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Münchhausen syndrome (aka sham disorder) is a disease in which affected individuals report fictitious symptoms or deliberately cause disease only to be considered sick and to be treated. There is also the transferred (substitute) Münchhausen syndrome, which is even more dangerous because it directly affects the closest ill people. Find out what the symptoms of Münchhausen syndrome are and how it is treated.

Münchhausen syndromeis a team of a hospital jumper or a team of a patient wandering around hospitals. These terms sound mysterious and maybe even a bit funny, but in fact they refer to a very serious disease, dangerous not only for the patient himself. Each, even trivial, disease that affects us causes discomfort, but sometimes the opposite is true: unpleasant sensations, pain and strenuous treatments related to treatment become the meaning of life.

Patients withMünchhausen syndromecause various ailments themselves: pain, fever, vomiting, bleeding, infections. In order to achieve their goal, they are willing to administer (swallow, inject) toxic substances, take drugs (also belonging to another person) without justification, fester wounds to prevent their healing. They often falsify medical records.

The consequence, most desired by these people, are surgical procedures and frequent hospital stays. Even more dangerous is thetransferred (replacement) Münchhausen syndrome , which directly affects relatives struggling with Münchhausen syndrome.

Münchhausen syndrome - symptoms

Patients with Münchhausen syndrome often visit their family doctor and other specialists. Usually they change the doctor not when there is a problem with making a proper diagnosis, but when he refuses further diagnosis or begins to suspect that the patient is pretending. Patients do not expect medical help that would bring relief, but only helping and caring, being the center of attention.

Important

The most significant manifestation of Münchhausen syndrome is not caused or imagined symptoms, but the patient's way of life. Patients want to be perceived (and feel best in this role) as suffering from the unknown oran incurable disease that is associated with constant consultations and hospital stays.

Münchhausen syndrome is a mental disorder

The behavior of patients is conscious, but not tantamount to simulating. A person who simulates a disease knows perfectly well why he is doing it, e.g. he wants to force a sick leave, avoid losing a job, get a pension. Although a patient with Münchhausen syndrome consciously deceives doctors, family and friends, he himself provokes situations that are dangerous to his he alth, but he is not aware of the reasons why he does it.

The reasons for the behavior of patients in Münchhausen syndrome are not fully understood. The most probable are:

  • wanting to be the center of attention
  • arousing interest and admiration ("he suffers so much and he is so brave")
  • gaining more control over the environment ("let's think about what's wrong with me")
  • strong need to satisfy aggression, which in this case is directed against one's own body.

Specialists exploring the secrets of Münchhausen's syndrome suppose that the basis of such behaviors lies in the patient's past. Usually the sick, and they are mostly men, were abused in their childhood, have many psychological traumas behind them, and their emotional needs (closeness, love, security) were not met.

So they grew up into people who are unable to establish closer relationships with others, feel rejected, and the only (in their opinion) way to be noticed is to get sick. By telling the world that they are struggling with serious ailments, they can count on interest, compassion, and empathy. And they get it all, but usually for a short time: doctors, after exhausting diagnostic methods, spread their hands and their friends start to get tired of someone else's problems.

Therefore, patients with Münchhausen syndrome set themselves new goals, i.e. new symptoms that will arouse the interest of the environment. Such an explanation is most likely, although similar factors more often cause neurotic disorders and increase the tendency to depression.

Transferred (surrogate) Münchhausen syndrome - when mothers harm their own children

Specialists dealing with this problem also noticed that some of the patients were once victims of mothers suffering from the so-calledtransferred Münchhausen syndromein which the parent (or guardian) assigns or causes symptoms of the disease not in themselves but in their child. In this case, the point is the same: forcing the doctor to continue, often more advanced treatment.

In Münchhausen's relocated teammost often mothers cause the disease in young children, with whom it is difficult to conduct a thorough medical interview (often they do not speak yet). Therefore, detecting the real causes is difficult.

As in the first case, a person with transferred Münchhausen syndrome does not make a family member sick at all in order to achieve some tangible benefit. He only wants medical staff to be interested in the alleged ill-he alth of a child, but also to show himself as an endlessly loving and devoted mother, actively involved in restoring the child's he alth.

Women diagnosed with transferred Münchhausen syndrome usually have an unhappy childhood behind them, as well as frequent and long hospital stays. Life difficulties (e.g. conflict with a partner) may trigger or intensify disturbed behaviors.

Symptoms vary in severity. From mild, consisting in inventing the symptoms of the disease, through falsifying test results and provoking slight symptoms of the disease, e.g. by cooling down, to endangering the child's life (administering inadvisable drugs, starving).

Important

Transferred (surrogate) Münchhausen syndrome - symptoms

Fake or provoked symptoms in a child - similar to the person who causes the disease - are most often:

  • fever
  • gastrointestinal bleeding
  • vomiting blood
  • bleeding from the respiratory tract, nose, etc.
  • neurological symptoms (drowsiness, convulsions, coma)
  • skin symptoms (rashes, swelling, erythema).

In conversations with doctors, the mother is very (sometimes overly) active and cooperates until her theses are confirmed. Otherwise, he reacts with criticism, a sense of disappointment or harm and seeks help for the child from the next doctors.

How to recognize Münchhausen syndrome?

Searching for the cause of the ailments usually takes a long time, and an alert patient knows in time that the doctor is close to the truth, and then changes the place of treatment or tactics. However, there are indications that the true cause of chronic and difficult-to-treat ailments is Münchhausen's syndrome. It is worth being vigilant when:

  • the doctor taking care of the patient claims that the individual symptoms are mutually exclusive and the general state of the patient's he alth does not correspond in any way to the results of laboratory tests;
  • non-healing wounds are only within the reach of the patient's left hand (or right, if left-handed), but always where they can be hidden, e.g. under sleeves or legs;
  • the patient (in the case of a child, his guardian) manifestsexcessive interest in the effects of drugs (searches for information in many sources, collects leaflets); medications disappear at home or in the houses he visits;
  • the occurrence of seizures and attacks is only identified on the basis of the patient's report, and administration of anticonvulsants does not improve;
  • symptoms disappear when one specific parent or guardian is absent;
  • the patient has extraordinary medical knowledge, urges doctors to conduct further tests, shows excessive concern for the well-being of medical personnel.

There is also a list of symptoms that should be a signal to more carefully observe the relationship between mother and sick child. These include:

  • unexplainable relapsing or refractory disease; discrepancy between the history, clinical picture, test results and general condition of the child, symptoms do not fit into a logical whole
  • bad tolerance of all treatments
  • symptoms disappearing in the absence of mother
  • overly caring mother, refusing to leave her child alone for even an hour; bad relations in the family;
  • the mother's profession is related to medicine (nurse, medical analyst, radiologist) or she has a lot of experience with a similar disease.

Is treatment of Münchhausen syndrome possible?

Helping the sick is very difficult and rarely brings any results. Mainly because the patient builds a perfect, distorted picture of his he alth, taking care of the smallest details. Meanwhile, the doctor tries to take each symptom seriously and assumes that the patient is telling the truth. A diagnosis can be made by a psychiatrist. The most common reaction to referral to this specialist is denial and … a quick change of doctor.

Treatment for someone affected by Münchhausen syndrome is complex. Psychotherapy plays an important role as it will help in realizing hidden needs and teaching self-acceptance in a different way. The specialist decides about administering drugs when the patient has a state of strong mental tension or if there are coexisting symptoms of depression or anxiety.

Important

Who was Baron von Münchhausen?

The term Münchhausen syndrome was first used in 1951 by British hematologist and endocrinologist Richard Asher. To describe the team, Asher used the name of Baron Karl von Münchhausen, who lived in the eighteenth century, who was famous for his ability to convincingly tell his extraordinary, completely imaginary adventures. A quarter of a century later, prof. Roy Meadow of the University of Leeds described cases of mothers causing symptoms of the disease in their children. This phenomenon was namedsurrogate Münchhausen syndrome.

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Psychiatry