Myasthenia Gravis Support Group
Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a neuromuscular disease leading to fluctuating muscle weakness and fatiguability. The hallmark of myasthenia gravis is muscle weakness that increases during periods of activity and improves after periods of rest. Although myasthenia gravis may affect any voluntary muscle, muscles that control eye and eyelid movement, facial expression, and...
Does any of you also deal with depression? I have had horrible year and a half and I think everything is finally getting to me. I lost my mom in October , have been helping take care of my 84 yr old father, and am in a huge war with two horrible brothers. That is only some of the major stuff. I've always had a touch of depression and anxiety but it has been managed. Now I can't tell which symptoms are from MG or just depression?? Is there a way you can differentiate? Just finished round of Rituxan in Feb and still feel like crap. Advice?
Some research studies say at least 1/4 of MG people have depression and probably more of us do. The disease is bad enough so that a realistic view is depressing. And some of our medicines are mind altering too.
The difficulty that caring for a parent and closing out parent's lives can be very stressful as children have different opinions and goals. Each needs to examine if their own view is realistic and demands too much of their own vitality. And the only real way to proceed is to come to an agreement about what is desirable vs what is possible and compromise with your father included in the discussion.
Trying to be a caregiver for someone else when you are not up to it yourself is not a good situation. My wife tried to do care giving with her father and go through cancer treatment and back surgeries at the same time before he moved to assisted care. He realized she was jeopardizing her own health after we talked to him. He understood he needed more help than she could give and moved to assisted care with meals (his wife had died) and some minimal assistance. My wife and her brother had different views, but after talking it over with Dad came to an agreement.
It worked out fine and eventually after a mlld stroke he moved to a nursing home for the last few months of his life and actually enjoyed that more than the assisted care because of all activity and things to do. He died last January at 90 and my wife and brother felt that they had done right by him and, being mentally sharp, Dad did too.
Or you could just take some pills that smooth things out. A friend of mine was recently diagnosed with Alzheimers. "I got terribly worried and down, thought about suicide. So I bought a quart of Vodka and downed it. That made me feel better until the next morning. I realized that wouldn't work every day, so I saw the doctor who gave me a couple of different pills. Now, other than wild dreams, it doesn't bother me at all." He knows he has the problem, knows his future is bleak, but says the pills let him live without dwelling on the future. I suppose, for him anyway, this is the best solution.
Hope things improve. Sometimes what we think we must do is not realistic and we should be willing to live with what we can do.
Russ