Vighnaharta Naturopathy Health Care Centre
The World wide Online Consulting and Treatments centre with Online Patient Examination facility

Dr. Manish Wagh,  G - 3,  Dwarkadhish, 77 Vaibhav nagar, Jamnagiri road, Dhule.
Maharashtra state, India. PIN 424001


Hysteria

Hysteria is a mental and nervous disorder arising from intense anxiety. It is characterised by a lack of control over acts and emotions and by sudden conclusive seizures and emotional outbursts. It often results from repressed mental conflict.

This disorder appears in both sexes, but is far more common in young women of the age group between 14 and 25 years because of their natural sensitivity. In many cases it tends to occur around the period of adolescence and becomes less frequent after the age of 25. It is uncommon after the age of forty-five years.

Hysteria is an ancient disorder. The term is derived from the Greek word hystron ,meaning uterus. The diagnosis dates back to ancient Greek medicine, according to which a variety of symptoms was attributed to a wandering of the womb through the body. The recorded history of the diagnosis begin in ancient Egypt with the Kahnus Papyrus dating from about 1900 BC, which enumerates a series of morbid states attributable to displacement of the uterus. In the Middle Ages hysteria was associated with ideas of demoniacal possession, witchcraft and religious fanaticism. Later it came to be solely related to the female sex.

Osler, an eminent psychiatrist defines hystria as " a disorder chiefly of young women, in which emotional states control the body, leading to perversion of mental, sensory, motor and secretory functions. "

Symptoms

A wide range of symptoms are regarded as hysterical The onset of hysterical attacks may be sudden, provoked especially by strong feelings or may be heralded over a period of several hours by prodromal features. The main symptoms include inappropriate elation or sadness, crying without cause, almost conclusive laughter, deep sighing, cramps in the limbs, mild rumblings in the belly and sense of constriction in the throat.

The symptoms of hysteria are of two degrees. In the first degree, the patient may feel heaviness in the limbs, more severe cramps, strong feeling of ascending abdominal constriction, continual sightings, difficulty in breathing, construction in the chest, palpitations, feeling of a foreign body lodged in the throat, swelling of the neck and of the jugular veins, suffocation, headache, clenched teeth, generalized and voluntary tensing of muscles of locomotion. The patient remains conscious during paroxysms. The convulsions are usually milder and occur more often during the bending and extending of limbs.

In the second degree, additional symptoms, besides the preceding ones, are noticeable and these may include wild and painful cries, incomplete loss of consciousness, enormously swollen neck, violent and tumultuous heart-beats, involuntary locomotor muscle contraction, frightening generalised convulsions, violent movement and frequent spitting. Sometimes the patient jumps about on his / her bed and at other times adopt almost tetanic postures. The attack may last several hours. There may be prompt return of consciousness immediately after the convulsions.

The psychical symptoms include a weakness of the will, a craving for love and sympathy and a tendency to emotional instability. Hysterical people tend to react too readily to suggestion and through this suggestibility they are swayed greatly by their surroundings. The morbid exaggerated moods led to impulsive conduct which may often seem irrational. Such people are liable to be much misunderstood and misjudged. At times there may be much absent-mindedness, and loss of memory about events or for definite periods. If this mental dissociation is severe, one may develop hysterical wandering attacks, a state of double consciousness or dual personality.

Hysterical trances may last for days or weeks. Here the patient seems to be in a deep sleep, but the muscles are not usually relaxed. In the most severe instance of this, the heart action and breathing may be scarcely apparent that death may be suspected and the person buried alive.

Somnambulism or sleep-walking and catalepsy, where limbs remain in any position in which they are placed, are other hysterical states.

Get the Treatment and guidance to cure your  Hysteria by E-mail and Cure your Hysteria now

© Dr. Manish Wagh, Vighnaharta Naturopathy Health Care Centre, Dhule. All rights reserved worldwide.