Martine McCutcheon opens up about the seven years she suffered from cfs and depression

[Snow Leopard]

Not all anti-depressants are the same and some are more effective than others in CFS patients when it comes to depression.

SSRIs have been tested in CFS in double blinded trials and have not only found to be ineffective for CFS symptoms, they have also been found to be ineffective for depression in the same set of patients.

It is also interesting that a number of studies (independently replicated over 3 times) have found elevated, rather than reduced serotonic pathway activity and this was actually hypothesised as being a potential neuro-psychological cause for the fatigue in patients.

MAOIs on the other hand have shown improvements in depression and vitality in CFS patients, with similar rates of side effects to other antidepressants.

 

[Mij]

Bob, "I haven't read through all the comments on her Facebook page, but she's drawn such a big crowd of followers, that I can see her becoming an advocate or 'ambassador' for ME patients, as she gets to know the ME community"

Be careful what you wish for. Whether she has ME or not, someone who is expressing that she has been helped "massively' by anti-depressants is not a good candidate for ME advocacy.

 

[anniekim]

While I certainly understand the valid arguments against anti-depressants (esp in this context as they're so often claimed to be the reason for the ME/CFS) -- they always made me much, much worse when my bosses insisted I go to a REAL doctor back in 2000 -- at the same time, it's definitely possible that someone with severe ME/CFS can become severely depressed (as did the late Thomas Hennessy), so to separate the two in that regard seems rather odd to me.

Depression, including very serious depression can be a part of almost every severe illness, including ME/CFS, but that doesn't mean it's the cause of the illness, just perhaps one of the end results of having it long-term.

I suppose I see it that the problem lies when people makes statements like MM made that depression is part of ME which makes it sound like it's always part of ME which is not always the case. Blanket assertions are not helpful and do need to be qualified. I would prefer it being pointed out that as with any chronic life changing illness depression can arise and does need to be addressed but it's not going to necessarily happen to every patient - and with the confusion over ME already still high, I think statements need to be carefully worded to not add to the misrepresentation and confusion on what ME is.

I was reading some info on MS on a MS website the other day and it said depression can happen to up to 50% of MS sufferers at some point which is different to saying 'depression is part of MS'

 

[anniekim]

It certainly has a better prognosis early on, but long-term follow ups seem to indicate long-term problems too.

Thanks Esther for sharing this info

 

[Bob]

Be careful what you wish for. Whether she has ME or not, someone who is expressing that she has been helped "massively' by anti-depressants is not a good candidate for ME advocacy.

I didn't wish for anything. But I take your point.

Also, as far as I've seen, Martine has not claimed that her ME was helped by anti-depressants. She simply said that anti-depressants helped her personally, which isn't surprising, considering that she was suffering from severe depression.

As far as I can see, Martine has been very careful to distinguish between the ME and the depression, and has made it clear that she had two separate things going on. I think she's been very careful with her wording, while sharing her personal story. It is only the media that has conflated her ME with her depression. (She's been a lot more thoughtful about it than Esther Rantzen, for example, who went around heavily promoting LP after her daughter allegedly found it so helpful. Her daughter was later found to have ceoliac disease.)

It seems to me that Martine could have done with a lot more information about ME when she became ill. I was in the same situation when I got ill. (The internet was in its infancy ten years ago.) The first meaningful information that I ever came across was when I watch an early Invest in ME conference DVD. I hope that, now Martine has gone public about her illness, she might find out a lot more about ME, from our community. I'm not surprised that she experienced depression, and I'm not surprised that she received loads of dud information about ME.

 

[Mij]

Agree. The problem is the media spin and since she gained weight I'm afraid the next headline will be about her new exercise routine since many are obsessed with celebrity and weight loss.

I guess I'm hoping for the best but anticipating the worst.

 

[Wildcat]

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Martine McCutcheon @martineofficial 8h

22nd September 2013
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"Thanks 4 all the support re my piece in The Sun today. Part 2 tomor. M.E and depression is hard but I am on top of it and u can be too! X"

https://twitter.com/martineofficial

 

[Wildcat]

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Martine McClutcheon is here promoting her relaunched music career - AT The Same Time As Her many multiple Media Stories about Her Mental Health Problems "and ME"...
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.Which got a Hell of a lot of More Attention due to her dozens of "I've recovered from Depression and ME" Media Stories



23rd September 2013

OK Magazine - - First for Celebrity News
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'MARTINE MCCUTCHEON is planning to relaunch her music career after an absence of more than 10 years.
The Love Actually star turned to music in the late 1990s and scored a huge hit with her 1999 single Perfect Moment, and she went on to release three albums.

She has not released any new music since 2002, and her career has petered out in recent years as she secretly battled depression and chronic fatigue syndrome.

McCutcheon, who was declared bankrupt in February (13), has now confirmed she is putting her health troubles behind her and relaunching herself as a singer.

She is back in the studio working with her musician husband Jack McManus, and hopes to release a new album later this year (13), telling The Sun, "Despite everything, I have a really exciting future ahead of me. I had a chance to miss it, when I was lying there (sick) thinking, 'I would love to sing or write a song again'... Jack has been writing some amazing songs for me. There have been a hell of a lot of things to write about.

A big comeback concert is being organised this year... I want to get up there and sing again... I feel like I am starting a whole new novel of my life."

http://www.ok.co.uk/celebrity-news/view/68618/Martine-McCutcheon-planning-pop-comeback/

 

[alex3619]

So, wait and see. Never trust the media accounts though. They get these things wrong so very often. Her facebook page is a better source.

 

[Wildcat]

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Mij Wrote: . "Agree. The problem is the media spin and since she gained weight I'm afraid the next headline will be about her new exercise routine since many are obsessed with celebrity and weight loss. "

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Well spotted, Mij !!!

- about the likelyhood of the UK Newspapers or Celebrity Magazines making Headlines about "Martine McCutcheon and her new "Slimming Exersise/Workout Routine" !


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In fact Martine attempted that last year, despite being ill, in the Daily Mail, 25th November 2011:

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“Curvier Martine McCutcheon urged to pile on MORE pounds as the weightloss deals roll in”

“She showed off her fuller figure in all its glory at a showbiz bash last week, and now we know what's putting a smile on Martine McCutcheon's face as she embraces her bigger size.
Though it may not have been the way she chose to raise her profile after a number of lean years, the resulting publicity has seen her catapulted firmly back into the limelight.

And now the former EastEnders star looks set to make thousands of pounds as offers flood in for her to lose weight by releasing a new fitness DVD.

Martine is set to marry her longtime boyfriend, singer Jack McManus, next year and it is thought she will bring out a workout DVD ahead of the nuptials to show off her dramatic transformation before the big day.”…...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...ile-MORE-pounds-weightloss-deals-roll-in.html



"

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[Bob]

I hope that Martine knows that she should pace herself carefully, even if feeling much better.

 

[Wildcat]

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Martine McClutcheon cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as a 'Media Ingenue'.



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Martine has decades experience of how the British Newspapers operate. And is known for using them to her advantage in career promotion, glamorising her image, and to advance her 'celebrity endorsements' of products.
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.Martine goes to lengths to keep in the newspapers and celebrity magazines.
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The example in my post above is just one of the many news stories in 2011 claiming that Martine deliberately put on weight in order to lose it more dramatically in time for her wedding in 2012, trying to get a contract to make a workout exercise DVD for the Bridal Slimming market.

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Celebrities make compromises with the press in order to keep in the limelight – a story that doesn’t come across too well, followed by a glowing praise story, for example - in return for regular media coverage.

PR agencies organise this stuff. This piece of writing is another career promotion story, but NO mention of having ME.

“Curvier Martine McCutcheon urged to pile on MORE pounds as the weightloss deals roll in”


. Many of the Express, Mail, Sun, OK Magazine, and other regular media stories on Martines life, loves, high profile celebrity function appearances, are identical in their writing style, phraseology and structure, despite being in different publications and written by different journalists.
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That does indicate to anyone who analyses writing that these articles are PR Agent- written and directed - rather than a case of the naughty journalists misrepresenting Martine's statements.
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Memories are short - last year it was a number of articles in the Brit media, regarding a possible deal for Martine to make another Workout/exersise/and/or Bridal Weightloss video planned for 2012.

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[alex3619]

Wildcat , I do not doubt there are PR people involved. However under modern churnalism (I wrote a blog on this) articles are essentially cut and pasted from a source article to others, though that source article can be a press release from PR people. All they do is change a few things to put their mark on it. That's modern journalism in a nutshell - real investigative journalism is dying. They have half the time and half the budget with half the staff and half the editorial oversight compared to yesteryear.

On the one hand everyone copies the PR release, on the other hand everyone copies the other articles.

 

[Wildcat]

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Please don't think that I have any gripe against Martine as an actress/singer/performer.

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Its not her performances that I have a problem with - but her very numerous, recent relentlessly ambiguous, and misleading, Media statements about ME - in which she has conflated and very seriously confused ME with primary depression, and claimed that a cause of her illness was childhood abuse, and that she recovered, and so we can as well - its called 'giving hope'.
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Personally, I think that Martine McClutcheon's performance in Eastenders (as Tiffany) was great. I am not myself an Eastender's fan, but, hell, its a Brit Soap Classic!

And it is a shame that her pop career did not continue, and that maybe better song material would have really helped.
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And also its a damn great shame that she was not able to continue her award winning role as Eliza Doolittle onstage in the early 2000's. Hell, Martine won the Laurence Olivier Award for her performance! Bloody good for her!

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THE most tragic thing about Martine's VERY numerous Media statements in her Very Many Media articles of the last two days is .........

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That some Brit ME sufferers will now have to deal with friends/relations who say that - The Papers say that Martine McClutcheon 'recovered' from Depression/ME with Antidepressants - so why don't you try them - because people with ME can recover - as Martine has proved!!!! .

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.In my view - - its those ME patients who deserve our Compassion!

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[Wildcat]

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As I previously Stated , Alex,
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"Martine McClutcheon cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as a 'Media Ingenue"




. I do hope that you will appreciate that us in Britain have been aware of the continuous mainstream tabloid/celebrity media articles about Martine McClutcheon for Decades,



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[Wildcat]

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Whereas I have every sympathy with normal ME sufferers who do press interviews with good intention and good statements - only to find that the journalist/editor has written a totally different story - a story that frequently appalls the innocent ME person interviewee, who may well be mortified by the resulting media 'story'


I do think that I have made it clear enough that Martine McClutcheon is Most Definitely Not an Innocent when it comes to the British Papers and their intentions.


..Really - what is known as a Google Search. a few minutes, will reveal a decades long history of clearly manipulated and advantageous celebrity media reporting on just about every aspect of Martine's Life/Loves/Clothes/Hair/Tastes/Parties/Lavish Spending/Glamorous Photo Opportunities/Celebrity Endorsements/ Etc.

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[Wildcat]

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Wow! Celebrity Culture Seems to have Taken Such a Hold that a number of Totally Rubbish statements in the British Media by a Brit Celebrity, which Conflate a WHO Neuro Immune WHO Classified Disease (ME) with Childhood Abuse, Depression and Burnout, seems to have gained so much uncritical Fandom....

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Who cares about the isolated housebound ME patients, whose friends/relations read the British Papers, and whose freinds/relations now believe that ME can be recovered from with Antidepressants?

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Not to mention the many desperate ME sufferers who are asking Martine How she recovered - ie - what did she do to recover?

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[Wildcat]

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By the way - I do not disparage the necessary use of Antidepressants for ME sufferers who become (not surprisingly with what we have to face) actually depressed. In addition, some ME people use antidepressants to help sleep/pain.
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But suggesting that Antidepressants is the treatment for ME per se is very harmful.

Round about 1992 -2000 certain UK Professors of Psychiatry claimed that SSRI's should be prescribed for ME sufferers "with or without depression" . Numerous ME patients had horrific side effects from the SSRI's and there are records that some were sectioned for the very extreme side effects of the SSRI's.

I believe that some US ME specialists have stated that SSRI's should not be used for ME patients who are depressed, rather, other antidepressants should be prescribed.

..

 

[Wildcat]

Martine's ultimate media stament of the last few days was:

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" M.E and depression is hard but I am on top of it and u can be too! X"
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Does anyone here think that is realistic?

 

[Bob]

Its not her performances that I have a problem with - but her very numerous, recent relentlessly ambiguous, and misleading, Media statements about ME - in which she has conflated and very seriously confused ME with primary depression, and claimed that a cause of her illness was childhood abuse, and that she recovered, and so we can as well - its called 'giving hope'.

As far as I understand, she only did a single interview with the Sun (behind a paywall), for which she would have been paid, and then my guess is that all the other articles stole info from that interview, and made up their own articles.

You have accused Martine of conflating ME with depression, but she hasn't done that, as far as I've seen. It's the media who have done that. If you read her actual quotes, and ignore the context into which the newspapers have misleadingly placed those quotes, then you can start to disentangle what she has actually said, from what the papers wanted her to have said, and the narrative that the papers have invented.

She hasn't said that she has completely recovered: "But now well on the road to recovery..."

And unless you've read the original interview, you cannot judge what she's said about her abusive father from the info that is publicly available, e.g. "The 37-year-old blames her depression on her abusive father and career burnout in her twenties, in an interview with The Sun." So, here, she doesn't blame the ME on her father.

We've got to be careful about blaming Martine for stuff that she hasn't actually said.