Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Support Group
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) describes a sense of exhaustion and post-exertion malaise, even when you have gotten enough rest and sleep. The disease is characterized by six months of incapacitating fatigue experienced as profound exhaustion and extremely poor stamina, and problems with concentration and short-term memory. The cause is unknown, but it is a...
OK so I know the topic of anti-depressants is a controversial subject for us in living with CFS/ME but I would like to raise the issue of Drs who try to dose us up with these mind-altering drugs when most of us do not need them.
I had depression 7 years ago so I know what it feels like. I got CFS/ME 2.5years ago and of course my Dr at the time suggested anti-depressants, I politely declined.
I have since had two more Drs suggest the same thing and I have always declined but then back in March this year, I had my appendix removed and literally woke up in recovery feeling very low and depressed. People can have this reaction from the anesthetic (not that the medical community warns you, or even acknowledges it). After a month of still feeling depressed I went to the Dr and actually asked for a low dose of anti-depressants. I take half per day. Of course this has not helped my physical ME symptoms. So my Dr said, thats good we can rule out depression as a cause of your fatigue WHAT, I knew that, I have told Drs for 2.5 years that I wasnt depressed.
Ok so to get to the even more annoying part, I had a colonoscopy last week and did not want the sedative as I thought it may affect me like the anesthetic did, and plus I was already feeling so bad with my CFS/ME symptoms, but as the pain got worse during the procedure, the Dr gave me a full dose half way through. Well instead of becoming sedated I felt great and I left the hospital feeling better than I had in a week, it only lasted the rest of the night though. I told my Dr this and since the sedative belongs to an anti-anxiety family of medications, she suggested that I try Zanax! But I dont have anxiety I told her. I did before my colonscopy but I dont in general.
She said that in order for specialists to take me seriously, I need to show that I have tried and ruled out any mental illness. That was the kicker! Really so I had to mess with my brain chemistry, perhaps messing something else up in my body for the medical community to take me seriously.
The worst of it is, I start to doubt myself and my illness, and question whether I am just a crazy person????
Oh and I have an enlarged thyroid that has given me trouble swallowing for since the end of February and still I have not been sent to a specialist because I have to try these drugs to rule other illnesses out.
Ahhhh makes me angry! Why do I bother even going to the Drs..
I had depression 7 years ago so I know what it feels like. I got CFS/ME 2.5years ago and of course my Dr at the time suggested anti-depressants, I politely declined.
I have since had two more Drs suggest the same thing and I have always declined but then back in March this year, I had my appendix removed and literally woke up in recovery feeling very low and depressed. People can have this reaction from the anesthetic (not that the medical community warns you, or even acknowledges it). After a month of still feeling depressed I went to the Dr and actually asked for a low dose of anti-depressants. I take half per day. Of course this has not helped my physical ME symptoms. So my Dr said, thats good we can rule out depression as a cause of your fatigue WHAT, I knew that, I have told Drs for 2.5 years that I wasnt depressed.
Ok so to get to the even more annoying part, I had a colonoscopy last week and did not want the sedative as I thought it may affect me like the anesthetic did, and plus I was already feeling so bad with my CFS/ME symptoms, but as the pain got worse during the procedure, the Dr gave me a full dose half way through. Well instead of becoming sedated I felt great and I left the hospital feeling better than I had in a week, it only lasted the rest of the night though. I told my Dr this and since the sedative belongs to an anti-anxiety family of medications, she suggested that I try Zanax! But I dont have anxiety I told her. I did before my colonscopy but I dont in general.
She said that in order for specialists to take me seriously, I need to show that I have tried and ruled out any mental illness. That was the kicker! Really so I had to mess with my brain chemistry, perhaps messing something else up in my body for the medical community to take me seriously.
The worst of it is, I start to doubt myself and my illness, and question whether I am just a crazy person????
Oh and I have an enlarged thyroid that has given me trouble swallowing for since the end of February and still I have not been sent to a specialist because I have to try these drugs to rule other illnesses out.
Ahhhh makes me angry! Why do I bother even going to the Drs..
WIth CFS/ME there are rules about anesthesia. Especially general anesthesia! You can google "CFS and anesthesia" and see that doctors need to know what we can and cannot handle to be put to sleep. If they broke a rule or two and gave you a damaging medication during your first surgery, that could well be why you reacted so badly, and got sick and depressed!!
For you colonoscopy, you probably had Propofol, or Versed....a much milder form of anesthesia. You do wake right up, and you do feel good. We can handle these meds. SO, my point is, that your first bout of depression after surgery could have been from the anesthesia itself, not that you were becoming depressed and needed meds!!!
Antidepressants make most of us sick. Another case of giving us drugs we can't tolerate. We don't have a chemical imbalance in our brain that needs to be straightened out, so the antidepressant works against us. Anti-anxiety meds can be helpful, if you are at all anxious from your illness. Many of us take anti-anxiety meds, even if just to relax to get to sleep. I've been taking them for years with CFS and they truly help me.
It would seem that your doctor wants to push depression on you as a diagnosis because he/she doesn't believe in CFS per se, and doesn't know what to do for you. You DO need to have your thyroid checked out. That in itself can cause horrible fatigue AND depression if it's out of whack.
Maybe you can start over with another doctor. who is willing to listen to your symptoms and listen to what you've been through with "medicine pushing" and try to treat your CFS symptoms without blaming everything on "depression", (which you most likely do NOT have and that's why those pills make you sick)!
Whenever this subject comes up with us...the antidepressant pill pushing, it makes me very angry. Because it shows me the laziness on the doctor's part to properly diagnose us, and they are always trying to say that CFS has this huge mental component, that we simply do NOT HAVE! UGH! I hope you can straighten this out, Ruby. Sorry you have to deal with this incompetence!!
It just seems to be part of the whole game as it were that we have to put up with that part.
I know that Elavil is used a lot for pain. So perhaps the docs are truly trying to help as some folks get at least pain relief from it.
As for Xanax, I use it. When it's been a week or more of nights with broken sleep I get anxious more easily under stress. .25 mg of Xanax (small dose) helps me even out and even sometimes helps reset my sleep pattern. It also helps when I'm having trouble concentrating. I take an average of 6 doses a month. If he's offering it, it's at least worth a try?
RE: your thyroid, if he's saying you have an enlarged thyroid and not doing anything about it, you should report him. If you have graves or a nodule it needs help, soon.
Switching doctors is so hard... can you kind of work around it? Figure out what day he is not there, and call for an emergency appt and see someone else?
I've done it....
I only have anxiety when something is happening, for example for about four days before my colonoscopy, I had anxiety. Or when I broke up with my partner. Zanax would have been helpful in those situations and as you say, for sleeping. So I am definitely not going to throw them away as I do need help sleeping occasionally. However I am concerned about becoming reliant on them.
I started taking them just under a week ago .25 - .5 per day and I found that when my morning dose wore off .25, then I needed another one, whereas before I started taking them, I didnt have anxiety, unless as I said for a particular reason. So today I have decided to not take them regularly and keep them in the cupboard for those situations that cause anxiety. I do agree with my Dr that having this illness does make us less resilient to stress, causing anxiety. But I often do not have much stress in my life so am not frequently anxious. (although not being able to swallow is stressful)
My swallowing got really bad yesterday and I couldnt eat again, which would suggest that the iodine or anti-reflux pills are not helping at all. She wanted me to trial them for another 1.5 weeks! Really I have been on iodine since the beginning of March. I dont get how a goiter can just go up and down within a day??? Are not going to wait to take me seriously until I either choke or starve to death??
I really liked this Dr as when I had my appendicitis she really listened to me and believed that it wasnt a bug or gas. She wasnt actually my regular Dr but after how she helped me with my appendicitis, I changed to her and she has been really good, until now..I rang the clinic today and a nurse is ringing me back, I really just need my Dr to refer me to a specialist, but she said that because my bloods are within the normal range and that until I rule out reflux they wont take me seriously. Well its about time they do now. I told her that sometimes its dangerous as in, I nearly choke on food and also I have lost between 10-15kgs since February.
During a middle of the night awake period I was thinking about the folks on here and wondering something about your situation.
Has the doc said she feels an enlarged thyroid or is it something you feel is happening?
I ask because I"m wondering if maybe you have bad reflux and a hiatal hernia.... I do, and when my acid rides up into my throat at night and sits there for a while, it burns it and makes it all swollen. That makes it feel something like a swollen thyroid might feel, and makes it hard to swallow. After a bad night of reflux it can last for days. Then you try to swallow something, it feels stuck and your body gets tense and tightens it even more.
Just wondering if you've seen a gastroenterologist? and if not if perhaps they might send you to one....
It is an enlarged thyroid. It is visible and anyone can feel it. Yesterday it was very big and for a few hours I found it hard even swallowing water. I can't find anything on the net about goiters swelling and going back down so quickly. It has been enlarged since beginning of March but gets worse some days. Strange.
My Dr thought it could be made worse by reflux, so two problems but the anti reflux that I have been on for a week haven't helped. I'm going to the Dr today and am going to demand to be sent to a specialist.
Wish me luck. I've hardly managed to eat anything in the past couple of days.
As far as I know, CFS is still only a "diagnosis by elimination". So doctors have to try to rule out other things. I recommend that the patient STRONGLY emphasize that the physical symptoms always occur first ,the mental symptoms are secondary.