What is somatization reaction

  About 50% of the patients who visit our neurology clinic every day suffer from this disease to a greater or lesser extent. These patients often repeatedly seek consultation, complaining of various physical symptoms such as chest tightness, palpitations, dyspnea, headache, dizziness, etc. After various tests, they fail to find evidence of the corresponding physical illness.  So what is somatization reaction?  It refers to a tendency to experience and express somatic discomfort and somatic symptoms that cannot be explained by pathological findings, yet patients attribute them to physical illnesses and repeatedly seek medical attention. Depression and anxiety disorders (especially panic disorder) are two of the most common causes of somatization, which used to be called “neurosis” and is now also called “insidious” depression.  Common complaints include persistent headache, heaviness, tightness, dizziness, memory loss, insomnia, difficulty falling asleep, easy waking, early waking, excessive dreaming, peripheral pain, including neck, shoulder, back, and lumbar pain, sweating, palpitations, chills, chest tightness, chest pain, choking, tachycardia, and numbness of the face and hands. Other patients have pain of variable location, burning, heaviness, tightness, swelling, etc. Patients insist on attributing these symptoms to a specific organ or system, but examination does not prove that a physical disease has occurred in the organ or system in question. Patients in this category are often in and out of the office more than 3-4 times, with unsatisfactory responses from the physician and poor compliance.  Patients with all types of somatization have in common that they react to mental stimuli and the corresponding emotional activation mainly in a somatic rather than cognitive way. To summarize the etiology of this type of disease, in addition to mental disorders, there are mainly the following: 1. High work-life stress: These patients are mostly white-collar workers in big cities, and the long-term stress is not effectively relieved, and the state of depression and anxiety emerges over time, but the symptoms of depression and anxiety are hidden, but the somatic metaphor is used to express emotional distress.  2, life without a goal: this type of patients are mostly people without work, nothing to do all day, will make people produce loneliness and sense of loss, leading to mental and physical disorders. Work makes people healthy, scientists have found that hard-working people live longer than average, and working women are healthier than housewives.  3, the fear of disease: With the improvement of living standards, people pay more and more attention to health, but with it comes excessive concern for their own bodies. Especially when you see examples of sick relatives and friends around you, you become more fearful of disease. Often, they think they are suffering from a certain disease in comparison with their own symptoms.  4. Trouble with somatic diseases: These patients often suffer from somatic diseases, such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Patients are often worried about dragging others down or have low self-esteem or fear of disease aggravation relapse, can not have a correct understanding of the disease, so the resulting state of mind disorder.  5, medical factors: many such patients were originally a minor problem, but due to excessive medical examinations, ambiguous diagnostic instructions, and even inappropriate scientific explanations and treatment, may make somatization tendencies appear or strengthen. This is very common in primary care hospitals and in some informal health check-ups in the community. In layman’s terms, this is “the disease of being scared.”  Therefore, we call on all of you to keep a good attitude, work actively, and seek medical treatment at regular hospitals when you are not feeling well; we call on medical workers to pay attention to such patients with somatization in clinical treatment, to standardize treatment, and to prevent over-treatment.