Call to Action to all public health activists and support groups.
This should be of concern to all public health groups. Many are not aware nor fully understand the magnitude of the changes being made by the Somatic Symptoms Disorder work group for the DSM-5. The DSM codifies psychiatric conditions and is used worldwide as a key guide for diagnosing disorders. As the criterion stands now, those with any medical illness will be at high risk of being labeled with a mental health disorder when they do not have one. This is also detrimental to those with a real need for mental health support. Those that do not need this particular care and treatment will be crowding the same waiting lists and taking up valuable time slots that others need.
In DSM-5 Somatic Symptoms Disorder, the requirement of eight symptoms is dropped to just one. And the requirement of 'medically unexplained' symptoms is replaced by much looser and more subjective 'excessive thoughts, behaviors and feelings' and the clinician's perception of "dysfunctional illness belief' or 'excessive preoccupation' with the bodily symptom.
There is already a high rate of misdiagnosed patients and as this stands now it will only compound the problem. One in six cancer and coronary disease patients met the criteria for DSM-5 'Somatic Symptom Disorder.' The changes to the SSD group as they now stand will have catastrophic repercussions. As many with this label have already discovered there are physicians that will not treat them, very little research available, and benefits from insurance and disability being withheld. Patients with this label are discouraged from seeking further information about this disorder and told they will not get better unless they accept the diagnosis.
"The patient, for their part may need to agree not to look at health information on the web or in books, and not seek other medical opinions. " -neurosymptoms.org (This is the official website by the Somatic Specialists given to patients by most doctors and is endorsed by the NHS and NIH.)
Please share this link and lend your support. Right now it seems to only be getting attention by those already with the diagnosis. However, the ones that stand to be effected most by this negligent codes are those with health ailments and concerns already.
Thanks for this, Mary. I have the label and am contesting it. It's all too easy for GPs and psychiatrist these day. Some of them are outright cruel too - verbally and mentally. I have been at the receiving end of it and don't trust either one. I wish we had a petition to contest this.
That is so interesting, Mary.That attitude doesn't surprise me in the least.Western medicine is so hopeless with recognising some illnesses.I have found that acupunturists totally understand 'medically unexplained' symptoms, can see and feel such symptoms in tongue and pulse observations and can help relieve those symptoms.Cranial osteopaths also can do this.I spent years being wrongly diagnosed and labelled, like many people on here.I would always seek out an acupuncturist if I had new symptoms.
This is unbelievable – except it isn’t. We’ve been heading that way for a long time. Doctors have been covering up for their lack of knowledge by accusing the patient of being mentally ill for as long as I can remember.
About twenty years ago, my son had problems with his eyes. Long story short, for nearly two years I dragged him from optician to ophthalmologist to optician and the diagnosis was always that there was nothing wrong, he was just lazy and didn’t want to work at school! Finally I got an appt at a top eye hospital. The lady doctor that examined him took against me straight away and was abominably rude to me. Somehow, it was all my fault. She didn’t really want to examine him, but did anyway and, to her great surprise, found that he had parasites in his eye lashes, and they were causing all the problems with his eyes. She said that in 15 years of practice, she had never seen such a thing.
However, she felt it necessary to write to my doctor to tell him that I was neurotic and was passing my neurosis on to my son and thereby causing him problems with his eyes! Well, I just wonder how she would have felt if she had had the struggle I had had to get someone to take us seriously. Then, on the day, a long journey to the hospital, two hours wait in a waiting room the size of Wembly stadium full of screaming kids with nowhere to sit. And then bearding the gorgon in her den!
The point is, there are so many factors involved that one can never make a snap decision about someone’s mental health such as is being promoted here.
Even the writer of the article doesn’t really ‘get it’. “The boundary between medical and psychiatric illness is inherently difficult to draw, especially since many psychiatric disorders do present with prominent somatic symptoms that are often mistaken for medical illness. Best example- people with panic attacks often get far too many medical tests for the dizziness, shortness of breath, and palpitations that are really just part of the hyperventilation caused by the panic attack.” He says. So panic attacks, dizziness, shortness of breath and palpitations should all be classed as mental illnesses without any medical tests? Has he never heard of these strange substances called hormones?
And that, I think, is the base of the problem. Doctors are not educated in hormones. They know nothing about them and the havoc they can cause if they are in too short – or too abundant – supply. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if all these so-called ‘somatic symptoms’ they talk about were caused by hormone disruptions.
We here all know what just one hormone out of sync can do to us, but there are hundreds of other hormones that could cause problems, and about which doctors know nothing. And it is just too easy to brand people as being mentally ill. Always has been, and now they want it to be even easier?
And on that subject, did you notice that there was no mention of thyroid disease, although thyroid disease can cause all the symptoms they were talking about.
I would urge all patients to strongly resist a diagnosis of mental illness. I would even go so far as to say I don’t believe in mental illness! That is to say, I would say that if I didn’t realise that it would upset a lot of people.
But I would definitely say that too many people are already being diagnosed as mentally ill when in fact they have a hormonal imbalance. I have known people who have been incarcerated in mental hospitals, given electric shock treatment and filled with drugs when all they needed was a little bit of T3! People that have been given a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s when just looking at them screams thyroid disease: no eyebrows, thinning hair, over-weight, etc. It has to stop! Instead, it looks like getting worse. I don’t want to live on this planet anymore…
greygoose - you experience is shocking but sadly no longer surprises me.
On obtaining my daughters medical records (who is 14 and diagnosed as depressed but I have always believed she is on the autistic spectum) her GP and her mental health worker colluded and have written in her records that she is not autistic (we have just had a diagnosis confirming she is on the Autistic spectum) and that I am the cause of her difficulties and that of my husbands who has ME because it is his way of copying with me!. BUT surprise surprise now he is on T3 only his health (including his mental health) has improved substantially (although he needs an increase in his meds but GP wont agree). Before my experience with the medical profession I would never have thought that they could do such things. My faith in them has been destroyed and I will never trust them again.
No more will I! Since that dreadful experience with my son, I have had many more bad experiences concerning my own health. Are these people really evil? Or are they just incredibly stupid and arrogant. Are they just doctors for the ego trip? Or do they - can they really believe - they are doing good? I cannot understand their motivation at all. So sad.
Can we not expect a proper assessment and diagnosis from these so called doctors? How many lives are they going to destroy before this "insanity" of calling everyone mentally ill stops.
So many peoples lives could be improve if they just stated to address thyroid issues properly. Why won't they do something to help so many ill people whose lives are destroyed because of low thyroid function?Are they all so arrogant and egotistical, can they really believe they are doing good?
The evil Big Pharma strikes again. They are behind all of this, you don't have to look any further. The awful thing is that doctors are either so gullible they believe everything the drug company rep tells them, or they just don't care!
This really is too awful to contemplate, but I am certain that what you say is correct. The problem is that we need to be well enough to fight this appalling treatment by the medical establishment who seem so little concerned by the plight of so many very ill people.
I am desperately trying to get my health to a better place having been poisoned by medics and big pharma, but having been ill for so long I am finding it very hard to keep positive.
'DSM-5 allows for a diagnosis of 'Somatic Symptom Disorder' when a parent is considered 'excessively concerned' about a child's symptoms. Families caring for children with any chronic illness may be placed at risk of wrongful accusation of 'over-involvement' with their child's symptomatology or of encouraging 'sick role behavior.' By what means will a practitioner accurately assess an individual's response to illness within the context of the patient's personal, family and economic circumstances and reliably determine what might be considered 'excessive preoccupation' versus a positive coping strategy for that patient and family?'
In the uk we also have this problem: - never have the same gp as those you are caring for. If you have found a nice surgery for you then change the surgery for those you care for.
Sucks, I know, but our health is important, and we want to take our health and caring role responsibly. No one else will.
Well I don't know where to start - my sister has this diagnosis and that's why all her symptoms have been ignored but they have been happy to bully and threaten her into mental hospital admission, electric shock treatment and give her just about every psychiatric drug on the market.
Even now it has been acknowledged by endos her thyroid has been badly managed and would account for all her symptoms - this label is sticking to her like glue.
I am so frustrated and angered by the attitude of the GP who just dismis all the evidence because she has stuck to her guns with this diagnosis and refuses to budge. If she did, she would have to admit she was wrong and open the door for legal action for negligence.
I would top myself rather than go to a GP and even mention the word depression because of the justified fear of being labelled. I urge anyone with thyroid problems to think very long and hard before they even mention ANY problems that could be construed as depression or mental health issues.
The DSM is turning into a joke. Deluded Silly Made-up-crap is what it probably stands for.
There is hardly going to be anyone without some sort of diagnosed mental syndrome soon.
Like the doctor who was so set on diagnosing me as depressed, that when I said I usually felt happy, she said it must be hidden depression then. I mean for goodness sake... I only had deficient ferritin, zinc, DHEA, cortisol, testosterone, fT4, progesterone, vit D, so it must have been hidden depression making me feel so ill LOL.
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