I have an unknown disease for 10 years

Good day, I am XX, a 10 years patient with an unknown disease.

It is very hard for me to mention what happen in the past 10 years in a single email, but I have no clue on what should I do now.

Long story short, I am a psychiatric patient 10 years ago while I was a secondary school student, but during these years I was diagnosed differently by many doctors, ranging from Schizophrenia to ASD & ADHD + a bunch of mental issues. I was once told to have no disease at all, but that causes a lot of trouble on me. My family suffered from great pain that I have bought to them as well.

My so called sickness is a mystery for a decade, numerous of symptoms but no definition, the only common opinion from doctors are “This is a rare case, in fact I never saw this happened before”, which just made me feeling more frustrating.

I need a proper diagnosis ASAP due to the sickness has already affecting my daily life heavily. But doctors so far could not handle my case properly. An accurate diagnosis is not only a report to me, but also a relief from these 10 years of suffering, letting me facing the true enemy that always in my head.

What do you think about my case? Do you think I need to perform a test? I am looking forward to your reply.

Reply from psychiatrist, Dr. Chan Man Lui, Doris

Dear XX,

Thank you for your enquiry. I guess your symptoms might be very ambiguous and therefore different doctors have different opinions.

A psychiatric diagnosis is only a descriptive term. It signifies nothing about the pathology, ie the cause of the illness. The reason for that is most of the psychiatric illness is so complicated and no single reason causing the illness.

Doctors only differentiate patients by the presenting symptoms without knowing the underlying cause. That explain why different doctors give you different diagnosis.

However, having a diagnosis is still useful that it guide us to treat patients having similar symptoms.

So, you can interpret like this: different doctors give you different diagnosis and they have different hypothesis of what your problem is. If any one of their treatment makes improvement, then the doctor had given you the correct treatment might have a more correct hypothesis on you. Hence, that diagnosis describe you illness most correctly.

You can try to interpret your past experience this way to see if you can get a conclusion or not.

Since your symptoms is so “rare” I can’t conclude anything on your diagnosis nor giving any treatment suggestions.

If you feel needed, please feel free to come to see me for another opinion.

Thanks you for your kind attention.

Dr. Chan