A lot of people get to the point when they just wish they could ditch all the meds. I’ve seen people insist that their body will be able to deal with whatever is happening and self-fix. I wish that was true!
Too many people have bought into the superstition that “science knows all,” and “science will solve all.” This, much like the Cottingley Fairies doesn’t bare too close scrutiny. There are few doctors (my GP is a golden exception) who like patients reading the research. Many people think it’s because doctors like the mystique of looking like they know something we don’t. This may be so, but the more research and peer reviewed published papers I read, the more I think doctors don’t want us to read the stuff because so much of it is shockingly badly done! The standards for publication are so bad it makes me wonder if these papers are actually read by the “peers” who reveiw.
On top of that, diseases like ME and FMS are sucked into shoddy political situations meaning there is little to no research funding and then what is done is deliberately skewed to suit political ends. Science done honestly might have some answers, but vested interests, power grabs and pure corruption mitigate against this.
I do think you should read the research on the drugs the docs are telling you to take even if the research on your disease is difficult to wade through or judge.
inhalers; things you should think about. Even adults do better with a spacer or volumatic. If your doc hasn’t given you one, ask. I have a small one that fits in the bottom of my drug box. You sh
ould also have a peak flow metre and I recommend a pulse ox meter. I’ve had O2 Sats at 73 without really noticing the drop. I’ve mentioned before that steroid inhalers can have side effects, such as voice loss so drink water and gargle after use. If you are treatment resistant like me, most docs advise using Salbutamol inhaler regularly before the steroid. This is because it is supposed to relax the airways so that the next inhaler is better absorbed. (Montelukast can cause voice loss too apparently.)
Amitriptyline: Low doses of drugs like Amitrip or Nortrip have pr
oved very useful for the management of neuropathic pain. The side effects can be pretty yuk even at low doses. I’m on 50mg which is on the high side of low. To quote Dr, Patrick Woods whose research into FMS has shown the dysautonomic and hyperadrenal side of it (he sees FMS as a form of hyperadrenergic POTS) “wake up a fat zombie.” Yup, that’s about right I’m afraid. Add in steroids and you wake up a very fat zombie. I have been fortunate in the zombie side hasn’t been too bad once I got used to the drug. Opiates on the other hand were horrible
and didn’t really help the pain that much either.
One of the other side effects of Amitrip is hypertension. At antidepressant doses (over 75mg) hypotension is more common, (at least it was among the depressed patients I nursed who were on antidepressant doses back then. Now Amtrip is rarely used for depression). It is likely that part of my hypert is drug induced because of Ami and the steroids.
One of the noted side effects of Ivabradine is hypotension which is why it isn’t prescribed for people with POTS and NMH (neurally mediated hypotension). Unfortunately for me the Ivabradine hasn’t produced this side effect. Typical!
The other commonly used drug is Gabapentin which, as the name implies, regulates gaba in the system. The drug has the added advantage of being an anticonvulsant. I haven’t changed to it as yet because so much else is going on and I haven’t had a seizure since last summer.
The other reason I haven’t changed is the Amitrip is working for me and it took a very long time for me to get pain levels to manageable.
Over the Counter stuff: I take CoQ10 and Magnesium. A lot of studies have shown ME patients have low levels of both, hence the high number of heart failure deaths and poor immunity. It’s even hit the MSM
Maybe one day we will have access to drugs like Ampligen and Rituxin and actually get our lives back. Until then, we must mix our cocktails and get by.
Some reading: This excellent article Some Inconvenient Truths that shines and uncomfortable spotlight on the “Wessley School”.
THIS is a great overview of the Spring 2013 CFSAC meeting You can read Jenny Spotilla’s excellent and rather heart breaking testimony HERE as she shows a severe drop in funding for ME/cfs which is beyond shameful as more info is coming through showing how sick many people are, and how many are dying of this horrible disease.
Jeanette Bermeister’s Testimony where she refused to use the term CFS (good for her) and speaks of how well she got thanks to Ampligen which the FDA have refused to licence for ME even in the light of recoveries (Bob Miller springs to mind)
Also READ THIS especially the quite frankly weird remarks by Dr Unger who thinks doctors are too dim to understand the CCC. WHAT? Even I understand it!
While a lot of what happens at CFSAC meetings are obviously American centric, it would be a mistake to think that those of us in other countries are not effected by what happens, and doesn’t happen, as a result of these meetings. Interestingly it was raised at the 2011 Nov meeting that Wessley, White et al were working for the Medical Insurance companies when they began their harmful campaign to label ME as some kind of somatosatation disorder, thus reanimating the corpse of Freud with all the nasties involved.
ME/cfs awareness month ends tomorrow. But the disease goes on.
Finally here is an amazingly good and easy to understand lecture on dysautonomia POTS, NMH etc from a biochemist who has hyperPOTS and NMS It’s nearly 2hrs long so I recommend watching it in bits. But you will learn a lot!
The vid maker and a discussion of the vid is found HERE at DINET
I am still awaiting tests for hyperPOTS to go with the IST. As I’m already on Ivabradine I guess there’s no rush.
Thinking Love, No Twaddle 