Posted by bleauberry on November 22, 2012, at 19:59:24
In reply to Re: any suggestions? » bleauberry, posted by g_g_g_unit on November 22, 2012, at 6:13:44
> Yeah, I would have been more than willing to try an antiobiotic .. the GP I saw is an integrative medicine doctor, so I thought she would have been down with it, but instead she wants to charge me $500 for a consultation and testing, all in aid of something called "Biobalance". I think it involves screening for Pylouria (spelling?), methylation etc., though I really can't afford the fee, testing and supplements.
I've spent years dealing with a couple different integrative mds and a naturopath. Honestly I think they were a waste of time. Too expensive, too many tests that did not provide anything meaningful to work with, and the whole while they seem to be looking for bizarre stuff but ignore the obvious. For example, every patient who walks in who has a history of psych symptoms and not-so-good reactions to meds, stealth infection has to be near the top of the list as suspects. But they don't even go there, and if they do, they base their decisions on tests, which are so full or errors they aren't helpful. Basically, it's all a clinical diagnosis....history, symptoms, presentation. Symptoms can be so confusing and nonsensical that these doctors think they are looking for some bizarre thing. it probably isn't that way. The best way to sort things out and make sense of it all is challenge testing, in my experience anyway.
There are herbs you can use for challenge testing if you can't get meds. I used to just order my own meds from overseas pharmacies when I couldn't get a doc to cooperate. It's my health, my life, my body, and no one else is responsible for it but me. So I don't let someone else rule what I can or cannot do in my efforts to be a good steward of my own health.
Finding the right doc hasn't been easy for me. But the effort is worth it. I did lots of google searching, phone calls, asking questions...and somewhere along in the journey some good names come up. But those good names probably will not be found without intentional hunting. In general, the docs most likely to not be helpful are ones affiliated with hospitals....they often operate under hospital rules or guidelines which sort of put handcuffs on creative thinking. For example in my case, the absolute worst docs for me to see, the ones that would definitely keep me sick, are the Infectious Disease Specialists. Despite overwhelming evidence, they do not believe in chronic lyme. So while I have elements of lyme, it's actually the specialists that would do me the most harm by refusing treatment. They would instead send me to a psychiatrist or neurologist, and meanwhile as months go by I get worse and worse and my reactions to psych meds become more and more unreliable and bizarre. My best doc ended up being a family practice MD who happens to have a niche as a lyme expert. Basically, an LLMD flying under the radar screen. He was not easy to find, and in fact I found him by chance accident during my searching. Had I not been searching, never would have found him.
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> I would have preferred just an antiobiotic challenge, but I think it might be a little controversial since the PANDAS-OCD link is mostly present in children.
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> How would you suggest going about finding a suitable GP?
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> > Based on the history you presented, everyone will have a different opinion, but mine is that you are not likely to get very far, not much better than you already have, by keeping your world restricted to psych medications. Those are only to help with symptoms, they don't cure anything, and if they are making things worse or problematic, then to me that is a clear sign the problem is something else impacting the brain, but not the brain's fault itself.Whoever was on to the antibiotic thing, I think that was a pretty wise suggestion. And of course a doctor wasn't going to prescribe that, very predictable. Doctors who can help and be creative like that, they exist, but they are under the radar screen and it takes some digging, asking questions, and searching to find them. Stay with an uncreative doctor, stay sick. Simple as that. imo.
> > Your symptom complex looks like infection to me. I have, unfortunately, been at this game long enough to be able to spot the difference between garden variety depression and infectious depression.
> > Your overstimulated reactions to many meds.....that was my primary clue. To other people that stuff probably doesn't mean much, just that you have bad reactions to a lot of stuff, but to me I know what it means. Very telling.
> > I'm not saying it is this or that, just what it looks like.
> > To keep trying other psych meds, and only that nothing else, will do one thing....confirm over and over that something else is wrong.
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poster:bleauberry
thread:1031533
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20121113/msgs/1031704.html