By Gretchen on Tuesday, September 12, 2000 - 11:48 am:

Last year I found that when pain is eased with the help of pain medication I really enjoyed doing lots of things I thought I hated. for the first time in my life I could stand in lines and tollerate crowds.

I still feel uptight before I have to take my children to school and pick them up. Too many other parents around. It takes me two days to decied to goto the grocery store. I have trouble getting up in the morning and am so worried about what has to get done tommrow that I have trouble falling asleep.

In the back of my mind I am always thinking,"will what I am doing make me hurt". I can throw my back out putting gas in the car.

I went to the doctor today and talked to him. He has put me on a medication called Sarafem.

Has anxiety/ depression meds helped anyone else?

By Gwen on Tuesday, September 12, 2000 - 12:14 pm:

I haen't found anti-depressives to be very beneficial except insofar as they take the edge off. I was on Prozac for about four years and found it stopped the wilder manifestations of my depression and enabled me to work but I still wasn't getting much joy out of life.
It is only since my pain level suddenly dropped about April this year that my depression lifted. I have been off Prozac since May and running on all engines. I think so much of my depression was the result of chronic fatigue as a result of broken sleep/poor quality sleep when I did get some.
The body can only cope with so much. It is difficult to fight pain if one isn't getting the time out to rest and heal, still trying to hold down a job, look after children etc. Not to mention constantly being disbelieved by doctors.
There are a couple of articles, I think on Medscape, about the correlation between depression/anxiety and chronic pain. If you are interested and unable to track them, email me and I'll do a search and let you know.

By Beth on Wednesday, September 13, 2000 - 08:20 am:

I am on Prozac right now and I have to agree that it just takes the edge off. I don't know the last time I was truely happy. I am jovial and laugh but I don't FEEL it. Does that make sense?

Hugs Beth

By Gwen on Thursday, September 14, 2000 - 01:43 pm:

Beth, it makes perfect sense. I felt as if I was empty inside. I go through the socially accepted procedures, laugh at the right time, hold down a job and try to be a good mother but none of it really has any meaning for me. It's existence rather than living.If it all suddenly stopped tomorrow I don't know that it would have any great impact on me. I can't say I am clinically depressed but there is no enthusiasm in my life. I exist from day to day rather than having plans and aspirations for my future. If anything, I consider the future with mild apprehension.
After all the years of fighting pain, doctors and government agencies I just feel totally burnt out A shell of my former self. I stopped taking Prozac in May and cessation has made no difference to my mood level. I hope that my pain stays within the sphere of copeable and I get sufficient sleep without resorting to more medication.
I believe the best healing comes from the body itself. All most medications do is mask symptoms but fail to attack the cause of our chronic pain. In other words, it's still there but our brains are prevented from acknowledging it. This may give relief in the short term but eventually must be accounted for be it through depression, muscular tension or decreased effectiveness of analgesics.

By Beth on Friday, September 15, 2000 - 08:34 pm:

I am glad that I am not alone in this. Not that I wish this state on anyone mind you. I just feel more comfort knowing that it must be the cronic pain and dealing with docs. I have wondered if there was any hope. Now I don't. I just exist from day to day and I don't look too far into the future. I am glad for this forum and the list serv as I don't think that my family truely understands what it is like.

Hugs Beth

By lesley on Thursday, November 02, 2000 - 03:05 pm:

Looking back my depression seems to have started about the same time as my physical problems got worse. At the same time there was a lot going on on my life. Nothing has changed since. I have now been referred to the pain clinic and have been asked to send a tape in so they can send me a relaxation tape. All i am going to see is a shrink - another one. Make time to relax set things out it really doesn't matter what else is going on the roof falling in doesn't matter have your cup of coffee at 11.
familiar

By Rebecca on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 06:47 pm:

I was in a car accident just over a year ago and have had a lot of muscle, joint, and nerve pain. For ten months I didn't have one night of restorative sleep. Eventually I got pretty depressed and had high anxiety, as well. I went to see a therapist who offered me a spectrum of drugs starting with Prozac. When nothing from her standard list appealed to me and she realized that I was dead serious about not wanting to take any drugs, she suggested L-5-hydroxy-Trypyophan, also known as 5HTP. This appealed to me because it is a natural amino acid which the body turns into serotonin. She explained that Michael Murray, a nutritional doctor, wrote a book on it, and she heard him speak at a conference. 5HTP generally works to help you sleep better, improve your mood, and elevate your threshold of pain. Within about three weeks of taking 400 mg - 200 mg in morning and 200 mg in evening before bed, - the results were obvious. Although I still had pain, everything else she predicted happened. You can get 5HTP over the counter at most health food stores. The down side is that it is generally not covered by insurance and it is expensive. I wonder though, if you could get your doctor to prescribe it for you through a compounding pharmacy, might your insurance then cover it? Your particular dosage is something that will need to be worked out, probably based on your size and condition. They also recommend that you build up your dosage because it can cause nausea. I tolerated 5HTP quite well from the beginning, but then I was already nauseous as a result of my whiplash injuries. I have been taking 5HTP for over two months now. Yesterday I was diagnosed with hypermobility, a condition that prolongs recovery from a car accident. Months of chronic pain most likely lead to my sensitization syndrome and to neurotransmitter problems -- serotonin is a neurotransmitter. I suspect that many people with hypermobility may develop these conditions and that 5HTP may help them with not only their depression and anxiety, but their pain threshold and their ability to be restored through sleeping more soundly. Oh, one other thing: 5HTP is known to produce vivid dreams, which sometimes turn into nightmares. I need to experiment to determine if the timing of my evening dose, or the presence of food in my belly, or wine with dinner corresponds to if and when I have nightmares. They don't happen all the time and I've been able to live with them because it's the only way I'm able to sleep and can then try to live a normal life in the day time. Good luck, we all need it!