To know anyone irl with munchausens?

[Lw87]

Watching the gypsy rose doc, I'd never heard of munchausens disease before and can't even think I'd know anyone with it in real life

Has anyone actually had an RL encounter with someone with this?

I know someone with Munchausen’s and now also Munchausen’s by proxy, after the birth of her dd. A few of us had suspected her after some medical issue she told us about didn’t really add up. There was a pattern of her recovering from a severe illness only to be diagnosed with something else, almost immediately after. She now walks with a walking stick (after trying, and failing, to get a wheelchair) and even her doctor had told her she doesn’t need it. She’s never actually been diagnosed with anything officially and has had many different hospital tests which can’t find anything wrong. The scary thing is she’s started doing the same thing with her dd. She’s been in hospital 4 times in the last few months. Her sister has reported her concerns several times but nothings come of it. It’s very worrying

There was someone in my new mums group briefly whose baby was always at the doctor/in hosp. The things that stick in my mind were once when she took him to the doctor saying he was ill and was asked for a urine sample so she squeezed out a day old nappy - of course the results were alarming so off to hosp and she spent a happy couple of days there with him having all sorts of tests, and posted lots of selfies on Facebook. The other was when she smeared his own poo in his eye and made him really poorly - she thought that was funny and loved all the attention they got from professionals (including social services). Very disturbing.

And is permanent numbness also psychological then?

My best friend's sister has diagnosed herself with endless conditions including cancer, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), P-OCD, Autism, Fibromyalgia, Complex regional pain syndrome, PTSD and claims she had covid in 2014. Their parents died last year and left her the bulk of the inheritance including their house so she now can afford to have carers visit twice a day.

Perhaps the worst part is she has faked over 10 pregnancies and losses. She has fake gravestones in the garden and often posts on Facebook that it is one of the baby's birthdays. The dates never match up to the year before and the names change. She paid for plaques to be put in her local cemetery to commemorate each loss. A few years ago she crowdfunded to get some Reborn dolls (realistic looking baby dolls)

My friend has tried to get her mental help- both private and NHS but so far no one has got through the lies to help her.

Becca19962014 yes, my dd has it too. She’s 12. She’s had it for 4 years although in flares of about 3 months at a time. She’s had extensive psychological testing which has all shown to be of no concerns. She has colour change, hair growth, dystonia in the affected limb and extreme pain to the point of not being able to have wind blow on it.
Yet still it’s been questioned in the past as to whether she’s making it up!!
This has since been dispelled. But the fact it was even questioned, is painful to watch

As a teacher, I knew several parents with MBP (I think it's called something else now) in different schools. They were each known to the medical professionals and social services working with the families.

There's no doubt it exists - and it can have very sinister and damaging outcomes.

I know someone with the opposite- their arm could be hanging off and they would be convinced that nothing at All is wrong and they would be right as rain in a week. No idea what the name for that is?

Also- just interested- do kids diagnosed with autisn or adhd get benefits? Is that why some parents do it?

@allergyupset

Functional/somatoform conditions - experiencing 'real' symptoms which are not caused by a physical issue, but rather a psychological one. These can be anything from getting headaches when stressed, tummy trouble when nervous, etc (who hasn't experienced these?) to things like experiencing the physical symptoms of panic attacks or unexplained neurologically issues such as numbness/tingling/or even things like paralysis or seizures.

However, it's a tricky one isn't it. Many people struggle to accept that their real and distressing symptoms may have a large psychological component and assume that doctors who suggest this are 'not taking me seriously', 'accusing me of faking', 'dismissive'. They then get more and more determined to 'prove' their condition, often fired on by others (you read it on here all the time: don't let them fob you off! stay there and demand xyz tests!). Eventually getting a diagnosis for things that do not have specific lab results, e.g. fibromyalgia, migraines, etc etc (with a bit of research - not even purposeful to 'fake' but because someone becomes absorbed in finding an 'answer' for their symptoms so does a lot of reading online). This can come with attention and sympathy as well as the drama of having proven the initial doctors wrong... This then can potentially bring financial benefits or other associated with having this new status of illness/disability. So now there is yet another layer to maintaining the illness behaviours....

But this still isn't the full story. Plenty of people are told for years that their symptoms are "somatoform", only to find out years later that this wasn't true. For example, a lot of people are told they have IBS, which can be sometimes be reduced by stress reduction or avoiding certain foods, only to find out years later that they actually have Crohn's or Ulcerative Colitis, by which time a lot of damage has been done to the intestines, which could easily have been avoided with an earlier diagnosis. Neurological symptoms such as numbness or tingling can turn out to be MS, as someone actually mentioned earlier in this thread.

Yep, but medicine is not black and white a lot of the time and some conditions take time to diagnose, e.g. MS cannot be diagnosed on one episode alone, by definition it is at least two episodes separated by time and location (of lesion). If symptoms are not 'classic' it is quite likely that there may be a somatoform element. Outcome for functional conditions are much better where this is explained and accepted early on.

@Underamour

Also- just interested- do kids diagnosed with autisn or adhd get benefits? Is that why some parents do it?

In the case I was involved in yes The parent appeared to create mystery symptoms to get a bigger house !!! Was so sad her kids were all doing so well prior to that

The person I know isn't suffering from adjacent illnesses that might be the cause. In the ~30 or so years I've known her she's had:

• too many cancers to count, including leukemia, ovarian cancer, throat cancer, stomach cancer, and lung cancer (not an extensive list because at this point I can't even remember everything)
• lupus
• type 1 insulin dependent diabetes
• Cushings/thyroid disease (also thyroid cancer)

She also makes up incredible and sometimes downright evil stories about herself and the people in her life. To hear her tell it, she was a champion equestrian, graduated from a prestigious university, was a star ballet dancer, slept with any number of famous musicians. The CIA killed her parents. Her mother was murdered for her money. Her husbands (how many? the number changes) were all abusive. (None of this is even remotely true.) Much of this, and the illnesses, was an attempt to gain sympathy to get in with certain groups of people -- prior to social media, it was church groups that she would stay with until her stories started unravelling, after social media it was SO MUCH WORSE.

She had her DC convinced she had all of the above diagnoses and then some, so the day I got the phone call to come collect her younger DS from the hospital as his nearest relative, I found him absolutely beside himself because he thought the staff weren't treating her for her list of conditions. She had been hospitalised due to a painkiller overdose, and was in a coma, so she couldn't speak for herself.

Her DS was shaken to learn that while his mother was certainly very, very gravely ill she did not have cancer, or diabetes, or thyroid issues despite the fact that she medicated for all of it. She used her DS's name and birth information to get prescriptions delivered for pretty much everything -- mostly codeine based painkillers. I had to go to her house, bagging and collecting any pills or medications to bring to the hospital so they could try to unravel what she'd done to herself. Which they eventually did.

To the best of my knowledge she still does all of this. Her DC are now all long over the age of 18 and I can be in contact with them without her, so that's what the family chooses to do. I can only imagine the pattern continues with fake illnesses, wild stories, and finding new groups of people to lie to.

@Underamour

Also- just interested- do kids diagnosed with autisn or adhd get benefits? Is that why some parents do it?

You do realise that a child who does not have autism or ADHD is extremely unlikely to be diagnosed as having it?

I used to work with a guy who faked having cancer in order to get people to do stuff for him/give him things/sleep with him even(!) - it went on for about a year and obviously everyone at our workplace thought he was this poor young man who was slowly dying from cancer in his early 20's and how tragic it all was.

It all unravelled when a girl from our work started dating him and he kept coming to her house with bandages wrapped around his middle and around his chest claiming he'd had surgery to remove the "tumours". Then one day she accidentally walked in on him getting out of the shower and lo and behold he didn't have a mark on him. She even found bags and bags of Tesco own brand bandages hidden in his car 🙄

Looking back I guess he probably did have Munchausen's Syndrome. He was such a manipulative shit.

both of my children have autism, the attitude on here that just because a person cannot 'see' autism in a child means that the parent is faking it for benefits, is absolutely appalling.

@abeanbaked

My mums cousin almost definitely has it. She is insane and very nasty with it. She demanded an appointment with a gynaecologist, the one that she got told her he couldn't see anything untoward so she demanded a different doctor look at her until they found something basically. She phones ambulances for headaches. Constantly phones the Gp and has a stash on antibiotics in her house. Any illness that anybody has, guarenteed she has had it and 100x worse. She's painful to listen to.

My MIL is a person who phones ambulances for headaches (has had a lot of investigations for a lot of things in a number of hospitals over 25 years). I guess that's long term but mild attention seeking. I think a person who is tampering with medical eqiupment / putting themselves through unnecessary major procedures has MH issues. I think a parent who displays that behavior re their child prob has MH issues too, rather than being a 'benefits scrounger' as the redtops would have us believe but very bad for poor child's MH too.

However, MSbP, / Fii is also a term bandied around incorrectly:
I know someone very well who was reported to SS by the Head Teacher & GP (very small village, and they were best friends) as she had asked ('pushed') for her child to have an assessment for Autism. The grounds of the referral were 'potentially causing future emotional distress to child by seeking unnecessary medical assessments'. SS did not pursue it but parent was told 'they might, any time' by GP/HT on & off for the next 3 years. Then, friend moved area. Within 1 term new HT asked permission to refer child for full NHS multiagency ASD assessment. Both this child & 2nd younger child were then diagnosed, (now mid Primary age ). Later still, friend moved back to her original area. Her kids now receive 'ASD suppor't at School. She's their Carer (they get DLA). No apology ever made.

I have known women who’s symptoms were not believed and also those who have health anxiety. But I have only met one who I am certain was fabricating illness, we were at Uni together. I don’t know if she had “munchausens” but she definitely had mental health issues and fabricating illness came under that. She had both narcissistic and borderline traits. She was very impressed with herself and her intelligence and was convinced all her failures in life were clearly down to factors outside of her control otherwise she would be a massive success and thought everyone loved her. In first year she was always boasting she was the cleverest person ever and never needed to study and could get a first on an essay only done the night before. Of course that started to fall apart in second year as the sheer volume of information we needed to go through and research made that impossible. That’s when the illnesses really started to mount up, she was admitted to hospital on numerous occasions and they mysteriously never found anything wrong with her. I don’t think it was genuinely mistaking anxiety symptoms for example as I have never heard someone so breathlessly excited as when “all the Drs are convinced it’s cancer,” you could tell she was disappointed when it turned out not to be cancer after all.

I often felt that she didn’t see others as real people at all, we were just characters in the grand drama that was her life and didn’t exist when she wasn’t around. She would never ask about other people and would butt in to conversations and talk all about herself. She would lovebomb people and then the relationships would all turn toxic. When she had behaved abominably she would get hospitalised again and bask in the attention. None of her behaviour was her fault you see.

It was a small course at a relatively small Uni so had to get away from her. She didn’t finish third year as she was so far behind at that stage due to all her illnesses. The thing is she was actually very bright and probably could have achieved at least a 2.1 with a moderate amount of work. But as she had to be the cleverest ever that would simply not do. It’s all such a waste of a life that had real potential.

I know an ex family member who had it - pretended she had cancer for years. We suspect by proxy too, her son is only seen by the doctors on his own now. She isn’t allowed in or to tell her what the doctors talk to him about. It’s sad really.

FYI you don't need a diagnosis of anything to claim DLA for children. It is a needs based assessment.

Some of children with autism and ADHD don't qualify for DLA.

Plenty of children with no diagnosis of anything at all do qualify.

@lifeturnsonadime actually I have no idea how the process is- just that some people are motivated by money

@Underamour

Also- just interested- do kids diagnosed with autisn or adhd get benefits? Is that why some parents do it?

Hopefully the story I just told will illustrate not only that parent's can't 'just do it' (force a number of HCP's to diagnose their child / rig ASD /ADHD assessments? - not likely?) but that even asking about one can, in some cases, actually be risky to the well-being of the parent / family.

Anyone saddened/shocked to hear the comments of “medical professionals” on this thread saying patients seem to be making up symptoms for benefits? No wonder people with chronic illness and conditions like FND are so desperate to find an organic cause and seek more test, because it appears for a lot of medics unless there is something they can see on a test or scan you are faking it.

These people who completely fabricate a whole story and life about having cancer, I sometimes wonder what happens if that person actually gets cancer later on.

But some people do make things up for benefits. It might be a small number, but they do.

@Rosemaryandlemon

Anyone saddened/shocked to hear the comments of “medical professionals” on this thread saying patients seem to be making up symptoms for benefits? No wonder people with chronic illness and conditions like FND are so desperate to find an organic cause and seek more test, because it appears for a lot of medics unless there is something they can see on a test or scan you are faking it.

"Medical professionals", anyone on the internet can claim to be one and how they knew a patient who was doing this. Just like we sometimes have threads claiming a good friend is involved in benefit fraud.

@julieca

But some people do make things up for benefits. It might be a small number, but they do.

But most people don't, and we have to ask ourselves why people care so much more about the minority of fakers, compared to the much larger numbers of genuine people who are accused of being fraudulent when they're not.