Mental health problems >>>> Munchausen's syndrome

Munchausen's syndrome.

Munchausen's syndrome is a rather unusual mental disorder, little studied, but bringing a lot of troubles, if not to the person suffering from this syndrome, then to his relatives. People with Munchausen's syndrome simulate various painful conditions, causing symptoms of any disease in order to get an appointment with a doctor and undergo an examination, force themselves to be hospitalized and do not even mind being on the surgical table.

A person suffering from Munchausen syndrome rather persistently requires an assessment of his health and the appointment of treatment (sometimes cardinal), but receiving a refusal after diagnostic examinations and not confirming the presence of a simulated disease, he is able to show aggression, rampage and demand the resumption of diagnosis and the appointment of an adequate one, in his opinion , treatment. Having failed to achieve his goal, a person with such a syndrome will continue to search for medical specialists who will agree to meet his requirements for treating a non-existent disease.

Psychiatry explains the above behavior by a person's desire to attract attention to himself, to receive care or psychological help, which, according to the feelings of the simulator, he is deprived of due to some circumstances. People with Munchausen's symptom are well grounded in the field of medicine, smart and resourceful, but the danger of such a simulation is that by causing themselves symptoms of a particular disease, they endanger their health artificially: to cause bleeding, they drink anticoagulants; to induce vomiting, they can take various substances that provoke it; to induce diarrhea, take a large number of laxatives, to feign fever, take substances that increase the body temperature, etc.

It is almost impossible to treat Munchausen's syndrome, due to the fact that a patient with such a syndrome calms down for a while only after receiving the desired treatment, while indicating to the doctor what he should prescribe or what medical manipulations to carry out. Usually, positive effects are obtained by an agreement between the doctor and such a patient that they will jointly solve the person's health problems, but without confrontation of interests and categorical requirements for surgical intervention.