Patient experiences and clinical cases relating to Functional Neurological Disorder.
Personal experiences of living with an FND diagnosis.
Maddie Aumann was diagnosed with FND before genetic testing identified a rare SCN9A disorder. Her mother, Christine Aumann, describes how the FND label continued to affect Maddie’s care even after that discovery, ultimately helping inspire Maddie’s Law.
A Daily Mail article about Jo Puckett's experience with FND raises questions about diagnostic certainty, psychological distress, medical dismissal and the difference between wanting answers and wanting to remain ill.
I would like to share my daughter’s story and what Functional Neurological Disorder has done to her life over the past three years.Before FND, my daughter was a creative, talented teenager who loved music, performing, makeup and hair. She had dreams for
A Reddit user describes recurrent episodes of one-sided paralysis that were diagnosed as FND. She says she raised hemiplegic migraine herself but it was rejected. Three years later, a headache specialist diagnosed chronic hemiplegic migraine, and she reports substantial improvement with migraine treatment.
A Reddit user questioned their FND diagnosis while being investigated for myasthenia gravis. Weeks later, they reported respiratory failure requiring intubation, an MG diagnosis and treatment with IVIG and plasma exchange. A later FND specialist assessment reportedly found no FND symptoms.
I was diagnosed with FND 2 years ago, with symptoms first appearing 3-4 years ago. I am a female in my 20s. Here are a few things I wish I knew when I first got diagnosed (these are all just my opinions based on my experience, they are not facts)clinician
A reader shared this account from a woman misdiagnosed with FND who later learned she had mixed connective tissue disease (now lupus), small fiber neuropathy, and dysautonomia. She writes about autoimmune effects on the nervous system, getting a second opinion, and finding doctors who listen.
A young woman with lupus and Sjögren’s was diagnosed with FND without an EEG, spinal tap, or extensive laboratory testing. Further investigation at another hospital revealed a previous stroke and autoimmune abnormalities, leading to a diagnosis of CNS lupus.
A 38-year-old patient diagnosed with FND after limited testing was later found to have three treatable heart conditions that explained their symptoms, including extreme daily heart-rate fluctuations previously dismissed as anxiety.
An ENT doctor suggested I had Menieres (an illness that attacks the balance nerve and the ear) in 2023. He wasn't sure as he said the disease is rare and my hearing loss was in the wrong frequency. He said there is no cure and I would have to wait for bur
I was diagnosed with FND. Saw a neurologist and he said you must stop taking Keppra as it causes depression and anxiety and start on an alternative anti-seizure drug. I left with a step down plan and guess what, the depression and anxiety has gone.
After years of severe disability and an FND diagnosis, Sam’s family discovered a large, hidden abscess beneath a previously treated root-canal tooth. Within weeks of its removal and treatment, he began to regain his vision, mobility, clarity and independence. This is their story and a reminder that unexplained symptoms still deserve thorough investigation.
One day out of the blue I felt incredibly anxious and depressed. I can identify the time of day this happened. I couldn’t sleep but got sleeping tablets from my GP. The feelings continued for a few days but then I had a series of vacant seizures.
Real clinical cases documented in published medical case reports.
A man whose variable, distractible and inconsistent neurological findings contributed to a diagnosis of conversion disorder continued to deteriorate for years. After his death, neuropathology and genetic testing confirmed Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome, showing how genuine clinical observations can support the wrong diagnostic interpretation.
A 64-year-old woman was diagnosed with a functional neurological movement disorder after clinicians observed distractibility, variability and entrainment. Within weeks, worsening symptoms and newly abnormal EEG and MRI findings reopened the investigation, and a brain biopsy confirmed sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
A published case report documents a patient initially diagnosed with FND whose progressive neurological deterioration led to further investigation and an eventual diagnosis of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP).
A 26-year-old postpartum woman presenting with headache and neurological symptoms was discharged with anxiety and possible conversion disorder. She returned the following morning unable to walk. MRI revealed a thalamic infarction caused by cerebral venous thrombosis. The case also raises a broader question: if later disease does not necessarily invalidate an FND diagnosis, how is FND misdiagnosis actually identified and counted?
A patient diagnosed with FND recovered completely after surgical repair of a CSF leak. Why did the diagnosis remain? This article explores what the case reveals about comorbidity, diagnostic reasoning, and the falsification problem in FND.
A critical look at a case of postoperative paralysis labelled as FND, questioning whether pre-existing neurological instability and predictive processing may better explain the presentation than a purely functional diagnosis.