FND changes day to day?

[mabelwoofer]

Only had FND since September. Is it normal to feel like progress has reversed? Was pretty good yesterday, today feel like my affected side is dipped in concrete!

[Brokendeer]

Hi, absolutely random abilities daily!

That is one of the most frustrating symptoms of FND for me, the inconsistency of whether you can move normally one minute and not the next, for no apparent reason because to you nothing has changed in that timescale?

I am going to use the dreaded `pacing' word and this is the only thing I found useful from all the FND multi-discipline therapies I underwent years ago.

FND is about too many signals overloading in the brain, it cannot filter, process or understand most of the body generated signals most of the time. It is out of your control consciously, but you can help lessen the symptoms by slowing down your activities and allowing more time to think through issues before moving your thoughts on.

The FND Brain needs to sort through the signals into right and wrong categories in order to respond normally - so slow to go, fast to stop!

The medical professionals do stick with the theory of retraining the conscious brain and therefore cure FND. Retraining in reality is not what FND responds too and I can say this with authority having had 13 years of suffering this condition.

What I think are the main influencers of FND:

1) Being too aware of the abnormal symptoms - play them down and adapt your day, don't stress or this will raise your adrenaline and cause mega overload of the brain as you automatically go into instinctive `Flight, Freeze or Fight' reflex mode. Once in this mode it just has to run its course!

2) FND is controlled by a subconscious fault - that is why retraining the conscious brain does not work and why you should try and let the spinal automatic nervous system take the strain for movement issues and try not involve the brain too much E.G walking on the flat uses the Spine nerves only, walking up a slope use both spine and brain. Break up your tasks into different levels of difficulty or type like Mental, Physical, Emotional and space them out giving more time between tasks too.

3) Environment changes affect the autonomic nervous system & circulation- barometric pressure i.e blood pressure shifts from low to high, temperature shifts, tight clothing, sitting or standing too long. Build in more breaks or downtime to relax within the day.

4) Biochemical imbalances - Hormones, Emotional triggered chemicals, adrenaline triggers like too much activity (physical/mental/fatigue) or environment triggers like too bright light, loud noise, excessive motion. Along with lack of sleep and fatigue will cause dramatic biochemical and energy shifts - be aware of this and accept it.

So 1 & 2 you can to a certain extent compromise and perhaps shorten your body reaction to the random symptoms through mental efforts and pacing.

However, 3 & 4 you cannot improve as these fluctuate loads of times a day and how your body reacts will be random - you just have to ride the symptoms out and go with the flow.

Most of all, know you can still achieve a lot of your goals; just do not set a firm timescale for them and that will be less soul destroying!

Look for the calm in the Storm!