Posted by katekite on July 22, 2002, at 19:00:47
In reply to Re: you are in the wrong place » katekite, posted by rjk on July 22, 2002, at 17:37:59
LOL yes I am happy to be in a better place. It did take a long long time for me to narrow the problem down though. I can't fix anyone of course but I hope that someone else may benefit from me having gone through what I did.
I don't disagree that the combination of meds you took could have knocked something loose. That is always possible. The question is whether it is truly in your brain and only treatable with anti-depressant type meds or whether it could be hormonal or something else that ends up in a secondary way making your brain do what it does, which would need some other type of treatment.
I don't mean to give you false hope. I do know there are people with multiple food and chemical sensitivities that have to be very careful and that that is just the way it is.
It is good you had an mri and eeg. I had those, also an abdominal CT and chest xrays which were normal. It wasn't until I got hormonal testing that anything came up abnormal. We can be in very good health in many ways and not be ok.
I think the obvious place for you to begin is to look for something physical to go on. When my problems first began it was solely mental, but as time went by subtle physical changes occurred. To begin with I doubted myself a lot because of course it really was all in my head. I didn't even notice some of the early physical changes. I would record them and think it was just the way I was. But over a month or so there were clear trends, for example over a month my resting pulse invcreased just by about 5 beats per minute. Even something this minor could be important.
You could do an experiment: take something that has affected you badly in the past. Hopefully there is something where the effect doesn't last more than a day or so. Then measure a bunch of physical things and see if anything changes between that day and a day when you feel normal again.
For example you could compare all these things on a good day versus a bad day: resting pulse getting up, middle of day and before bed. Pulse after a brisk 5 minute walk. The volume of pee that you urinate. If you have access to a way to measure it, your blood pressure. Your resting breathing rate (breaths per minute). Your temperature when you first wake up and before you go to bed (recording exactly, not just 'normal'). You can look up 'vital signs' on the internet to see what is normal for your age.
Can you think of anything about your appearance that may have changed over the last 2 years? More hair or less hair (of course a little less hair is normal for men). Weight change? Is your skin tanned more than it used to be for the season? Has your eyesight changed? Are your eyes or mouth dryer than a couple years ago? Acne or oilier skin?
What happens when you drink caffeine?
Alcohol depresses you (that is pretty normal actually) but how long after having a drink would the sad mood start and how long does it last?
Do the sad moods from eating or drinking things tend to last about the same time or does it vary by days or weeks?
How long after you exercise do you feel sad? How long does that last?
Have you tried fasting for an entire day to see what happens? (some people with acquired sensitivities to wheat etc will start feeling much better if they eat nothing for 24 hrs except water).Ok well that's probably enough for the moment. That should keep you busy.
Oh wait I forgot -- if you are concerned that depression itself could be causing this, if you have doubt: test it. You can get empty gelatin capsules at the pharmacy. In one put something that affects you negatively, reliably, but which does not have a distinctive feeling (like it can't be benadryl or you'd be able to feel it and would know, maybe aspirin?). In another put something that has no sad-effect. Mix them up and take one with some food to make sure you can't taste it. Save the other. It's only a valid test if you don't know which you took. At the end of the next day (or whenever you would have felt sad by) open up the remaining capsule to see which one you took. You will have to repeat this test several times to be sure of the result, because of course there's always the chance you could feel sad on your own.
I don't know if your sadness due to foods etc is quite reliable enough to be tested like that. For me, for example, my symptoms came and went enough that I'm not sure that would have worked.
It would be interesting though.
Take care Richard.
kate
poster:katekite
thread:113254
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020718/msgs/113335.html