Invisible Conditions

Why this resource is helpful:

"If you have been accused of "faking" an illness, you are certainly not alone. Many people struggle with health problems that don"t have a definable cause or currently available diagnostic criteria. While these conditions may be difficult to diagnose, they do create real problems, including pain, fatigue, and other life-altering symptoms. If you have one of these invisible conditions, you may be able to find relief with physical therapy.

Symptoms of Invisible Conditions
Invisible disabilities or conditions can have a variety of symptoms, including the following:

Fatigue
Dizziness
Pain
Difficulty with concentration or memory
The symptoms could be related to hundreds of different conditions, and they may even come and go. You may be accused of faking your symptoms, or you might have gone through multiple rounds of testing, only to be told that you"re in perfect health. It can be incredibly frustrating to be told that "nothing"s wrong", and many patients give up on ever resuming their normal lifestyle. You should know that there are doctors and physical therapists that understand what you"re going through, and new research is being conducted on a daily basis to discover the cause of these invisible conditions. Your symptoms are real, and many studies have shown that these conditions do exist.

What Are the Most Common Invisible Conditions?
Chronic fatigue syndrome is one of the most common invisible disabilities with extreme fatigue as its main characteristic.
Fibromyalgia is similar to chronic fatigue syndrome but is set apart by the focused tenderness in nine major spots around the body possibly caused by pain receptor issues.
Endometriosis is characterized by extreme pain in the lower abdomen especially during a woman"s period. Although you may try to push through these symptoms for a while, believing that they are not really as bad as they seem, diagnosis can reveal extra tissues in your ovaries or Fallopian tubes.
A variety of thyroid conditions can also create a host of ambiguous complaints caused by high or low levels of thyroid hormones.
How Can Physical Therapy Help Invisible Conditions?
Physical therapy can decrease your pain in these and other invisible conditions by using a variety of treatment modalities. Therapy can improve mobility in the joints, muscle tone and flexibility, and decrease long-term fatigue. By using your muscles and joints correctly and often, you can decrease the pain, inflexibility, fatigue, and stiffness that often accompanies many of these conditions. Your therapist may use a combination of manipulation, exercise, electrical stimulation, and hot or cold therapy."

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