Woman hears voices telling her she is unwell... explain this one, GD

Lysander

Lysander

Lysander

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... and it's discovered she has a brain tumour.

Not a recent story, but I would love to see GD 'solve' this one:

A woman who heard voices telling her there was something wrong was later diagnosed with a brain tumour despite the scepticism of her GP.

The unnamed woman had first accepted counselling and medication fearing she was going mad, but when the voices returned after she had gone on holiday, she went back to her doctor and demanded a brain scan. He reluctantly agreed and was criticised by colleagues for accepting what his patient's hallucinatory voices were telling her - until the scan disclosed the tumour.

Writing in the British Medical Journal , the GP, Dr Ikechukwu Azuonye describes how the woman was operated on successfully and made a full recovery. On regaining consciousness, she heard voices for the last time when she claimed they told her: "We are pleased to have helped you. Goodbye."
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health-voices-that-warned-of-tumour-1289493.html

More here:

https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/hallucinatory-doctors/

So what do you think? Was this ethereal beings warning the woman or did her subconscious 'know' and translate this into voices? Or something else? Ghosts from the past, maybe?


EDIT: The article in the British Medical Journal is here, p 1685;

https://www.researchgate.net/public...t_case_Diagnosis_made_by_hallucinatory_voices
 
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A broken clock and all that.

Apart from anything else, take out the eccentricity and this is a doctor referring a patient for a scan on the basis of some evidence there's a brain issue.
 
Hotwired said:
A broken clock and all that.
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Really? This was a one-off. Not the best analogy.

Hotwired said:
Apart from anything else, take out the eccentricity and this is a doctor referring a patient for a scan on the basis of some evidence there's a brain issue.
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A request that was initially declined. I think any doctor would be very skeptical about referring a patient for such an expensive procedure on the basis that they "heard voices". He had to re-refer her and negotiate to get the scan through.
 
I think if you have something wrong with you sometimes you can tell you dont feel right.

It's possible the tumour was pressing on parts of her brain that triggered something that caused her to hear voices.

Some people have an inner voice normally, while others don't.

I wonder if the people who don't normally have an inner voice suffers some trauma which then triggers the voice, is it them thinking its someone elses voice?
 
well at least they didn't ruin the holiday for her and considerately waited for her return. that would suggest that it was actually ghosts in her house, obviously.
 
wolfie138 said:
well at least they didn't ruin the holiday for her and considerately waited for her return. that would suggest that it was actually ghosts in her house, obviously.
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That didn't happen though. From the BMJ:

While she was abroad, and still taking the thioridazine, the voices returned. They told her that they wanted her to return to England immediately as there was something wrong with her for which she should have immediate treatment.
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Eurofighter said:
As someone with Schizophrenia I think it I your subconscious mind.

I have experience with voices but also perhaps am just crazy.
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Exactly. The brain is capable of all sorts. I've no doubt it could realise it wasn't working right, and if you're already experiencing internal voices other than your own, it's not too bigger jump to think that it might announce there was something wrong with you. No doubt there are schizophrenics who hear voices that say there's something else wrong with them when there isn't as well. This woman just happened to take it seriously.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
Exactly. The brain is capable of all sorts. I've no doubt it could realise it wasn't working right, and if you're already experiencing internal voices other than your own, it's not too bigger jump to think that it might announce there was something wrong with you. No doubt there are schizophrenics who hear voices that say there's something else wrong with them when there isn't as well. This woman just happened to take it seriously.
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Why not ghosts or ethereal beings? I fully believe in guardian angels and this may be an example of such.
 
The BMJ won't let you publish an amusing anecdote of how you were chancing it but it worked out without including a professional conclusion. Even if it's the second last line of the whole article.
the total disappearance of psychiatric symptoms after the removal of the tumour showed that these symptoms were at least directly related to the presence of the lesion—and may, in fact, have been produced by the lesion itself
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Plenty of meat for believers to cling onto however.
 
pretty ****ty guardian if it let her get a life threatening lesion and then just warned her. should have protected her from getting it in the first place, as per the job description.
 
Lysander said:
Can you be a bit more specific? Do you mean people who hear voices or people who are in tune with their own needs more than others?
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I mean, if I read a book I can hear my own voice reading it. A lot of people are like that. But a lot of people don't have that voice.

This isn't the best article. But it does give a couple more examples. Apparently its named the inner monologue.

Some people don't talk to themselves. Are they better off?
https://www.today.com/health/experts-talk-about-what-it-means-have-inner-monologue-t173490

I've often wondered if a person with no inner monologue begins to experience chemical imbalance or in this case a tumour, whether it can trigger the inner voice. I'm sure if would be scary if not having a voice before then suddenly hearing the voice some people might think it doesn't belong to them.
 
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