View Full Version : Finally realising, maybe its time!!!
I am currently unwell with M.E, this has affected me for 2 and a half years and i am pretty much bedridden with it, i have very few occasions where i manage to leave my bed or the house. being so unwell for so long with lots of very horrid physical symptoms and lots of time to think this has caused a great deal of anxiety, i have always been a very anxuious person, although it wasn't pleasant, before having M.E i was able to live a normal and full life. i see and occupational therepist who visits me at home and i am seeing a cliniacal psychologist who usually visits me at home, but recently she has been pushing me to try and leave the house, i managed to get into the surgery and had an appointment with her there, but i found this very hard, partly because the exhaustion, weakness and dizzyness i feel but also because of the anxiety, i have lived where i live now for two years but have not once been to the surgery, so it was in a new place for me. I am trying so hard to work on the anxiety but everything i try seems to make me feel worse, and i have a hard time figuring out do i feel worse because of the anxiety? or because i have pushed myself too far and my M.E has worstened?I do know that when i am very anxious My M.E symptoms do get alot worse.
This Weekend i have been thinking alot, me my husband and children have come away for a long weekend, they are having a fab time but i am having a miserable time, i feel so ill and have been stuck in the caravan the whole time, it has made me start thinking maybe i should try the citaloprim my doctor previously prescribed me which has stayed tucked away in the draw. I am so fed up i want my life back, i want to give my husband and my children the me back that i used to be, i feel like my life is totally restricted but i also feel at times i limit what they are able to do because sometimes i am just not well enought to be left alone ( we had to bring my mum away with us to look after me while they go do the fun stuff)
I think it is time i try the meds, but as i feel so unwell all the time the thought of any side effects scare me so much, When i read about peoples side effects and they say in the begining the side effects were horrendous i worry, i feel horrendous already can i handle adding to that. How horrendous do they make you feel? can you still function or do they stop you doing anything at all?. I don't do anything at all as it is but trying to understand how much of an impact they have on others may help me to understand the med better. Has anyone been as ill as i am and taken them? if so how did you cope? It maybe that the meds may not help at all, as the m.e may not improve at all, but what worries me is if the anxiety is making the m.e worse and preventing me from getting better.
sorry for the long rambling post but trying to get out into words what is sppinning around my head is not an easy task lol but any imput would be greatly appreciated. :D
Katie I have ME/CFS as well and four years ago I was in the same position as you. I had horrendous anxiety and major panic attacks. I am still housebound because of the ME/CFS but the anxiety is tons better.
I cannot comment on the Citalopram as my doctor refused to give it to me but what I can say is that the key is not getting fixated on your ME symptoms and sensations. Try and go with the illness and accept your limitations for now, this will help stop the constant outpouring of adrenaline that is keeping you ill.
I am sure the anxiety and the ME are giving you a form of depression that in itself will make you feel very ill and that is where the citalopram will help a lot.
Katie I have ME/CFS as well and four years ago I was in the same position as you. I had horrendous anxiety and major panic attacks. I am still housebound because of the ME/CFS but the anxiety is tons better.
I cannot comment on the Citalopram as my doctor refused to give it to me but what I can say is that the key is not getting fixated on your ME symptoms and sensations. Try and go with the illness and accept your limitations for now, this will help stop the constant outpouring of adrenaline that is keeping you ill.
I am sure the anxiety and the ME are giving you a form of depression that in itself will make you feel very ill and that is where the citalopram will help a lot.
Why wouldn't the gp give them to you was it because of the m.e ?
LittleMissPanicky
03-09-11, 22:51
Hi Katie6, I can't offer you much advice about taking the citalopram whilst already suffering like you do. I do take it myself and did'nt find the side effects too bad, but i do think you and your GP will need to experiment with the dosage, i presume that you have been given a low dose to start with ?
The main reason i have replied to you is to send big virtual hugs , i read your post and it brought a tear to my eye and i wanted to come and give you a big hug. I have been having a tough time with anxiety of late and know how debilating it is, but having it on top of your ME must be terrible. All I can say is it is up to you whether you start the citalopram, but my feeling is that if it is closely monitored by your GP then you should be fine .
BIG HUGS HUNNY xxxxx:hugs:
Well Katie he would not give it to me for two reasons, the main one he does not believe in medication for anxiety, he says you have to work through it as Medicine is nothing but a crutch, at some point inn the future you have to face it without drugs and that may as well be now.
The second is that the ME/CFS has made me really sensitive to prescription drugs so he dosent want me to go through the same problems that I had with the Proton Pump Inhibitors for acid reflux. I had a hell of a time trying to find a drug and a low dosage that would not affect me. In the end Lansoprazole at 15mg was the only one that I could manage. Omeprazole had me collapsing due to the side effects.
Hi Katie6, I can't offer you much advice about taking the citalopram whilst already suffering like you do. I do take it myself and did'nt find the side effects too bad, but i do think you and your GP will need to experiment with the dosage, i presume that you have been given a low dose to start with ?
The main reason i have replied to you is to send big virtual hugs , i read your post and it brought a tear to my eye and i wanted to come and give you a big hug. I have been having a tough time with anxiety of late and know how debilating it is, but having it on top of your ME must be terrible. All I can say is it is up to you whether you start the citalopram, but my feeling is that if it is closely monitored by your GP then you should be fine .
BIG HUGS HUNNY xxxxx:hugs:
Thank-you for your kind words, yes my gp prescribed 10mg and suggested as a starting block to take 1 every other day for the first week and then increase to every day fror a couole of weeks, then to review as to whether to go to 20mg after that. in my heart i know i should give it a go but because of physically unwell i am anyway just finding it very hard to go for it x
Well Katie he would not give it to me for two reasons, the main one he does not believe in medication for anxiety, he says you have to work through it as Medicine is nothing but a crutch, at some point inn the future you have to face it without drugs and that may as well be now.
The second is that the ME/CFS has made me really sensitive to prescription drugs so he dosent want me to go through the same problems that I had with the Proton Pump Inhibitors for acid reflux. I had a hell of a time trying to find a drug and a low dosage that would not affect me. In the end Lansoprazole at 15mg was the only one that I could manage. Omeprazole had me collapsing due to the side effects.
I am sorry to hear you had a tough time with your meds, i am kind of worried by being sensitive to them too as since having m.e i feel that i am super sensitive to everything foods, meds etc and i guess what your gp says does make sense, and that is what i am trying to do also, but the problem with m.e as i am sure have the same struggle is that all the things you need to do, to combat anxiety, ie pushing yourself to do things regardless of how you feel is not possible to do when you have m.e, push yourself too much and then you relapse in the m.e so i feel kind of stuck in a very viscious circle. its so hard to know what is best to do, my life has changed so much over the past 2 and half years some things have been for the better like where we have moved to but i want my life back, i want to try to make myself better, for my husband and childrens sake as well as my sake, but i also don't want to make myself any worse, grrrrr i wish i didn't overthing things all the time and could just do it x
I know what you mean Katie that is why I am housebound. Every trip out even for an hour or just a 10 minute walk would leave me ill for hours and then I would get post exertional malaise symptoms for days.
I really have no good advice that works as far as the ME as whatever I do I have consequences with less and less energy. The anxiety though is easier to try and sort and that is realise it's faulty beliefs but I think with ME it's a fear of the symptoms and sensations because they are so awful. I don't know about you but when the post exertional malaise strikes all I can do is try and ignore the feeling of death.
That is what causes my anxiety and until that dosent occur then it's a viscous circle.
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