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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 4 of 4. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Guy on December 17, 2013, at 22:37:42
I have been feeling generally unwell for as long as I have been taking meds...almost 20 years now. It doesn't matter which meds I take--and I have tried many--I never look or feel healthy. (It's important to note that some drugs, such as Seroquel, make me feel much more poisoned than others.) I have big bags under my eyes and am constantly washing my face with warm water in an attempt to "freshen up". I currently take only 2.5 mg Zypreza plus 5 mg diazepam before bed to help me sleep. Without these meds I would have more than malaise--I would have insomnia from hell and be jumping out of my skin with panic and anxiety. It's such a Catch 22! I'm wondering if there is depression under my anxiety that is causing me to feel sickly all the time and if I should perhaps be trying another antidepressant such as Celexa. Unfortunately, I haven't had a positive response to ADs in the past. Are there others such as I who are simply surviving and who have pretty much given up on ever feeling good again?
Posted by Moishe Pipik on December 18, 2013, at 11:59:07
In reply to Chronic Malaise, posted by Guy on December 17, 2013, at 22:37:42
I'm one, and I bet there are a lot of us. It's not so much that I've given up on life (although there certainly are times when I feel that way), but that I've given up searching for a medical holy grail. Like many of us, there are situational things that I grapple with, and they're not going to be alleviated with medication/therapy. After many years of many med tries, I simply decided to get off the med bandwagon and do my best to learn to tolerate the discomfort, and to enjoy what I can. Some may say that "giving up" is bad, and to never stop trying, but for me it was like that definition of insanity about doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.
I feel for you, brother. Hang in there!
Posted by Jeroen on December 18, 2013, at 16:28:41
In reply to Re: Chronic Malaise, posted by Moishe Pipik on December 18, 2013, at 11:59:07
i had temporary remission from an ear anti biotic panotile
yes that good feeling is putting me in the right direction to try minocycline anoher antibiotic which i think is more potent
i owe bleauberry many insight thanks to him i might be on to something goodwishing you the best cuz i feel like sh*t for long time now
Posted by bleauberry on December 19, 2013, at 12:47:11
In reply to Chronic Malaise, posted by Guy on December 17, 2013, at 22:37:42
That paragraph you wrote looks exactly like something I would have written about 4 years ago.
Long story short, the category of treatments that is going to get you feeling better is not psychiatry. I like psychiatry and support it, so don't get me wrong. Your symptoms are more than that. Your symptoms are not coming from the brain, and won't be fixed by treating the brain. Yes, the brain is where all the suffering shows up. It is deceiving.
I can't guess what is wrong with your body that is insulting your brain to cause the yuck feelings. But I do know that with a very high degree of certainty, it has foreign substances, or toxins, as the root cause. We need to find out where the toxins are coming from and we need to clean them out and eliminate their source. And all the inflammation that goes with.
Sounds hard, but really isn't. Study up on the natural treatments of Lyme disease, whether you have lyme or not does not matter, and you will be powerfully armed to attack the major causes of what you are feeling.
What you described does not appear psychiatric to me. It manifests itself as psychiatric, which like I said presents a deceptive picture. It feels psychiatric.
Do you feel somewhat "poisoned"? Maybe some sort of mild poison that just makes you feel like crap. Sort of like a flu without the nausea? Tired, depressed, no zest.
I used to tell my doctor that all the time. As it turned out, I was right. I was poisoned. Poisoned by the normal living functions of bacteria that are not supposed to be in the human body, their defensive enzymes, their poop, their pee, their dead body parts, all floating around in my blood stream, so concentrated that it accumulated making me feel like, well....yuck!
The bacteria in question are Lyme related. While a backpack full of psych meds, $35,000, failed ECT, and 20 years could not get me to shake the chronic malais, guess what did what all of them could not? Antibiotics and lyme herbs.
Two M.D.s who I consider experts and have treated me, both in different STates, don't know each other, told me the same thing....90% of psychiatric patients have some degree of lyme disease. Sounds profound, doesn't it? Except that if you are in that field and familiar with it, you know that is true.
Classical medicine has had more than a fair shot with you. Time to try what I consider to be first line medicine....an Integrative MD....someone who can do the herbs for you that will fight hidden infections, clean out toxins, and lower inflammation. Those are at the heart of most depressions and most psychiatric symptoms. You can do this yourself however by simply reading the book Healing Lyme by Stephen Buhner. The book Amalgam Illness also is chock full of generalized healing stuff that applies directly to psychiatric patients and symptoms. It doesn't matter whether you have lyme disease or not, amalgams or not. The treatments for them are what make psychiatric stuff greatly improved, far beyond what meds alone do.
I do think you will feel good again. If your treatment plan is primarily based in psychiatry, then I don't think your odds are very good. More has to be done. Even the most basic of healing strategies don't happen with psychiatrists. The meds they prescribe do not heal anything.
Lyme and similar stealth harmful bacteria/parasites cause these diagnosis to happen: (a great deal of misdiagnosis and mistreatment going on out there!)
1. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
2. Depression and/or other psychiatric.
3. Fibromyalgia.
4. M.S.
5. Arthritis.
6. LupusMy doctors told me some of their infected patients had no idea they had an infection and that their only symptom was depression! They were cured with antibiotics, not antidepressants. They did use antidepressants and antipsychcotics and stimulants to help the patient through treatment, but eventually those doses were able to come down very low or be totally eliminated, as the patient got better.
As a temporary measure to help improve your quality of life and gets some projects done, have you tried Ritalin? It can be helpful on an as needed basis to help when you want it to.
But no med is going to cure your symptoms. You've already had a taste of what meds can do and not do. If you stay stuck in psychiatry, I would have low expectations for improvement. If you embrace other specific strategies, I think you could be amazed. Absolutely amazed.
Long road though. Honestly, my infection was so deep and long that it really wasn't until year 2 and 3 of antibiotics that I realized I was getting better. Had I given up the faith along the way, my home today would be a grave under the grass.
My problems and damage are too deep and have been going on too long that I do not ever expect to be totally healed. I was in my young 30's when it all started, and now late 50's. But is a remarkable improvement of life quality still possible after so many years of crap? Absolutely.
But one has to get out of "the box" to do that. Classical medicine will likely fail. As you have already seen.
This is the end of the thread.
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