Help a hypochondriac?

[lavendermew]

That's hyperbole...mostly. But anyway.

I've come across a bit of a problem and because I have anxiety issues, I'm twisting myself in knots over what could be going on. I'm hoping it's nothing, but I'd like...idk, reassurance, possible causes, whatever you have to offer. Thank you in advance.

The player:
female, early twenties, petite (<120 lbs).

The setting:
At her home, either very late at night or very early in the morning.

The symptoms:
Stomach cramps (mild), nausea (mild/moderate), dehydration, urinary retention (mild/moderate), muscle aches (general/widespread, moderate), fever (low-grade), insomnia (moderate-severe), GI tract unhappiness (moderate), post-nasal drip, eyes sore/burning (not literally, but you know when you have a fever and your eyes do that thing, yeah?), runny nose (mild).

Sounds like a cold, maybe, but the thing is the player in question played a bit fast and loose with substances over the past couple of days.

In the past 24 hours:
-slept 1 hour, dozed semi-consciously for another 2
-took a total of 100 mg diphenhydramine (spaced out)
-took 1 mg of clonazepam (spaced out)
-had appx 5 cups of coffee (usually has 1 or 2)
-had about 7 shots of tequila (spaced out)
-SSNRI as prescribed

In the past 48 hours, that increases to:

-20mg ritalin
-whatever amount plus 7 shots or so equals 2/3 a bottle of tequila (I can't math, sorry)
-3ish mg clonazepam
-SSNRI as prescribed

Also bought a pack of cigarettes for the first time in a month and a half (boo) and has smoked 4 over the past 48 hours.

-The SSNRI causes some urinary retention as a side effect.
-The environment is highly allergenic.
-The player has both Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and fibromyalgia, and has been in a CFS flare for the past week or so.

All explainable, probably? But I'm exhausted and freaking out and I can't fall asleep and I have intrusive thoughts winding my brain up like a spring about to snap, and I could use a dose of rationality. (Please don't condescend--I know I'm probably worrying over nothing, but that objective knowledge from within doesn't make the intrusive thoughts go away.)

Thank you, bluelighters.

 

[T. Calderone]

What drugs do you normally take every day besides the SSNRI? I think drinking all that tequila isn't helping your flare-ups and alcohol itself is known to cause many of the symptoms you mentioned. My suggestion is drink plenty of water to re-hydrate and be careful not to combine pills with liquor because that will only make your symptoms worse. With your health conditions, you have to be careful not to over-do it! Take care.

Moving to Healthy Living

 

[lavendermew]

Thank you for moving this for me.

0.25mg clonazepam daily. Prescribed nortriptyline, but too concerned about the risk of serotonin syndrome with the SSNRI to take it. I know, I know, medical noncompliance, but doctors can be idiots.

Mostly just trying to make it until tomorrow. Have been in a major depressive episode as well and am having extreme difficulty coping. Usually, marijuana is best in terms of mood+pain relief+sleep aid+interactions with other meds, but getting access to it can be tricky. :/

 

[GrymReefer]

Its complicated to address psychosomatic symptoms especially if one already perceives the problem as something more than they are. Also, even though doctors can be blunt with their statements and you are in fact the most in tune with your biological system...being insubordinate does not alleviate any problems in the situation and may only exacerbate issues.

The mind is a powerful object and thinking there may be something wrong that is more complicated than what is truly there could fester itself into a whole new issue. Its almost like a placebo effect except the ending result is more issues that stem from a perceived over complication of reality itself. Don't think you aren't the only one that does this. Imagine how many read those cliché health magazines and immediately find themselves feeling the symptoms that are being described within the text they read. Once you are able to address that this is indeed your own mind leading to these issues you are able to make yourself feel better.

 

[Perpetual Indulgence]

therapy

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

therapy

This.

Talking to a doctor will also help you. Be honest about any drugs you use/take, what's happening, and what your concerns are.

 

[lavendermew]

I'm in therapy, actually! My therapist is brilliant, kind, empathetic, and on my side about everything, including my substance use.

I have a close friend who actually apparently has the same GP I do, and they're also considering switching because they feel like our GP doesn't listen well. It's not just me.

As for my pain being "psychosomatic", and my needing to just "accept that it's all in my head", well.

Pain conditions are a particularly good example of the interplay between sex (our biological and chromosomal differences) and gender (the cultural roles and expectations attributed to a person). In 2011, the Institute of Medicine published a report on the public health impact of chronic pain, called “Relieving Pain in America.” It found that not only did women appear to suffer more from pain, but that women’s reports of pain were more likely to be dismissed.

This is a serious problem, because pain is subjective and self-reported, and diagnosis and treatment depend on the assumption that the person reporting symptoms is beyond doubt.

The oft-cited study “The Girl Who Cried Pain: A Bias Against Women in the Treatment of Pain” found that women were less likely to receive aggressive treatment when diagnosed, and were more likely to have their pain characterized as “emotional,” “psychogenic” and therefore “not real.”

Instead of appropriate care for physical pain, this can lead to treatment for mental health issues that might not even exist. The situation is further complicated by the fact that antidepressants are absorbed differently in women and vary in effectiveness, depending on hormonal cycles.

Conditions like fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, for which definitive causes have not been identified and concrete diagnostic tests are not available, illustrate the problems associated with the perceived reliability of the female patient as narrator of her pain. Women are more likely to receive diagnoses of many of these more nebulous conditions — fibromyalgia, which affects about six million patients in the United States, is nine times more likely to be diagnosed in women than in men — and this discrepancy surely contributes to the widespread skepticism that still exists over the legitimacy of these disorders.

From the article Women and the Treatment of Pain in the New York Times.

 

[GrymReefer]

Hopefully I didn't come off rude! Sorry if you felt I was accusing you of over-exaggerating symptoms....the title did say, "Help a Hypochondriac" and hypochondriasis is the falsified notion that something is terribly wrong, but its inevitably undiagnosed... I'm not saying that all doctors are perfect, but if you tell everything to your specialist then they have more accurate variables to work from.

That was actually a pretty interesting read and I was completely clueless about these situations.

Has she had a full hormone panel done recently? The female's endocrine system and the complexity to some of the feedback loops can make situations like this pretty confusing. Couple that with a chemical imbalance in the brain and you are really adding a significant amount of variables into a situation. Even a simple dysfunction in estrogen/progesterone ratio can cause some pretty undesirable issues. The current issue as of now with her symptoms could be increasing stress, which in turns spikes the adrenal glands secretion (cortisol is just one to mention) Cortisol also causes an overstimulation of the thyroid gland leading to depletion (estrogen/progesterone imbalance can cause overstimulation as well) This complicated system can be completely knocked out of balance because of a single glitch within one section.

Females generally have a higher predisposition to oesteoporosis and continually being bombarded by cortisol during times of illness eventually begin to disrupt the body's natural feedback loop. Low estrogen also brings about the possibility as well. People underestimate the magnitude on any sort of drug on the body and even some dibbling and dabbling could exacerbate a previously undenounced problem. You just need to make sure you share every little detail with the doctor. Hell overemphasize the details just to be certain he understands it.

Just trying to highlight the situation in that there is so many variables to this current issue that it would be just a wild guess without at least seeing some numbers on blood tests.

Good luck!

P.S 5 cups of coffee and 7 shots of liquor within a 24 hr period coupled with 100mg of dyphenhydramine? I'd definitely check out some meditation techniques. Physicians generally recommend avoiding alcohol while taking any SSNRI due to the possibility of increasing the toxicity related to the anti-depressant and altering its effectiveness in treatment.

 

[Cliffy78]

Sounds a lot like opiate wd Hun, what drugs were u taking those past few days?

 

[GrymReefer]

Wait, I just reread through this again... You were prescribed by your doctor a TCA and an SSNRI, but you only take one of them? SSNRI was probably intended to be used in concurrence with your TCA. This allows a synergistic effect and increases the activity relating to nortryptline's pharmacokinetics. You believe that the combination of two different classes of anti-depressants would put you in danger of having Serotonin Syndrome? Yet you admittedly consume alcohol when its generally not recommended and you mentioned....

Sounds like a cold, maybe, but the thing is the player in question played a bit fast and loose with substances over the past couple of days.

I hope everything works out for you soon and you get over this little hump in the road. This is a harm reduction blog so its hard to help out when you are blatantly flirting with chaos.