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Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Update 2004 / 2006 © Hillie March 2004 / July 2006 |
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?
However, one of the biggest changes in my life is the onset of menopause which
has drastically and obviously reduced my anaemia. There are other challenges to
face of course but that is another story.
Family responsibilities have lightened but only lately. My children have grown
up and are on their own path of life. This brings about another phase in my own
life. There are now more emotional issues to deal with while in the past, many
of my struggles with CFS involved physical downturns in energy. Now I have more
time to recoup and regroup. However, when there is a big surge of events to
deal with, that same sense of depletion and lack of stamina comes back. Not to
the extent it had before but alarm bells do ring. For this reason I have found
it hard to face getting a job - I never know when I will get sick and there are
hidden dangers out there e.g. outgassing chemicals from furniture, carpets,
paints, perfumes and noise from traffic and people. Plus extreme stimuli in maybe dealing with customers with loud music playing that is often found in retailing. Not to mention vertigo which, when it hits, makes it impossible to stand up or walk.
November 2001. Alarm bells ring. A whole series of events send me to an old
pit. I get there and I recognise the furniture, wallpaper, the smell,
everything. I know I'm off the planet again into the black hole.
As I persisted with getting up and first slowly walking around inside the house
for only a few minutes at a time, then slowly walking once around the garden, I
gradually got some energy back. It was at a price though. Numerous times I
collapsed from exhaustion and once again I had to learn the secret of graded
exercise and the debilitating effect of too much rest on the CFS sufferer. It
was a vicious cycle but oh so gradually I came out of it. It took a year. And vertigo has been one of the most stubborn symptoms for me to deal
with and has rendered me incapacitated on a number of occasions.
When I became ill my doctor had taken one look at me and decided to put me on
antidepressants. I tried to convince him that the reason I was panicking was
fatigue, not because of depression. However, I was started on Aropax (also called Paxil in other countries). A few
days later I ended up in hospital at 2am. I was extremely agitated and could
not relax or sleep. The hospital sent me home with sleeping tablets. I knew
something was up and decided it was the antidepressants. Here is an exerpt from
my diary:
"This morning I stopped the Aropax. I've had awful side effects that the doctor
hasn't even picked up on. So there you go - my visit to the hospital wasn't in
vain. I knew something was harming me. Other symptoms were: dry mouth, tremor,
muscle spasm, no appetite (lost 4kgs in two weeks), shaking, drowsiness,
fatigue, plus lots more symptoms found on the leaflet in the antidepressant
box."
I've become convinced that the antidepressants exacerbated my illness
considerably and that if I hadn't gone on them, I would not have been
bedridden.
The Paxil forum on Yahoo is testimony to the debilitation, frustration and addiction experienced by numerous users. There are people who have gone off it and are still experiencing terrible reactive symptoms after two years of not taking it. Their posts on the forum show their anguish and quest for answers. I can only be grateful that I stopped using Aropax / Paxil after a week. My personal belief is that if I hadn't gone on this drug, it wouldn't have taken me a year to recover from the breakdown.
Thanks for telling it like it is, even if I didn't want to hear it. Thanks for
your honesty and giving me something to muse about in the quiet moments. Thank
you for stopping me from being a complete hermit at the expense of our
friendship. Thank you for giving me the time of day when I ring you in times
of joy and anguish.
"I am on a train at the top of a magnificent mountain and it is starting to
move downhill. Somehow I know it is going to go out of control and the driver
makes the profound statement, "the fun of after-death is you get to go
through it twice".
The train goes faster and faster. We are absolutely flying down the mountain.
Some of the time I even manage to stop thinking about it and think about other
things. A man is on the track and we go over him. I'm thinking, "Oh my God..."
The train never left the track. A man in front of me asked the driver as we had
moved off, "Can we get out now before we go too fast?" but the driver said,
"No".
I see flames and stuff flying everywhere when we hit. But suddenly I'm at the
top again where we'd started off and manage to get my luggage and get off the
train. I walk up the sides of the tracks and make my way to the top and leave
the train and people in it to do its thing."
Over the next year I have three more dreams involving fast moving transport -
cars, trucks, buses. It's as if I'm on a treadmill and can't get off. Later, I
documented my thoughts on the dream: "We can get off the merry-go-round of life
even when people say we can't. Before life starts to hurtle out of control we
can realise this and leave others to do that, turn around and go on our own
course. Life is otherwise a "death-rush", out of control. I don't have to be. I
will know when life is going to start hurtling out of control and I will have
to "get off". Don't expect "the driver" to stop the train for me. Get off
before it starts moving. There is a period of grace where I can get off before
things get out of hand."
I can hear the drivers talking around the corner. We hit and everything is white and still."
Another warning. Only this time I will heed it.
Part 1: A missing link to chronic illness, allergies and longevity? Vagus Nerve Imbalance/Hiatal Hernia Syndrome
I was desperate. The doctor had told me about the vagus nerve and that that might be the cause of some of the weird episodes I had after eating - breathlessness, fast heart rate, spacey feelings. So I started researching online and happily found the above pages. But I had killed two birds with one stone - vagus nerve and hiatus hernia were linked. I was starting to understand my issues with panic attacks and realised the breathless feelings were often related to eating / hiatus hernia / vagus nerve running up behind the heart and stomach and being activated / excited. The episodes some of my immediate family were having relating to eg eating too much and too quickly and the small stomach inherited from my father made me realise that this was a huge discovery and answer to some of my health issues. January 2006 - visits to my chiropractor and kinesiology treatments stopped my breathless attacks on falling asleep dead in their tracks. I had been having these episodes for 21 years. Update December 2006: For a year since my visit to Adam East (who so sadly lost two of his four sons to a vehicle accident last week and another son ended up in ICU with multiple breaks to both legs) I have not been woken up by these attacks after going to sleep. Thank you Adam. You are one of the kindest, most generous and gentle, giving men I know. I am so very sorry for your loss.
HELPFUL BOOKS:
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THE PIT
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© Hillie - Regularly updated
This document may not be translated, duplicated, redistributed or otherwise appropriated. |