How to cure Conversion Disorder

I am 18 years old, and I was diagnosed with CD when I was 13. My first symptom was blindness in my right eye. I then started experiencing seizures, inability to walk, and was very shaky. I would also pass out. I wnet to a ophthalmologist specialist who told me I was faking. But I eventually found someone who believed me and said I had CD. I went through therapy which didn't really help me but I just learned to cope with it on my own. The blindness slowly went away. I can now see but I have permanent damage in that eye, so it is weaker than my left so I just have a stronger prescription in my glasses for that side. It took almost a year to gain my vision back. Sometimes it will go blurry if I become really stressed and I have had a few seizures since diagnosis but it is less frequent. I hope this helps and your daughter gets better. I know it is really hard to live this disease because people will doubt you but you just have to remind yourself that it is a disease. Don't give up on searching for answers.

Hi, I don't know if this is relevant to your situation, but I am 16 years old and was diagnosed with conversion disorder in early February of 2014. It took nearly two years to get a somewhat firm diagnosis of what I actually have, but after my older sister who is now 19 was diagnosed and I showed the same symptoms to the tee, the doctors just decided to give me the same diagnosis. The symptoms that the both of us showed were muscle seizures(originally misdiagnosed as dystonia), paralysis of the hands and feet, and massive headaches. Along with CD, the two of us both have a hereditary benign hypermobility joint disorder(Elers Danlos type3), as well as a pain amplification disorder which is pretty self explanatory, and I have sensory disorder. Both of our diagnoses took a very long time to be administered because we went to doctors who either did not understand what was going on due to the rare knowledge of this disorder, or in most cases, they simply didn't believe there was anything wrong with us, claiming that we were two completely normal teenage girls. This went on for nearly five years with my sister and two with me until wee finally found doctors who would listen and knew what was going on at children's medical center. After months of counseling for both of us, we learned to control our stress levels and pain levels, making it less likely for the symptoms to flare up again. In the past 20 months, I have had to use a wheelchair twice (8 months in total) and spent almost six months without use of my hands. It is now November and I lost use of my left hand for a third time last night. Praying to get better and using all skills I have at my disposal.

Hi there. I'm 15 years old and have been diagnosed with conversion disorder for about a year now. Conversion disorder is very tricky to diagnose and treat, because there is so little known about it. I live in Australia and have been admitted to hospital where I met a few people that were around my age who also have CD, and we were lucky enough to have a doctor who is doing some serious research and awareness work. Luckily I myself have not had any impolite doctors, however one of the other teens I met in hospital had a horrible experience with other doctors, her mother had been told that it was all her fault that her daughter has this disorder. I myself suffer from nonepileptic seizures, paralysis, and muscle spasms as well as the inability to breath for about 30 seconds various times during the day, and, although it isn't blindness as per say, my eyes do not open until around midday, and resist any forceful opening.

I hope you daughter gets better soon, and good luck with everything

Thanks for your comments about the Mayo clinic. I'm the one who wrote recently about my 17-year old daughter. We just got back from Johns Hopkins, and the neuro-opthalmologist said that her vision problem is definitely NOT psychological/subconcious or faking. She does have some kind of damage to her brain that is prohibiting it from processing what her eyes see. Her eyes themselves are fine, but she tests poorly(but the same every time,) on her visual fields--this is why they say it is not conversion disorder, but damage in her brain. They say only time will possibly fix it. We are organizing to go to Mayo next, can't give up yet. (She's been blind for almost three months now, with minimal improvement.) Let me just add that neuro-opthalmologists, specifically Dr. Pelak in Denver, make me crazy. For someone who's supposed to be so smart, they seem to be seriously lacking in both social skills and actual common sense.
I'm Luna.

My daughter too has conversion disorder and lost her long term memory on October 29th. We took her to the Mayo in Rochester, she went through two weeks of extensive testing to rule everything out (she fell at a high school XC meet on September 14, 2013 and landed very hard on her right hip...the true diagnosis was not revealed until December 6....all orthopedics used the original MRI...sadly three orthopedics missed the true injury, finally the fourth ortho seen it point blank on MRI and changed the physical therapy regime and within a month, she was walking normal again), anyway, after two weeks of testing at the Mayo, she was diagnosed with CD and did one week of in-patient to wean her off all the meds she had been put on. Then all three of us (she, my husband and I), attended a three week out-patient program (for various things like POTS and CD) through the Mayo...while the adolescents attended various classes (i.e. coping skills, occupational therapy, physical therapy, etc.), the parents attended classes too, whereby we learned how to parent and how to react to chronic pain syndrome, etc. Although she is home now, and still experiences a lot of anxiety, she deals with it through deep breathing, etc., she still has not regained her long term memory. The Mayo said it could take six months to a year for her brain to completely rewire. There was a 16 year old in the program that experienced the blindness, and when she left the Mayo she was no longer experiencing it. There were a few that when admitted, could not walk and were in wheelchairs, after the three week program, they were walking again. I highly recommend the Mayo Clinic! They helped bring our daughter out of her shell and taught her how to deal with her CD. Although everyday I pray that her long term memory will just simply come back, going through the program, really helped me to understand her condition so much better and how to parent differently with her condition. We have our ups and downs with her loss of memory, but at least we all have hope that one day it will come back.

Hello, I'm interested to know if your daughter is still blind. Also, I'd like to know if she lost her sight in both eyes or just one, and how did it progress? (Did it happen all at once, or slowly? Was it painful or not? )

Our daugher, 17, has been diagnosed with conversion disorder by the Emergency room, but we actually think she was chronically exposed to a toxin over many months. It took several ophthalmologists to find one who would listen to this possibility. We are still waiting on firm answers though.

Hi, I'm not sure if this is still active but I just stumbled across this. I was diagnosed at the end of 2008 with conversion disorder myself. I mostly had the seizures and weakness. At times I did black out and go blind briefly. I spent a lot of years well recovered and it seems like my symptoms are returning with slight memory loss first because I'm under a lot of stress. (This tells me it's time to action caring for myself so I don't go full blown with symptoms again). Conversion disorder most often presents itself in people who have been through some sort of sexual abuse, though not immediately. The sexual abuse is the underlying trauma and all the other everyday stuff piles on top and ends up being the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak. I highly recommend therapy as that was the most effective tool for me.