Symptoms.

What are symptoms?

Sometimes our bodies feel strange or uncomfortable or don’t do what we expect. These experiences are a normal part of life.

Symptoms are special bodily experiences that signal something might be wrong. Symptoms are there to remind you that you need to take care of your body and mind. They can be intense to make sure you notice them. If it’s not obvious what’s causing the symptoms, you might see a doctor and get tests done.

Most of the time, there’s nothing seriously wrong causing the symptoms, and they go away on their own. But some symptoms stick around and make us feel unwell.

What causes symptoms

Symptoms can be caused by different things, but it’s usually a combination of many factors. In western societies we usually distinguish between symptoms we experience in the mind and symptoms we experience in the body (although really there is not such a clear divide).

Many symptoms, even those coming from the body, are not caused in a simple way by damage that we can see on a blood test or scan.

Instead they are caused (or maintained) by the complex functioning of the body-mind in its environment.

Working out the causes of functional symptoms is like a puzzle with different pieces, some related to how you think and feel, some about how your brain works, and some about how your body functions. Your surroundings and life situation may also play a role. Some pieces of the puzzle might ‘show up’ on medical tests. Other pieces do not.

For example, subtle problems with the rhythms or regulation of bodily processes are not usually visible in a laboratory sample or scan, but can still have a big impact on how the body is functioning.

We can also think of causes based on when they happened in time.

Causes that were set up a long time ago, or are part of our biological make-up, might be called ‘predisposing factors’. There are also ‘triggers’, such as an infection or a stressful time, which coincided with the symptoms first developing.

Identifying these historical causes often helps us make sense of our life story. But because they happened in the past, there is not much we can do to change them.

’Maintaining factors’ are the mechanisms that keep your symptoms running today. These are the most helpful causes to identify because you can interrupt these mechanisms to begin to feel better.

Bodysymptoms is based around 28 of the best understood functional mechanisms that maintain common symptoms.

Each person has a unique puzzle of causes.

The good news is, you do not need to work out the whole picture, to begin to feel better. Once one or two pieces become clear, you can start working with these. In complex systems, what you do to benefit one part has a positive effect on the whole system.

This is also a learning process. As you understand your body’s unique condition better, more pieces of the puzzle will become clear.

How to know if a symptom is functional?

All symptoms have many possible causes.

It is not the symptom itself, but the pattern or character of symptoms that helps us understand if it has a functional or structural cause.

Doctors can order medical investigations if there are several possible causes for a symptom. Investigations are usually most helpful in ruling out a structural cause for a symptom.

What types of symptoms can be functional?

Most symptoms you can think of can be partly or fully maintained by functional mechanisms.

Because of the adaptations of the body, functional mechanisms maintain most persistent or chronic symptoms, even those that were initially triggered by structural diseases (damage).

Recognising functional symptoms

Some of the patterns of symptoms that make them more likely to be caused by functional mechanisms are:

When you have symptoms in different body parts.
When your symptoms come and go or change a lot.
When your symptoms are linked to how stressed you feel.

But there are no strict rules. If symptoms stick around, and you are not sure what is causing them, it’s a good idea to get them checked out by a doctor.

What are symptom red flags?

“Red flags” are features of symptoms that make it more likely there could be a dangerous cause.

Not all red flag symptoms turn out to be something dangerous, but if red flags are present, they tell you it’s a good idea to get a medical check-up as soon as possible.

Examples of red-flag symptoms are:

Many red-flags are related to the pattern or character of symptoms (for example vomiting after a head injury is a red flag, vomiting after a night out is not).

Some examples of red-flag symptoms are:

Persistent or high grade fever
Unintentional weight loss (think 10kg over 3 months)
Blood in the urine

Although there are others. If you are in doubt, seek medical advice. Doctors are well trained to spot worrying patterns in symptoms and will be able to advise what further investigations are necessary.