Since being diagnosed with CFS, I've more or less come to an impasse with the healthcare provider where I live.
It's not that the doctors here don't believe in CFS, they all seem to roundly believe that the ONLY reasonable or acceptable treatment is serotonergic drugs, and graduated exercise therapy, full stop.
I already try as best as I can to be as active as my body permits, sometimes I overdo it, which I try to avoid. If one even so much as broaches the subject of not wanting treatment via these drugs, at least in my experience, I've been met with annoyance and as of my last interaction, unprofessional open hostility.
I was implored by a doctor in 2010 to try cymbalta after a particularly bad episode, which I did. Even though I didn't feel as if the medication merited the symptoms I was experiencing. He made it sound as if it were an iron-clad guarantee that it was going to help me. That was a mistake in my opinion on my behalf.
Instead after some time, it made me feel absolutely horrible, not just mild discomfort, but perpetually and unbearably agitated. Unable to sleep and quick to anger which compounded my feeling awful for taking it as even I consciously knew my agitation and occasional outburst had no rational basis, yet I felt abnormally compelled, and my suspicion was the medicine.
Worse yet, I was told by doctors (where I live) that it was impossible and that I was somehow at fault for not "sticking it out", even though I felt the medication pushed my ability to tolerate merely existing to unpleasant limits.
I was later told by another doctor (who lives elsewhere), that the amount of time I had been taking it was enough to start causing adverse symptoms if I had a predisposition to experience an adverse reaction.
I don't respond especially well to 5-HTP for that matter either, and a similar, yet less severe variation happened when I tried that as well.
I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has benefited from it and those who have not.
It's not that the doctors here don't believe in CFS, they all seem to roundly believe that the ONLY reasonable or acceptable treatment is serotonergic drugs, and graduated exercise therapy, full stop.
I already try as best as I can to be as active as my body permits, sometimes I overdo it, which I try to avoid. If one even so much as broaches the subject of not wanting treatment via these drugs, at least in my experience, I've been met with annoyance and as of my last interaction, unprofessional open hostility.
I was implored by a doctor in 2010 to try cymbalta after a particularly bad episode, which I did. Even though I didn't feel as if the medication merited the symptoms I was experiencing. He made it sound as if it were an iron-clad guarantee that it was going to help me. That was a mistake in my opinion on my behalf.
Instead after some time, it made me feel absolutely horrible, not just mild discomfort, but perpetually and unbearably agitated. Unable to sleep and quick to anger which compounded my feeling awful for taking it as even I consciously knew my agitation and occasional outburst had no rational basis, yet I felt abnormally compelled, and my suspicion was the medicine.
Worse yet, I was told by doctors (where I live) that it was impossible and that I was somehow at fault for not "sticking it out", even though I felt the medication pushed my ability to tolerate merely existing to unpleasant limits.
I was later told by another doctor (who lives elsewhere), that the amount of time I had been taking it was enough to start causing adverse symptoms if I had a predisposition to experience an adverse reaction.
I don't respond especially well to 5-HTP for that matter either, and a similar, yet less severe variation happened when I tried that as well.
I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has benefited from it and those who have not.