If You've Often Been Told It's All in Your Head

Some people arrive with a stack of test results. Bloods, ECG, endoscopy, even brain imaging.

All normal.

And as they lay them out they usually say this. "Everything's normal. I suppose I'm just sensitive."

There is nothing to apologise for.

A thick stack means you searched a long time

That stack is not evidence of laziness. It is a record of how hard you tried.

One place says normal, so you go elsewhere. Normal there too, so you go somewhere else again. And at some point you start saying less. In case you hear "there's nothing wrong" one more time.

And then you start doubting your own body. That is the part I find saddest. The first person to know what a body is signalling is the person in it — and that person stops trusting their own senses.

Not visible to a test and not there are different things

Tests look at organs. Whether the shape is sound, whether the numbers sit inside a range.

But the body has, besides organs, a layer that keeps them in time. How fast to run the heart, when to move the stomach, how quickly to put blood pressure back when you change position. Quiet work, going on all day.

When that layer wavers, the organs are sound and the symptoms still arise. And tests don't see this layer well. They aren't the tool for it.

So "all normal" and "nothing is wrong" are not the same sentence. It is closer to "with the tools I have, I can't see it." (What "your tests are normal" actually means)

I ask you to tell me the symptoms again

I ask you to tell me the symptoms again. Since when, when it worsens, what happened before it started.

I'm not listening to console you. I'm listening because it's information. The layer tests can't see shows itself in timetables and patterns. Worse in the morning or at night, when tense or when resting — that tells me which piece of regulation is unsteady. (What time does in a long-standing illness)

And one more thing. Normal tests are good news. It means the dangerous things have been ruled out. We start from there.

That said, if there is a test you haven't had, I'll suggest that first. I don't skip the order.

If you've been hearing "it's all in your head" for a long time, you can set that aside.

Bodies aren't good liars. We just can't make out everything they say yet.

Written by Dr. Heo Ji-young (PhD in Korean Medicine Pathology, Kyung Hee University · former Research Professor of Herbology, Kyung Hee University)