Posted by Justherself54 on February 5, 2010, at 10:32:15
In reply to Re: Back to Basics Symptoms of Depression » mystified, posted by Phillipa on February 4, 2010, at 21:27:04
Depression makes chronic pain worse, chronic pain makes depression worse..it's a vicious cycle. Chronic pain and depression interferes with sleep which makes pain and depression worse. I know that on the extremely rare occasion I have a deep restorative sleep my pain and depression are way better.
I think we also have to be cautious and not write all pain off as a symptom of depression. I have fibromyalgia and then was noticing I was in extreme pain when driving or sitting. Turns out I now have coccydynia. I was recently told by a doctor (not my regular GP) that she "wouldn't bother" referring me to the pain clinic as "they just would prescribe you opiods and make you addicted"..I'm going hmmmm opiods..will help pain, depression and sleep..MAKE THE REFERRAL!. She said it's a two year waiting list..I said MAKE THE REFERRAL!.
We had quite an appointment. She said you are deconditioned and have to fight through the pain, eat better and accept my life the way it is and that some doctors don't even believe in fibromyalgia. I said, so you are telling me to get off my fat a**, lose weight and stop feeling sorry for myself!. She did some major backtracking, ordered an urgent CT scan for my coccyx (my "urgent" scan is in MAY) and referred me to the pain clinic. All this arrogance may have been a little easier to swallow, except for the fact the doctor lecturing me on all this was at least 80 pounds overweight herself!
Right now I'm thinking of chaining myself to the parliament building protesting the two year waiting list (also two years for a sleep study)..although then I would get hemorrhoids from sitting on the cold cement and have to wait another two years for some other specialist!
Sorry to hijack this thread but it all just came flying out.
Pain and sleep disturbances suck and make my depression so hard to manage, especially now that I'm at the end of the AD's currently available here.
OK, maybe I should have waiting until my coffee kicked in..Sorry for the rant..but thanks you guys for listening!
poster:Justherself54
thread:935977
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100204/msgs/936027.html