Resume drafts Unsaved story and dashboard drafts
Comment drafts Unsaved comment drafts
Christoff profile picture

Christoff

Public profile
Spousal caregiver
38 posts 53 comments 3 discussions Last seen 31 Oct 2026 Member since 02 Jul 2025
Software developer, amateur astronomer, reluctant backyard neurologist by necessity while helping my wife navigate a complex neurological illness, creator of FND Nope (fndnope.org) a resource challenging the Functional Neurological Disorder diagnosis, sharing patient stories, and advocating for better investigation of underlying causes, and professional Trekkie.
Stance towards FND
Questioning or sceptical of FND
Community trophies
Game trophies

Personal Space

Christoff’s Space

For my wife. For answers. For as long as it takes.

Visit Personal Space
Posts
38
I Am Angry
3 weeks ago

I am angry that uncertainty became certainty, that softened language obscures what is actually being claimed, that scepticism is treated as hostility, and that while we argue about FND, my wife keeps getting sicker.

When the Tests Find Something, but We Still Have to Find the Answers
3 weeks ago

An update on my wife’s worsening gastrointestinal problems, the objectively demonstrated delayed intestinal transit, what has been excluded, what still needs investigation, and why it feels wrong that we are being left to work out the next steps ourselves.

Open Letter to Zachary Grin, DPT
2 months ago

An open letter addressing the removal of a disputed cartoon, clarifying what was—and was not—claimed, and reaffirming FND Nope’s commitment to open and critical discussion of the FND framework.

The Common Phenotypes Hypothesis
4 months ago

An exploration of FND, positive rule-in signs, comorbidity, predictive processing, diagnostic closure, and whether functional symptoms may reflect common phenotypes arising from multiple underlying conditions.

The Belief Prerequisite: How FND Treatment Echoes Faith Healing
5 months ago

One of the most striking things you notice when you first start reading the literature on FND is how crucial it is considered for patients to accept and believe in the diagnosis. Without that belief, treatment is often regarded as futile. They simply will not get better.

What Makes a Doctor a Good Doctor?
6 months ago

A reflection on what makes a good doctor in the context of complex chronic illness, focusing on collaboration, systems thinking, and clinical humility.

Fatigable Weakness vs Functional Weakness: Why Hoover’s Sign Can Mislead When Isokinetic Testing Shows Otherwise
7 months ago

Examines Hoover's sign in a patient with true fatigable weakness. Highlights how objective isokinetic testing better captures performance deficits than traditional clinical signs, preventing misinterpretation as functional weakness.

When Diagnosis Becomes Doctrine: Questioning FND and Clinical Authority
7 months ago

When I started this website in July 2025, I received a lot of pushback from FND proponents. Some felt that the website was highly offensive and disrespectful, and urged me to please take the website down, which I obviously did not do.

FND's Flawed Analogy: When 'Software' Problems can Hide Undetected Hardware Damage
7 months ago

One of the most common analogies that you would come across within FND literature is the software/hardware analogy.

If FND Scepticism Feels Like a Personal Attack, It Might Be Time for Introspection
8 months ago

FND patient communities provide support but risk echo chambers: illness becomes identity, criticism feels like attack, closing doors to misdiagnosis & recovery—modern hysteria protected by groupthink.

Comments
53
FND is nothing more than a philosophical framework for approaching treatment when the cause of symptoms is unknown — so while it may be well-intentioned, that’s all it really is. However, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and this is a clear example of that. When we reach an impasse like this, we cannot simply give it a name and declare victory in diagnosis. We need to be honest and transparent, and acknowledge the unknown as exactly that — unknown. For example, in my wife’s case, we cannot expect a psychiatrist to do the work of a neurosurgeon when it comes to her cervical stenosis and symptoms that are clearly mechanically driven. That’s simply lazy medicine. Meanwhile, she continues to grow sicker while we’re forced to navigate the egos of one doctor after another.

Hi Romina, Thank you for taking the time to leave such a thoughtful comment and for suggesting additional avenues of investigation. My wife has a family history of liver cancer (and cancer in general), so her liver has always been an area of concern that we’re monitoring closely. Given that background, she may indeed be more susceptible than the general population. We relocated to a larger city with proper water treatment when she first became ill, so environmental factors like that should no longer be an issue. Regarding shingles — interestingly, I’m the one who had shingles. However, at the time, her doctors decided to give her the shingles vaccine as a precaution. That likely explains the elevated varicella counts you noticed. Her facial asymmetry is also quite unusual. It’s mechanically reproducible — for example, when she moves her arms in circles, the corner of her mouth and the same side of her face distort. This might relate to her cervical spine, though it has gradually worsened over the past 20 years or so. We also explored myasthenia gravis as a possible cause, but that line of investigation ultimately led to a dead end. At this stage, I suspect we might be dealing with dynamic cord compression. Many of her symptoms can be triggered through specific mechanical movements, so her fatigue may be linked to inflammation that builds up progressively throughout the day.

Hi Mel Thank you very much for taking the time to provide fantastic feedback! I've come across David Tuller's website, and he is doing amazing work around exposing the insanity surrounding illnesses that are actually medically unexplained at the moment of diagnosis, but treated as a concrete diagnosis I am not sure if doctors are even aware of the philosophical reasoning behind the FND diagnosis (https://www.bmj.com/content/325/7378/1449). Perhaps a 5 monkey experiment situation?
There is humility and honesty in declaring that "we don't know", instead of slapping functional labels on something that just needs deeper investigation and a sober eye. Like in your case, the answers might not even be neurological, but something that presents neurological, e.g. a CNS reflex that is being framed as something it is not. As for Lyme disease, that is something that we looked into as well. When her symptoms initially presented, we suspected some kind of parasitic involvement - at the time we lived in a very small town in the Western Cape, without a proper water treatment plant, which initially presented as gastrointestinal symptoms, that escalated to a neurological presentation. The facial asymmetry is one of the stranger aspects of her illness. For example, it was observed that moving her arms in a certain way for about a minute pulls the lower right side of her mouth askew - clearly mechanical and reproducible on demand, with no variability at all. Regards Christoff

Discussions started
3


Initial interview with Christine Aumann, Maddie Aumann’s mother, on REAL TALK 93.3FM, discussing Maddie’s Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) diagnosis, her subsequent medical journey, and the impact the FND diagnosis had on her care.


From https://www.facebook.com/RealTalk933fm/videos/1095299976492411/


You can literally go onto https://fndconnect.org.uk/shop/product/fnd-connect-i-have-seizures-lanyard-and-card

And for £ 4.99 you can buy yourself a lanyard to inform bystanders to effectively discourage appropriate emergency care.

Someone may assume every episode is "just another functional seizure." But seizures can change, suffer a head injury, have a stroke,

low blood sugar, cardiac syncope, or another medical emergency.


Started Red flags on 22 Jun 2026
3 replies

Looking back, was there a symptom(s) that should have prompted doctors to investigate further before diagnosis FND?