Unexplained symptoms

O Malley, P.G., Jackson, J.L., Santoro, J., Tomkins, G., Balden, E., and Kroenke, K. (1999) Antidepressant therapy for unexplained symptoms and symptom syndromes. / Earn Tract 48 980—990. 

Stigma and misinformation can also extend into medical practice, where many depressed patients present with medically unexplained symptoms. Somatization is the term used for such use of physical symptoms to express emotional distress, which may be a major reason for misdiagnosis of mental illness by medical and psycho-... 

Psychogenic attacks are usually situational, for instance occurring in open spaces. Suggestive features include age less than 50 years, lack of vascular risk factors, symptoms affecting the non-dominant side (Rothwell 1994), hyperventilation, other medically unexplained symptoms or non-organic motor or sensory signs. 

Get medical advice quickly if you or any of your fellow workers have unusual or unexplained symptoms starting at work or later the same day. Do not let yourself or anyone else get dangerously sick before calling your physician or going to a hospital. It is better to be too cautious than too late. Take the pesticide container (or the labeling) to the physician. Do not carry the pesticide container in the passenger space of a car or truck. 

Confusion and hallucinations have occasionally been reported with pentamidine. Magnesium deficiency may affect mental function a flat affect, slow speech, and mental withdrawal are some of the typical effects (SEDA-13, 825) (6). The symptoms of hypomagnesemia can be ill defined unexplained symptoms, despite improvement of the P. jiroveci infection, demand measurement of the serum magnesium concentration. 

After a biological, chemical or radiological attack, patients may present with a variety of mental health responses, including distress responses, behavioral changes, psychosomatic symptoms, including medically unexplained symptoms, psychological symptoms and psychiatric illness, such as PTSD (20). Categories of common mental health responses include (20,21) ... 

Patients with multiple unexplained symptoms, all of them reported in the narratives of Gulf veterans, are also encountered in civilian medical practice and literature. In the popular literature, first-person accounts and patient-orientated... 

Storzbach D, Binder LM, McCauley L et al. (2000). Psychological differences between veterans with and without Gulf War unexplained symptoms. 

Some symptoms frequently observed in patients with thyrotoxicosis cannot be explained by increased secretion of thyroid hormone. Prominent among the unexplainable symptoms is exophthalmia (see Fig. 8-9). Most hyperthyroids have bulging eyes, with dilated pupils and widening of the palpebral fissure. The patient has a characteristic stare and rarely blinks. Exophthalmia may be severe, and the eyeballs may bulge out of their sockets. Severe exophthalmia is complicated by chemosis and edema of the eyelid. Exophthalmia probably does not result from excess thyroxine secretion because it occurs sometimes in the absence of hyperthyroidism. Hyperthyroidism is not always accompanied by exophthalmia, and thyroidectomy may worsen the exophthalmia. 

When a worker examination reveals unexplained symptoms or signs (i.e. in the physical examination or in the laboratory tests), follow-up medical examinations are necessary to assure that MC exposure is not adversely affecting the worker s health. When the examining physician or other licensed health care professional finds it necessary, additional tests should be included to determine the nature of the medical problem and the underlying cause. Where relevant, the worker should be sent to a specialist for further testing and treatment as deemed necessary. 

No single clinical feature is specific or distinctive. A patient is suspected to suffer from a mitochondrial disorder if demonstrating at least two chronic and unexplained symptoms from this extended list, preferably occurring in two unrelated organs [15,16]. 

Medically Unexplained Symptoms/ Functional symptoms or syndromes Umbrella terms for unexplained symptoms Globus hystericus Fibrontyalgia Chronic fatigue syndrome Repetitive strain injury... 

Health care professionals concerned about a patient with unusual, unexpected or unexplained symptoms or signs should discuss the case with a senior emergency medicine dinician. 

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