• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

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

Firestormm

Senior Member
Messages
5,055
Location
Cornwall England
'Life felt like hell every day' Martine McCutcheon opens up about the seven years she suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome and depression

By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 13:22, 22 September 2013

Former EastEnders actress and Love Actually star Martine McCutcheon has opened up about the seven years of her life she has lost to illness, depression and financial hardship.

The 37-year-old was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome ME some 18 months ago after she was confined to a wheelchair, sank into depression and stayed at home for a month because she did not want to see anyone.

article-0-182965C200000578-998_634x793.jpg


Martine, who sprang to fame aged 18 playing Tiffany Mitchell in the BBC soap opera, told how she collapsed 20 times and piled on weight as medics were baffled by her condition...

...She said that while filming ITV dramas Marple and Echo Beach she started having trouble keeping up with her schedules, nodding off in filming breaks with producers struggling to wake her.

While medics were puzzled about the cause of Martine’s illness, the actress continued to collapse and recounts that she fainted more than 20 times.
She also saw her weight increase by two stone to 11 and a half stone, which she says added to her depression...
Martine adds: ’I want to give hope to ME sufferers, even people who don’t know what they have got. I want them to know that they are not going mad and that they can get better. You can live a normal and good life again.’

 

Dolphin

Senior Member
Messages
17,567
Wish she'd said a bit more about treatment and how she recovered to where she is today.
Not sure I'm too sorry myself. What she thinks worked and what actually worked may not be the same thing esp. if she wasn't managing the illness well previously. Or whatever treatment it was might have helped her depression. The wrong thing being ascribed in the media to helping can be very frustrating.
 

maryb

iherb code TAK122
Messages
3,602
Location
UK
Ah just read somewhere else - she was treated with anti-depressants - oh well sounds like another 'wrong diagnosis'. Maybe gluten intolerance like esther rantzens's daughter - who knows.
 
Messages
15,786
Well, she was passing out or collapsing and such, so I doubt it was depression. But it might have been some form of Orthostatic Intolerance ... some would certainly do better with the reuptake of certain neurotransmitters being inhibited.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
I bet it wasn't actually ME CFS

That is possible, given misdiagnosis rates, but we have little information to go on. The passing out sounds like OI.

It is not clear she is well, or depression caused it. If antidepressants cured her, then she definitely did not have ME. She might still be sick, despite saying that people can get better. She may just be repeating what she was told, which is so often positive sounding but often wrong.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
Daily Mail....
aka "Daily Heil", ghastly paper often attacking/smearing minorities etc, sometimes it gets things right, cause it's such large bunch of articles and journalists (infinite monkeys! :p), but usually it's a horror *barfs!*

this is more of our evil government and it's cronies pushing against disability "Oh you can recover or you are WEAK!"
bullshit ,!,,

depression does, far as I'm concerned, feed back into and worsen M.E.. cause it reacts to any "stress" on the body. reducing ANY form of stressor is good.
but note it's the well off famous who "recover"...

1) misdiagnosis
2) wealth = ability to relax, treat concurrent infections etc
3) sorry but far as I can see, M.E. is rarely fully recovered from, folk relapse, and it is usually a slow worsening over time, what would you expect for any other similar disease, eh?
there will ALWAYs been lucky folk who recover from about anything, but that's reality of sexual reproduction resulting in such huge variation that you never know what may happen, some folk can recover from crazy things, or die from a pat on the back

anyway hope the lady stays well :)
 
Messages
13,774
The headline I saw just said 'depression', and made no mention of CFS.

I do feel increasingly wary of media anecdotes since seeing talk from the BPS lots about trying to promote positive tales from those they've helped recover in the media, but there's also something unpleasant about viewing other individual's health through the lens of CFS politics.
 

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
I bet it wasn't actually ME CFS

Why wasn't it?

She was sick for seven years, finally diagnosed 18 months ago 'after she was
confined to a wheelchair'. She had to eventually turn down jobs (including a 'lucrative' job filming yogurt commercials, (probably 2 or 3 times a year?) -- obviously not a strenuous gig for someone with depression, but certainly for one with ME/CFS, which caused her to lose her income, and lost many friends who 'could not understand why she was turning down work'.

Perhaps even though she says she's well, she isn't fully recovered, and/or could still relapse, but it sounds like ME/CFS to me.
 

Firestormm

Senior Member
Messages
5,055
Location
Cornwall England
I am prepared to give Martine the benefit of the doubt.

Whilst she did go bankrupt, I would imagine she could afford to see some pretty good doctors along the way - although seemingly not quickly enough for a diagnosis: but how many 'ordinary' people with ME does that happen to? That's rhetorical btw.

I do find it very difficult when people are so quick to judge others who are now willing and rather brave to announce they have ME.

It was not so very long ago - as I well remember - when we faced such a stigma that we would have welcomed a celebrity declaring they too had this diagnosis.

I can remember being very reticent about saying I had ME. Indeed it is probably fair to say that I still am reluctant to wear my diagnosis on my sleeve: and for those who know me that's saying something.

Who's to say that any one of us has the self-same biological illness manifesting itself into our very own symptoms? Who's to say that what is wrong with us biologically, will wholly be accounted for by a defined disease, ME?

Even if a biomarker is found - that is deemed sufficient to help diagnosis ME - we may find ourselves once again on the outside looking in: because we - as individuals - do not make the grade.

Personally, with ME being what it is, and with the isolation and despair that comes with it, when at my worst; I struggle with depression and despair - who doesn't?

What Martine describes above - and in the other slightly different articles - rings bells with me. And I even went so far as to attempt to take my own life. And I went bankrupt as a direct result of this bloody curse.

So I really do find it difficult when other people are so quick to judge - especially based on a media narrative that comprises more photograph than content.

I wouldn't like to be on the receiving end of someone telling me that I don't have what I say I have. What right has anyone to do that?
 

rosie26

Senior Member
Messages
2,446
Location
NZ
That was a long time without a diagnosis.

I remember when I fell ill in 2001 I was desperately trying to figure out why I was so frighteningly ill. The exhaustion part of the illness made me wonder if I had ME, but I honestly felt too ill to have ME so I kept pushing ME to the sidelines.

After 10 months everything started pointing to ME and it was confirmed by an ME doctor. I was shocked, as I had never imagined that ME could be this seriously BAD. I felt more like I was in the last weeks of cancer and close to death. This is the problem we have with ME, most well people just don't get how bad it is. I was one of them, before I fell ill.

I am pleased for her that she has recovered. I really hope she has. It would be interesting to hear in detail her symptoms and what treatments she tried.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Diagnosis with ME can take decades, not just years. I keep hoping things are better now, but these last couple of years I have met doctors who have said "ME? What's that?" In the current state of profound medical ignorance for too many doctors, too many patients slip through.

I don't know if M McC has ME, or if she is still sick. I don't know if she is going to claim antidepressants cured her ... for that we may have to wait a day. I do know that its easy to jump to conclusions, particularly when the reporting seems this bad.

There are a lot of issues here, and I think they need some debate, some evidence, and some consideration of the issues. In the mean time if unwarranted claims start popping up on these articles, such as antidepressants cure CFS, or cure ME, or similar, we need to respond.

We also need to be careful to acknowledge we are happy she is doing better, and that depression is serious, and that its good she found help for depression.

What we want is for nobody to confuse treating depression with treating ME.

I am happy she is doing better. I am still unhappy with the state of reporting.
 

Antares in NYC

Senior Member
Messages
582
Location
USA
Diagnosis with ME can take decades, not just years. I keep hoping things are better now, but these last couple of years I have met doctors who have said "ME? What's that?" In the current state of profound medical ignorance for too many doctors, too many patients slip through.
...
That can't be emphasized enough. In my case it took 15 years to get a diagnosis, because of arrogant or lazy doctors, many of them pushing antidepressants like candy. Brain fog, memory issues? Here, have some antidepressants. Extremely fatigued, can't concentrate? You must be depressed, here's another antidepressant... Fifteen years of that crap.

This reminded me of something I read recently (sorry, I don't remember where) that the average ME/CFS sufferer takes years to be diagnosed, and are often misdiagnosed. Even more: over 70% of those affected are not diagnosed! possibly trapped in that cycle of unending doctor visits. There could literally be 6 to 9 million people affected by CFS in the USA, and far from a diagnosis.
 

rosie26

Senior Member
Messages
2,446
Location
NZ
I actually diagnosed myself and went to my GP and asked for a referral to an ME doctor that I had heard of and she confirmed it.
 

Snow Leopard

Hibernating
Messages
5,902
Location
South Australia
Strange that it doesn't mention how she got better. At the same time, about 10% spontaneously remit after being ill for 2-3 years so it is still possible.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Snow Leopard , this is compounded by confusion with PVFS. Post viral fatigue naturally goes away in about 90% of cases within 5 years, and its often confused with CFS, just as CFS is confused with ME. Most people, including most doctors, know lots of patients for whom this happened. So the conclusion is easily reached that most recover, even though they never had ME in the first place. I have been thinking about this a fair bit recently, I think it is a big part of why so many get this so wrong.

From the Dubbo studies we know that only around 10% of PVFS cases go on to develop what looks like CFS. Due to diagnostic limitations, we still don't know how this matches with ME though.