Somatoform Disorders

People who write somatoform explanations for undetectable illness are ignoring, denying, hiding, deleting, rejecting, discrediting or defying the thousand pages of evidence of physical cause in my 1000 page book here, and are using their scientific power and authority to betray the trust of patients who have those conditions, and leaving them neglected and abandoned to survive as best they can with their own resources.

The millions of patients involved need to recognise that fact, and form a unity to prevent it from continuing.

Introduction

Throughout history doctors have gained an increasing ability to treat or cure diseases which has given them the power over life, disease and death to such an extent that it has been said that everyone, including the king has to accept their opinions without question.

However there has since been the development of printing presses and nowadays the internet which gives everyone access to a massive amount of medical knowledge, such that it has long since passed that doctors have a monopoly.

Consequently, if doctors can’t diagnose, effectively treat, or cure illness, then any mature and intelligent adult can take responsibility for their own health. They require independence of mind to distinguish fact from opinion, and most importantly the ability to persevere against adversity.

They also need to pay attention to observation and detail, as similar to that of anatomist John Gray.

Nevertheless there are still ways of describing such useful individuals as having a mental illness, with the diagnosis of Somatoform disorders where patients have “undetectable symptoms” which have persisted for longer than 6 months (chronic and incurable), and give supposedly undue, or excessive attention to detail (as if a lifetime of suffering fits the word “undue”).

You would therefore think that a person with such maturity, intelligence, confidence and sense of personal responsibility would be universally respected.

I don’t wish to say much more on that aspect, other than that such a spin on normal responses to adversity is ridiculous.

 Wikipedia

I tried to provide Wikipedia readers with correct and verifiable information about a medical condition called Da Costa’s syndrome, but two anonymous editors had other ideas. You can see what happened for yourself by reading three versions of the article here.

Essentially they deleted all of the scientifically proven facts from the research history of the subject, and filled the page with comments about a psychological cause, and links to scores of psychiatric labels, to leave the false impression that it was a somatoform disorder involving psychological or imaginary symptoms

A quote from Wikipedia about Somatoform Disorders

“Somatoform disorder (also known as Briquet’s syndrome) is characterized by physical symptoms that mimic disease or injury for which there is no identifiable physical cause^[1] or physical symptoms such aspain, nausea, depression, and dizziness. Somatoform disorder is a condition in which the physical pain and symptoms a person feels are related to psychological factors. These symptoms can not be traced to a specific physical cause. In people who have Somatoform disorder, medical test results are either normal or don’t explain the person’s symptoms. People who have this disorder may undergo several medical evaluations and tests to be sure that they do not have an illness related to a physical cause or central lesion. Patients with this disorder often become very worried about their health because the doctors are unable to find a cause for their health problems. Their symptoms are similar to the symptoms of other illnesses and may last for several years. People who have Somatoform disorder are not faking their symptoms. The pain that they feel is real, and they feel what they say they are feeling. A person faking their symptoms may have factitious disorder (an unknown psychological cause for making oneself sick) or malingering (making oneself sick for personal or monetary gain; i.e. disability, insurance, etc). This is not at all related to the Somatoform Disorder, however.

A diagnosis of a Somatoform disorder implies that psychological factors are a large contributor to the symptoms’ onset, severity and duration. It is important to note that Somatoform disorders are not the result of conscious malingering or factitious disorders.” (end of quote from 1:14, 30th December 2009 here).

This is a quote from Dictionary.com . . . “somatoform disorder – Any of a group of disorders characterized by physical symptomsrepresenting specific disorders for which there is no organic basis or known physiological cause, but for which there is presumed to be a psychological basis.” (end of quote here).

This is a quote from the Merriam-Webster dictionary . . . “somatoform disorder – any of a group of psychological disorders (as body dysmorphic disorder or hypochondriasis) marked by physical complaints for which no organic or physiological explanation is found and for which there is a strong likelihood that psychological factors are involved.” here.

A quote from Wikipedia about Da Costa’s syndrome

“Da Costa’s syndrome, which was colloquially known as soldier’s heart, is a syndrome with a set of symptoms that are similar to those of heart disease, though a physical examination does not reveal any physiological abnormalities. In modern times, Da Costa’s syndrome is considered the manifestation of an anxiety disorder and treatment is primarily behavioral, involving modifications to lifestyle and daily exertion.” (end of quote from  18:57 on 26th January 2009 which can be seen by scrolling down past the edit text here.)

(The categories for that ailment were included at the end of the page and included Somatorm disorders, and Anxiety disorders)

The scientific facts which I discovered when I did my own research into that problem

1. In 1916 it was known that the fatigue was due to abnormal and inefficient blood flow to the brain.

2. In 1947 it was known that the breathlessness was due to abnormal function of the breathing muscles.

3. In that period, as evident from a book by Paul Wood of 1956, the chest pain was a real physical pain which could be relieved by injecting a pain killing drug into the correct location between the ribs.

4. Although not everyone with these symptoms have abnormalities in their physique, it has nevertheless been observed that the typical patient has a thin build, and a long, thin, or narrow chest, and an abnormal forward curvature in the upper spine, and other spinal abnormalities. That forward curvature of the spine would place the head and shoulders over and above the chest and be an obvious physical cause of pressure between the ribs, and any tenderness or pain between them.

Although those problems are not evident on a normal physical or physiological examination in a general medical clinic, as stated in Wikipedia,  they have nevertheless been scientifically proven and confirmed in research studies which establish that they are real symptoms which have a physical, and or, physiological explanation, and which therefore scientifically proves that they do not fit the diagnosis of somatoform disorders.

See where I added that information before it was repeatedly deleted. e.g. by scrolling down past the edit text of 7:44 on 26th January here.

What are Wikipedia editors doing with Da Costa’s syndrome and Somatoform disorders

In 1975 I had many health problems which were getting progressively worse despite medical treatment, and yet I had been told that none of them were evident on x-rays or any other medical diagnostic equipment, so I was misled into believing that there was nothing physically wrong with me, and to resigning from my government job without my entitlements to superannuation benefits.

I spent the next few years studying my own symptoms and the medical literature to determine their cause and effective methods of treatment.

During that time I was able to determine scientific evidence and proof that all of the main symptoms had a physical or physiological basis.

Nevertheless I also found arguments that they were the imaginary symptoms of hypochondria.

Since then the label of hypochondria has been largely replaced by the term “Somatoform disorder”.

Thirty two years after I began studying those problems for myself I joined Wikipedia, and one of the pages that I contributed to was called Da Costa’s syndrome.

Soon after I started on that page two anonymous editors began teaming up together to criticise almost every word I wrote and systematically removing every piece of scientific evidence of a physical cause.

Typically I would add evidence of a physical cause, and then they would take turns where one would invent a rule as the excuse to remove it, and the other one would actually delete it by saying such things as . . . “are we all agreed that it should be removed then”. Those two editors were trying to create the impression that dozens of people were involved in the argument, and that they had consensus to remove it. See here.

In addition to deleting all of the scientific evidence of a physical cause they would fill the page with arguments about psychiatric cause.

At one stage the category of Somatoform disorders (imaginary symptoms) was added and linked to dozens of psychiatric labels. Hypochondria and Da Costa’s syndrome was on that list. See here.

At another stage one of them persistently argued that it was a “Somatoform autonomic dysfunction” here.

They also deleted most of the references which showed proof of a physical cause here, and replaced it with a list which refers to such things as anxiety, depression, and cowardice. here

The category of Anxiety disorders, which had a list of more than fifty psychiatric disorders had also been added to the end of the page, and was kept by those two editors here.

The also retained links to classifications of ICD-9, and ICD-10 lists which contained even more psychiatric labels.

Large organisations, insurance companies, armies, and governments would pay people to do that to minimise the cost of compensation payouts or other financial entitlements, or maximise their profits.

Deleting scientific evidence of physical cause, and then replacing it with massive numbers of psychiatric labels, and jargon, is the method used.