Monday, June 15, 2009

Spasmophilie, spasmophilia, a quite french disease

By Paul Gerard

Spasmophilia does not correspond to any pathology recognized like such by medicine. This word describes the demonstration and the symptoms which are the consequence of a depressive state of physical and moral on-sensitivity. One could speak about syndrome of the demonstrations of acute fear. Spasmophilia is without relationship with reality. The patient feels it as such only because the danger wrongly seems but present in its spirit. The word Spasmophilia does not exist nowhere elsewhere than in France and even in France he by is not recognized by the medical authorities.

According to the current classifications (the famous "DSM4", american classification of mental diseases), spasmophilia is a form of pathological anxiety.

As a synonym of spasmophilia or tetany, it has the advantage of offering diagnostic criteria, even though the latter are still vaguely defined.

For many years, the symptoms grouped under the label "spasmophilia" have been differently evaluated in France by psychiatrists, who ascribe them to hysteria or anxiety, and by endocrinologists and general practitioners for whom they are all due to neuromuscular hyperexcitability, the cause of which must be sought in the biochemistry of calcium.

In place of chronic fatigue, the French suffer from spasmophilia " panic attacks characterised by hyperventilation, spasms and convulsions.

First identified in Belgium and France almost forty years ago, it was termed "cryptotetany" or "spasmophilia".

The concept of spasmophilia is not often taught in the faculties of medicine.

Other common symptoms include rapid, pounding heartbeats (palpitations), sweating, feeling of impending doom, transient burning sensation in the chest, dizziness, nausea, severe indigestion and unusual fatigue (sudden onset of unusual fatigue is women's chief symptom of heart attack, yet it often goes unreported to emergency room staff). - 14130

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