Dr. Ervis Xhihani, MD

My experience with Dr. Xhihani was extremely disappointing and ultimately caused me to lose confidence in his judgment. I came to him because I was experiencing significant and progressive physical symptoms, including problems with walking and balance, weakness in my hands and legs, numbness, foot dragging, difficulty with tandem walking, and increasing difficulty functioning normally. These symptoms had become serious enough that they were interfering with my ability to work. By only my second visit, Dr. Xhihani diagnosed me with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) and strongly suggested that stress or psychological factors were responsible for my symptoms. What made this particularly frustrating was that I specifically told him I wasn't even working at that point because my physical symptoms had become so limiting. Despite that, one of his suggestions was that I find a “less stressful job,” along with seeing a therapist. This was not a situation where there was no documented… physical disease. My medical records and imaging already documented significant spinal abnormalities, including spinal stenosis, severe foraminal narrowing, multilevel degenerative/disc disease, disc protrusions and facet arthrosis. Other physicians had documented objective problems including foot dragging/foot drop, abnormal gait and balance, difficulty with tandem and heel/toe walking, hand weakness and numbness, leg weakness and substantial functional limitations. My biggest problem was not simply that FND was considered. FND is a legitimate diagnosis. My problem was how quickly it became the explanation for my symptoms and, in my experience, seemed to bring the search for other physical explanations to an end. I did not improve after this diagnosis. Quite the opposite: my physical condition continued to worsen. I subsequently developed persistent and visible swelling of my knees and fingers, significant pain in the finger joints, prolonged morning stiffness, Achilles/heel pain and recurring dry/scaly skin lesions affecting areas including my knees and elbows. My primary-care physician now strongly suspects an inflammatory/autoimmune process, including possible psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, and has referred me to a rheumatologist for further evaluation. Looking back, what bothers me most is how readily progressive physical symptoms were attributed to FND/stress despite my documented medical history and abnormal findings from multiple other physicians. Complex patients can have more than one medical problem, and assigning one diagnosis should not mean that every new or worsening physical symptom is automatically viewed through that diagnosis. I continued seeking additional medical opinions because I knew my physical condition was getting worse. I am extremely grateful that I did rather than simply accepting that stress or psychological factors explained everything that was happening to me. Based solely on my own experience, I would not recommend Dr. Xhihani to someone with a complicated or unexplained neurological presentation. I believe his rush to label my condition as FND cost me valuable time while my physical condition continued to deteriorate