Hi there
Is anyone struggling with fine motor skills due to FND? I'm having trouble picking up small objects like pins or coins and especially slices of bananas which is odd, also constantly dropping things as well
Fine motor skills : Hi there Is anyone... - Functional Neurol...
Fine motor skills
Written by
whirlygirl16
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32 Replies
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Hi, yes I struggle with picking up small objects too Aswell as doing it undoing buttons. My had cramps up into strange positions too. Do you suffer with any hand cramping?
Yes I get muscle cramps too, my hand goes all distorted. It's all so weird this FND isn't it?
Yes it’s very weird, sometimes when my hand cramps up the side of it goes in and out like there’s a little alien in there working away that’s what my daughters says.
😁 don't mean to laugh but that's really funny and I know exactly what you talking about
I laugh about it all the time if not I’d chop my hand off 😂 I’m glad you do as when I showed my dr the video of my hand doing the alien rebirth she just looked at me like she had never seen anything like it before. The joys of having a condition they don’t know a thing about.
😂 I know! It's funny but we seem to know more about it than the doctors do 😁 hopefully things will change the more it's recognised but only time will tell
It used to be mainly on left, left hand curls, or clenches, now right hand, struggle with using utensils. Paying for things difficult, either coins or getting card out. Chopping food or even balancing food to my mouth. New way to diet??
Ha ha new way to diet, that's brilliant!
It's my left hand only that seems to curl up but I'm dropping things with my right hand all the time, it's so frustrating. I just can't believe how many things it effects in the body. What other issues have you been coping with since being diagnosed?
I started dropping things 4 years ago then spasms started and finally in jan this year I was admitted with suspected stroke as my face had dropped, I couldnt speak properly, I couldn't use right hand side of my body.
8 find that if I'm concentrating on picking something up I cant, it causes shakes and if i carry on trying I can seizure out. If I distract myself I can pick the thing I wanted to up. I used to get very frustrated and angry at myself but I'm trying to laugh with my carers now and this seems to have helped a lot.
Take care of yourself, jen x
Hi Jen
I will try to distract myself like you do and see if it works and thanks for the tip. It's crazy how it can effect so many things in the body, to be honest I'd never heard of it before I was diagnosed which is sad because it's as bad as MS or Parkinson's
Take care to Shirley
DNE92ModeratorFND Hope UK
Yes. Really annoying and it developed sometime after my diagnosis. It's my writing which suffers most (I eventually grind to a halt) and if I try to say screw in a screw - my hand just starts shaking, gets worse and I usually end up hitting the sodding screw with a hammer.
Yup, bilateral hand tremors and picking things up with fingers and holding onto them are difficult
I find that as well, sometimes I go to reach out for something and my hand has a tremor which is so annoying
It's an action tremor, kinetic tremor, intention tremor, or postural tremor. I had it for months when this hit me. It will work it's self out with time. It's extremely tiring. Hang in there and give it time. It won't be with you forever. Patience and time. Just know it will work it's way out. Your body is just in hyper drive right now.
Thanks as that's made me feel a little better the fact that I won't have it forever. How long have you had FND?
I had this type of symptom for a few months. Thankfully that did go away. FND sadly is still going to hang around. I have had it it since August of 2018.
Oh dear that's a long time to have had it. I was only diagnosis in January of this year. You must be so fed up with it as it's so disabling my life feels on hold. Do you feel the same?
Your body is just in a sensitive hyper mode right now. Eventually you will get into a more calm state. Hang in there!
Thank you and I will try to but it's very difficult on times to cope with all of it and with no help from the Welsh NHS because they don't fund it at the moment so you feel like you're on your own and left to deal with it. How do feel about it?
I struggle with days of exhaustion. I developed internal tremors. I have hard to control migraines. I already had a migraine condition before this hit me. My face is numb. The right side is more numb. I have a lot of pain in my low back that runs down my right leg. I get dizzy a lot. Some days I still will use a cane with the migraines. They will cause me whole right sided body pain and weakness when they strike me. When I get tired or stressed the tremors are easy for others to see. My internal thermostat is a bit off. I get more easily cold and hot. It's a pain in the arse. Sometimes, thankfully rarely, I get this feeling like someone places a knife in my back, twists it and leaves it there for a few minutes and pain engulfs my whole back and it's horrific and all of a sudden it lifts. I have experienced a few seizures. I know what my brain feels like when that happens so I stave off the seizure episode and sit until that horrible brain sensation passes. It feels like a chemical dump in my brain and it tingles. Terrible feeling. I wonder what other people feel in their brain when they are about to have one of their seizure episodes. I feel nauseous and kinda like I want to pass out and weak and short of breath when it hits. I am an RN and educated myself on the matter. I don't work anymore because I just can't. I have a supportive husband and have kept him in the loop of my medical situation. I have recently let a family member know what I have. It's just a cross I deal with. As for the medical arena I won't let my General Doctor know what I have. I will let her treat my symptoms. In the beginning when this all hit me my MRI showed a lesion on my brain and she thought I had a stroke so I did, in essence get some of the care an FND person should of had. I got Physical therapy at home. My family helped obtain the necessary assistive devices such as a wheelchair for events that required walking I just couldn't do for long stints. I got a much needed shower bench and still need it to this day. My primary physician takes care of my pain management and treats my migraine pain. She has been a godsend. If I lose her with that I will just follow up with a Pain specialist and treat my FND pain through treating my migraine pain. So I will have ways to covertly treat FND. Thank goodness I know the system well enough to mask it. I think my neurologist may have an inkling of it but he isn't going to go anywhere near that. He is a good man. He is interested in treating migraines and that is it. Sounds good to me.
Oh noes! But I totally understand your annoyance, it's awful not to be able to do things like did before. I'm hating it
Hey! This is something I struggle with as well, I do not often talk about it since there is much other things going. I have started to realize what the issue is, so I very often drop small things like spoons, napkins, controller, dog treats, etc.. but I NEVER drop large items that could break and such.. So I am convinced it is more a sub conscious that effects this, I look at this way if it a small item that I am just grabbing and not thinking much about it typically falls out of my fingers/hands just naturally & it's very very discouraging since it happens so often. I also get hand cramps myself but these are unrelated to dropping objects. As far as struggling with fine motor skills, I am actually working now with my Psychologist on this we call them "Focus" issues, like hovering my mouse over a tiny object on pc, or putting a pin into a little hole or anything that is frustrating to do (for the most part) it intensives my movements & anxiety when I get these issues. My hand & arm will tense up & begin movements I often have to get up and walk away from the simple task I am doing and come back to it to finish.
It's good that you have help from a Psychologist, I hope you get good benefits from it as it is very frustrating having poor fine motor skills. I get pins and needles in my two outer fingers as well, do you get that as well?
As I am recovering from my paralysis flare-ups, I have trouble with fine motor skills just due to the amount of weakness in my arms. Right now, I just started a new paralysis episode a few days ago and I am struggling to write because of the weakness in my hands and arms. I am also struggling to sit up independently right now. I can't even transfer out of bed independently until I get a little bit stronger, so I'll be bedridden for a few days. I get occupational therapy and physical therapy twice a week. I get a flare-up every other month. I start all over from scratch every time I have a flare-up because I lose all the progress I've made.
I'm also working with a clinical social worker doing psychotherapy to try to treat the underlying cause of my FND. I experienced some abuse as a child. My therapist thinks that as a child, I could only freeze during those episodes of abuse, so now when I am under stress, even subconscious stress, my body freezes and I become paralyzed. The more therapy we do, the closer together the episodes get, but they are getting less severe (except for this one).
Gosh you sound much worst than me, you seem to be going through so much at the moment. I do you get better soon as it sounds awful. How long have you had FND?
Yes I have the same issues as well. I used to have the most stable hands and often got complimented for doing things so well. It’s gone now unfortunately, but never lose hope :).
It's horrible that it takes away the person you were before. I guess we should be thankful that we can recover but when you're going through it doesn't feel that way does it?
I can agree it doesn’t feel that way. I did some lab work single handedly with my left easily and that’s hard now. Or I used my left hand to apply nail polish on my right hand easily. Now it shakes when I do those things or I like drop a glass or something. I keep telling myself I’ll just make a better version of myself than I was before as a form of motivation (although I admit it’s hard). But thinking like that has helped me. I don’t have to go back to my past self, rather, I can settle for something way better. 
I will give that a go and see if it can help me as well and be honest I will try anything if it might help a bit
Physical therapy helped me at first , but then made my symptoms worse and eventually had to stop. Went to cognitive behavioral therapy...was nice talking to someone about this but in the end nothing changed. Doctors will blame stress or past child events but I call bull&t ...they don’t know why or what’s really happening in our brain. Other people have suffered worse trauma and they are physically fine. Our FND brain is still a mystery because there hasn’t been enough research on this. Maybe we’ll know in ten years...hope I can hold out that long. It’s already been 2 years of constant suffering.
I know exactly what you're saying! We with FND seem to be where MS was twenty to thirty years ago. They didn't have full funding in the NHS or a lot of fundraising, so hopefully things will change for us in the coming years. It seems like you're tried a few thing and neither has helped and because their is no meds for us, it just feels like their is no light at the end of the tunnel or any treatments to help us with this condition, which is not a nice position to be in but as you said it's if you can hold on that long until proper funding and research is put in place and they know a lot more about what's going on in our brains because as it stands doctors seem to know only a little about it and the effects it has on us, which can bee awful at times can't it?
I agree. I call BS. Some people may have some past stressors. I believe there is something more to this and they will eventually figure it out but for now we have to deal with the stigma of it all but I refuse to accept the stigma. They can shove that stigma where the sun don't shine. I remember when the internal tremors began. It used to be an internal buzzing once in a while for a few weeks and then one day it never stopped. I think the migraines I have messed up my system. I believe for some people there are neurological conditions that can dysregulate your nervous system. No amount of psych treatment in the world can get rid of my facial numbness either. I think some doctors are too scared of the complicated cases and it's a shame. Those people should find another profession. It's really not hard to case manage. Get people the help they need. It's not hard to order therapies to help people at least get stronger with OT, PT, pain management, massage therapy. Those services make a world of difference. Some people will need Psych help just to learn how to learn how to live with the new "you" because it's a very difficult existence. I am a very grounded person so I would just scoff at such a thing. I deal with depression in the sense of having to battle so much pain. Who wouldn't be depressed because they hurt so much all the time? That's natural. I am doing better with that but I think that's baggage that comes with the territory. I just delivered a package to a sorry/pathetic neurologist I encountered when I first come down with this. He pegged me with conversion disorder and walked out on me. He didn't even care to find out what other problems I had. I gave him a package of info on FND and let him know what FND was and how outdated the Freudian Conversion disorder mess was in relation to FND and I hope he never treats another person like he treated me. I wanted to advocate for any other soul that graced his doors to have better treatment. Hahaa. I pretty much let him know he was a sorry ass doctor. I also told him if he was afraid to treat patients with FND to please refer them to another neurologist. I also told him I had a massive migraine triggered at the Chiro visit which ended up triggering the FND. If he had taken the time to investigate further he would have found this out. I told him that treating uncontrolled neurological conditions will reduce FND symptoms. I was in a four month migraine before I found a wonderful neurologist that listened and when my migraine broke I began to do so much better. I hope that POS got the message. I don't know. He was a polished turd. That man made me angry. When he left me I was in absolute tears. He didn't even allow for questions. When he was done his office staff was like "if you need to see him again you can set up an appointment". Um no thanks.
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