An example of how the brain can produce severe physical symptoms

I wanted to share (via permission) from a patient of mine an example of how the brain can quickly produce severe physical symptoms with absolutely zero injury or physical cause. And also how these same severe symptoms can go away in short order if you approach them from the underlying cause- the brain, instead of the thinking something’s wrong in the body.

With this particular case, the patient had been under some recent stress and had been having some intense nightmare dreams. She awoke the morning after some very scary dreams to her foot being extremely swollen, red, and so painful it was hard to bear weight on that leg. I’ve shown some pictures below she sent me of each foot so you can clearly see the difference.

This occurred on the weekend. I saw the patient the Monday after it happened and we went through her history and story of what occurred. After gathering information of what happened and already knowing her and her history of mind-body symptoms, I concluded her foot symptoms were neuroplastic symptoms (brain-induced). They were likely produced by the high emotion of fear, and not a physical injury or condition in her foot, as she had no history of any physical injury before this started.

Still not being able to walk on her foot much and feeling tentative and still unsure (because the symptoms were so intense and physically apparent), she then went to see her physiotherapist a few days after I saw her. Fortunately, her PT is also aware of this mind-body work and familiar with her history. So like me, she reassured the patient she didn’t think it was a problem in her foot.

The physio then proceeded to challenge the patient to get on the treadmill and go through some leg strengthening exercises that day, much to the hesitation of the patient. The patient fortunately trusted her and myself (haven gotten two people telling her the same thing) and went for it by getting right back to her physical exercises to show the brain there was nothing wrong with her foot and to reduce the high fear that she still had (which I believe came from the stress and nightmares and was showing up in her foot).

A few days later, the patient told me she awoke and all the foot swelling, redness, and pain were gone. Completely gone. And she was back to walking normally and doing her usual routine. She told me previously in the past she would have been stuck for months with something like this, agonizing over the pain, caught in a fear-avoidance cycle, and being hesitant to do anything.

I wanted to thank the patient for allowing me share this real life example of how powerful the brain is and it shows that emotions can produce all sorts of real and at times debilitating physical symptoms in the body. It’s important to be able to distinguish whether your symptoms are caused by the brain or the body. If it’s the brain, we want to approach the symptoms from that (emotional) understanding, as it’s a key component to recovery.