Munchausen Syndrome

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AIBU to ask if you have experienced anyone with this condition? Or if there is something similar? If so, what were the 'symptoms' and how (if at all) did you get them help/did they recognise it?

I am concerned for a relative who I know lies or embellishes illnesses, conditions etc, to the point where they will exaggerate an existing condition so much they make themselves worse by not taking medication/leaving it so long to go to the Dr that their condition then requires hospitalisation.

Their health issues are all they want to talk about, to the point I can see their eyes almost glaze over when another topic is being spoken about until it can circle back round to them/their upcoming treatment/symptoms and so on.

Friend who I don’t see now does seem different to my other friend who categorically does have health anxiety. My good friend with HA is entirely different, she doesn’t lie about the symptoms, she just feels with her while being that any symptom has a catastrophic end. A headache is a brain tumour. Being out of breath is the start of a heart attack.

Eternally sick friend was not the same, she would tell shocking lies, make up symptoms and read about a disease then make it fit.

Thanks all. I do think it is all centered on the attention this gets. People rushing to the hospital, listening to all the stories of how dramatically they were rushed to hospital etc. They grew up in a very large family and I would imagine individual attention to be a rare thing.

I work with a hypochondriac not exactly the same but similar, any illness another persons got she either had it previously or is suffering from herself but only 10x worse.
You can almost guarantee she will have at least 1 doctors visit a month, she also tends to cycle between illness. I honestly dont understand how doctors put up with people like this.
I do understand why she is the way she is, from what i gather her mother wasn't the most caring person when she was younger. She ended up needing a major operations. Got lots of attention, new toys, was in the newspaper etc etc.
1 of the worst things that possible could happen happened and she almost died in a car accident a few years ago. So i feel really bad about doubting her, but she never shuts up about her illnesses and its very much a case of the boy who cried wolf.
If you only just met her, you'd also assume that before the car accident that she was the healthiest person in the world capable of running a marathon which just isnt true.

I'm thinking of Munchausen's by proxy. Don't I don't know anyone, but do know people whose conversational currency is state of their health

My husband has HA. when his mental health is bad he is utterly convinced that he has terrible life threatening conditions. Last time he was really bad he had (according to him) a heart attack and a brain tumor. The heart attack was actually a panic attack. The brain tumor was a combination of tinitus brought on by stress and the curved glass in the new car windscreen making him think his eyesight was changing. He was genuinely petrified and it took all my powers of persuasion to convince him to see his GP and to tell him all about it. The GP gave him some meds to help with his anxiety and a few months later he was much better and able to see his illness for what it was. However at the time he was utterly convinced he was dying and that I was an evil cow for refusing to shell out thousands for him to see a private Doctor and get a variety of scans done. (GP refused to refer him for complex tests until the anxiety meds had a chance to work).

I have a friend who I am sure has it. She lurches from one health problem to the next, curing herself from self diagnosed problems with Complimentary medicine until she then becomes ill again with a new condition with the same set of vague symptoms.
Luckily for her a private clinic has diagnosed her with a chronic illness that is basically incurable so she now gets to be ill for the rest of her life.
Her child has health anxiety. I wonder why?

I do know someone who's always checking in at A&E and had endless specialist referrals, and all are seemingly baffled that her tests don't correlate with her symptoms (which are never witnessed). Not a single diagnosis. She doctor shops a lot too, so I suspect it's painkiller addictions rather than hypochondria.

I've heard that people can have it with animal by proxy, someone I know is like it

The term munchausens by proxy may have gone out of fashion, but it wa certainly the right way to describe the children’s nurse Beverley Allitt. No child in her care was safe.

My FIL is like this - we just don’t ask nor engage anymore. If we had listened and believed him, he should have been dead about 100 times over. He makes up illnesses for friends and family too. He’s a strange man.

That's interesting MaryLennox (incidentally I rewatched that lovely 90s adaptation on Amazon the other day) - so would the Fabricated Illness diagnosis cover that dreadful case of the mother who was spiking her son's IV with saline? Come to think of it, does that kind of behaviour necessarily result in a medical diagnosis?

iborgia Im very interested in what you have said about MBP being discredited.

IheartMaryLennox Im watching some chronically Jacquie stuff now - so is she really not unwell at all? Thats all fabricated? Wow!
Is her partner consciously enabling her or completely unaware?

I have two friends whom I suspect have fabricated illnesses - one also appears to be experiencing the "by a carer" element as well.

It would be exactly that kind of thing Quim - sorry, you did ask Mary, but extra salt is a fairly classic way of bringing on illness in a child in these instances.

missyB - I didn’t say it had gone out of fashion - I wasn’t talking about a pop group. I said that it had been shown to be Roy Meadows and his pet theory - which has been in many ways discredited (which means lots of other doctors have said it was an unsafe diagnosis to make).

I’m impressed that you can give a medico-legal pronounement on the Beverley Allitt cases, given that she didn’t ever really explain herself - she was frankly a mass murderer over a matter of weeks. Yes, she hurt children, but it was abuse and/or murder that happened to be at her place of work. I don’t see a direct correlation. Sorry to derail OP.

I used to be friends with a woman who had every allergy possible, IBS, Crohn's, SAD, bipolar, chronic fatigue, amongst others. Only she didn't. She was ridiculously healthy. She went on long foreign holidays 4 times a year but had "panic attacks" if she had to get a bus to town because of her terrible claustrophobia. She could and did eat anything at home but in public her terrible allergies meant she made restaurant staffs lives a misery. Allergic to all animals, but breeds Chihuahuas. Couldn't get up to take her children to school but once they were out of the house she'd be up and going to town-having found someone to drive her.

Pinga I am sure she did/does have some mild ailments- but they have been exaggerated to a crazy level. She has done an incredible amount of 'doctor shopping' to make the diagnosis fit. She hasn't been officially diagnosed with most of it. Her very rich father pays for lots of stuff. She can usually pull herself together to go to Disneyland. The service dog is ludicrous- she can do everything for herself!

Pinga - from memory (and colleagues), Meadows was far too hung up on it being mothers.. it was always mothers, and even if they were having more than one SIDS, he said that was impossible...and whilst he was used as an expert witness, he made a couple of howling mistakes, and has never apologised. It was awful. I won’t go in to his personality any further, but he ruined lives.

I would say her partner believes her- she sort of deteriorated dramatically when he was away with the military- but I would say he is certainly getting tired of the constant seeking of new treatments and hospital stays.

Thanks Iborgia and Iheart for your replies. Wow this is definitely something Im going to look into further. Might help me understand what is going on with friends who appear to have this. So much more I could say but wont for fear of outing myself. Its not an easy condition to watch someone have - especially when children are involved.

I'm torn on this one. My DF has health anxiety as part of a psychiatric disorder. It's nothing he can help and he has been admitted for mental health treatment when it has become very bad. On the other hand, I'm sure my DS's medical condition wasn't diagnosed until it became critical because it was dismissed by the GP as health anxiety on my part.

His condition is really misunderstood so I am pretty sure that there are people who think I have Munchausen's by proxy if I talk about it, so I've pretty much stopped.

It's quite isolating dealing with a condition that is all consuming and misunderstood. If you are dealing with something 24/7 it can be hard to get your head away from it.

And I've recently been diagnosed with a serious condition. I haven't told many people because I "look normal" and the people I have told have responded with "but that's very serious" as in, you look too well for this so that can't be right. I am having to have lots of different blood tests, etc and the diagnosis keeps getting upgraded and downgraded between two versions of the condition (lupus and UCTD) but I do have it. If you see me out walking you won't necessarily believe that the night before I may have been too tired to move my legs.

Then on the other hand there are plenty of people out there who think they have something like lupus because they don't feel 100% well, so I get what you are saying.

t1mum3 huge sympathy from me, it’s very difficult when you’re in that position. Ironically I’ve ended up not advocating for my kids as much as I might, because I’m so worried about overthinking it.. even if we know we don’t have our parents issues, it still colours our behaviour when we ourselves become parents.

I believe you, that you have lupus or UCTD yet to be diagnosed. Very difficult to get a final answer sometimes. Equally, with your son, it’s a complete bitch having a child with something that doesn’t present as easily as a broken leg. I was utterly sure that my eldest had something serious wrong, mostly because I’d seen it before, but was dismissed so many times by the consultant. I really started to think I was going mad (exhibiting MSbP), until they did a CT scan to shut me up.

I was horrified to hear that it was a tumour, and that it took 5 hours to extract, but so relieved that I wasn’t having to advocate anymore. My son is now fine btw smile So conflicting.

Please be kind to yourself, most people probably don’t think with more than a passing comment ... it can sound as if they’re questioning your story, but actually they’ve no idea/ see only one other person with it who was in a wheelchair.. whatever. Try and make peace with yourself, and realise that, as long as in all good faith, you are doing your best for you and your child, anyone else can go jump.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/illnessfakers/comments/8bdrjf/chronically_jaquie_changes_her_entire_diagnosis/

Pinga you may well lose a few hours reading this if you're interested- one of the many Reddit discussions on her inconsistencies.

She makes a LOT of money from her followers and YouTube.

ASMRtists and beauty bloggers make a lot on YouTube aswell, though.
How could she be falsifying blood results, scans, and ECGs?

Mary - showing my age here, but how does she make money? Do people just send it to her, or is it advertising? I cannot imagine any company wanting to advertise on there tbh.. presumably not merchandise?!

Thank you so much @iborgia - I really appreciate that. For me the blood work is pretty conclusive of a serious autoimmune disease and I have had both diagnoses (from separate consultants) - they just are just trying to get to the bottom of one aspect of it as my platelets are jumping from very low to normal and some of the autoimmune antibody tests need a three month gap between them to be conclusive.

But to look at me, you'd think that I was making it up. I only went to the GP because I had headaches over months that were waking me up in the night and it transpired to be something more than the "stress" and "wear and tear" that I was attributing my symptoms too (conscious of my DF's health anxiety, I tend to go the other way).