"Functional illnesses." What is your approach?

By "functional" illness, I'm referring to and lumping together a bunch of diagnoses: POTS, fibromyalgia, mast cell activation, chronic fatigue, multiple drug intolerances, EDS III, chronic itch, chronic pain, etc. (maybe IBS and interstitial cystitis and others I didn't list). Some of these might exist as a true organic disease in some patients but most of the time it's code talk for underlying psych issues. We have these patients in all of our varying specialties. I dread these encounters... Read more
Source: Student Doctor Network - Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Tags: Internal Medicine and IM Subspecialties Source Type: forums