“Mirror, Mirror…” Whose Explanation is the Fairest? Evolving Notions of Somatization and Idiopathic Physical Symptoms

Extract

Somatization disorder, multiple chemical sensitivities, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, Gulf War syndrome, neurasthenia, irritable bowel syndrome, conversion disorder…idiopathies one and all. These syndromes and the many others like them have perhaps one overriding commonality: enormous unexplained heterogeneity. Patients and clinicians gaze into the suffering and impact of these symptoms and see as many potential causes as there are symptom combinations.

Whose explanation is best? When I am speaking with psychiatrists, the notion of somatoform symptoms goes largely unchallenged. When I am with rheumatologists, however, fibromyalgia is anything but a psychiatric problem and certainly not a somatoform disorder. Among my toxicologist colleagues, it is readily accepted that low-tevel toxic exposures could account for many idiopathic “sensitivities.”

But what of the high rate of depression and anxiety disorders we see in these patients?” I sometimes unwisely retort.

“Well, it could be a co-factor or an interaction,” is a common response.

Unshaken, I step further into the abyss: “How, then, do you explain the high rate of adverse childhood experiences among people with idiopathic symptom syndromes?”

The response is swift. “You cannot rule out biased recall. We cannot expect people to remember these things accurately in such a negative state of mind.”

And so it goes. After several of these kinds of conversations, I have finally concluded there is no point in arguing.The debate is largely irreconcilable, a debate that strikingly parallels the conflicts many primary care physicians experience with symptomatic patients. “How is your personal life?” the doctor may ask a symptomatic patient, suspecting a psychosocial explanation.