long but needs to be told. Above all if it can help anyone else get well. Please, please read to the end. For hope.

Aged 45, my previously healthy husband, Sam, started to get sick.

Headaches, chronic tiredness, dizziness, nausea, light and noise sensitivity, feeling drunk (but tea total), irritability, trouble concentrating, difficulty driving, trips and falls.

For 4 years, we begged his GP to take it seriously and do something. He was sent away with paracetamol and occasionally Tanganil for the dizziness, which never worked.

Then he spent 2 years getting really sick, unable to stand, walk, see, read, leave the house, get to the bathroom on time, have any kind of life. Plus a host of other symptoms. Total body pain, tingling, numbness, burning skin sensations, weakness, diabetes, loss of appetite, unexplained fatty liver.

Whole body basically shutting down. Unable to be moved other than by ambulance, and that made him violently ill.

Tremors, seizures, defined as non epileptic.

Periods of blackouts and out of body experiences. Seeing things that weren't there. My husband of 20 years was gone. I effectively became a single parent and my daughter thought her Dad was dying. She stopped sleeping in case he went during the night. He often slept all day and I would constantly go to check he was still breathing.

A different GP finally asked where his tests were (non existent) and ordered MRIs, EEG etc. which revealed a small brain tumour and a larger thyroid tumour but ruled out multiple sclerosis and epilepsy.

He was referred to Neurology, who insisted the tumour couldn't be the cause of his illness. We weren't convinced, more panicked.

They spent 5 days testing him, "for everything" in a major university teaching hospital. Including Lyme disease, Charcots, Alzheimers, rare genetic disorders and DNA profiling. Lumbar puncture and a host of blood tests. Everything normal.

But still declared more than 80% handicapped as he continued to decline. His quality of life so poor that he begged me every day to put an end to his misery. He just wanted to die. Our daughter grew from 3 to 8 years old becoming a young carer. Both of us traumatised, thinking we were losing him.

His parents at 80+ years held him up by both arms and supported by a stick for his 50th birthday photo. The wheelchair was close by.

He'd had a couple of previous random unexplained infections, for one he was hospitalised 8 days with a fever of 41° of "unknown origin". CAT scan normal. Recurrent ear pain and putrid smells but nothing found.

A visit to a brain surgeon in the leading Paris hospital confirmed, its not the tumour. And then the conversations about "its all in his head". He's depressed and manifesting symptoms so as not to have to face up to life. The doctors basically convinced Sam that he was losing his mind.

But a leading neuropsychologist didn't find much signs of anxiety or depression, other than the reasonable reaction to his terrible situation. His scores were surprisingly low. Antidepressants and psychiatric visits anyway.

Life ground to a complete halt. Sam had been seen by over 30 different consultants and specialists in 8 different hospitals. All threw their hands in the air and gave up on him. I wouldn't, determined to get answers.

Finally, a rare diseases specialist in Paris agreed to see him and diagnosed FND with absolute certainty in under 2h. Sent him home with orders to relax, do breathing exercises and "disassociate his symptoms". To ignore the very real condition he was in, basically.

We settled into a vague new life as his full time carers, me off sick from work for 14 months after a serious burnout, caused by fighting for his life and being treated like a hysterical wife, accused of playing at doctor and dismissed time and again. I started seriously researching FND to find out how to help him, joined the forum, didn't find much encouragement that he could improve. Read the horror stories.

In the meantime, he'd had a nagging toothache where he'd had a root canal treatment before all this happened, in the early days of Covid back in 2020.

An ORL at our local hospital, after examining him for a second time with the incessant itching and recurrent putrid smell plus an inner and middle ear scan that showed no abnormalities told him to see a dentist about the tooth, urgently. He was possibly being poisoned by it.

None of the regular dentists wanted to touch it and the local surgery where he'd had it done had disappeared overnight.

He needed a stomatologue we were finally told, a facial and dental surgeon. We'd never heard of it but I diligently found one and we went private - still waited months for an appointment.

He listened to our story, took a 3d x-ray and told us that Sam had a massive abcess under the root canal tooth, in his gum and jaw. Probably full of bacteria, not cleaned properly and then sealed up when the work was done.

It needed to come out and be laser treated but the bill was 3,000€ and the treatment not paid for by the CPAM, the French health service. Nor by our private top up insurance. Nothing had EVER shown up on his bloodwork, literally hundreds of tests.

Determined to alleviate at least one cause of his suffering, I started a Go Fund Me campaign and raised the money, thanks to generous donations from ex-colleagues, family and friends.

Sam had the tooth and root canal removed and the laser treatment early July 2026. For 3 weeks, it hit him hard, he felt dreadful. Then after the stitches came out he started to improve day by day.

Vision partially returned, headaches abated, he started getting up unaided, even tottering about without his stick. Brain fog gone, coherent sentences, total presence every day.

6 weeks after surgery, he's a changed man. Not back to normal, he still tires easily, he has lost a huge amount of muscle mass and is weak. That's understandable after 3 year's immobile.

But my husband is back in the land of the living. He can joke and read with our daughter, stand and walk, leave the house, prepare a basic meal.

It is early days, but it is clear to us that the failed, appalling root canal treatment 6 years ago was the cause of all this. The next 6 to 12 months will be needed to see how he progresses and confirm the theory.

We believe he was being 'poisoned' from the inside out and no-one ever told us to get his teeth checked.

If I hadn't been so dogged to alleviate his suffering, he would have been written off with FND and remained severely disabled for potentially the rest of his life, however long he could go on (which wasn't long).

I know it won't be the cause of everyone's FND but, if you have it, please - get your oral health checked. Really checked, particularly if you have had root canal treatment.

I have started to read that it is reasonably known in parts of the dental community and among alternative health practitioners that it can cause persistent atypical infection, including up to the brain, which is not so far away.

Most holistic cancer practitioners refuse to start treating patients until they have had every root canal removed, to eliminate this possibility.

The bacteria from the gums and jaw essentially have a free, hidden path to the rest of the body. Leading to systemic inflammation.

And its practically undetectable.

Millions of root canal treatments are carried out every year.

If we can prevent just a few people from unnecessary suffering, it will have been worth it.

Thank you for reading this far, go get checked. Please

Good luck to you all.