[123crazyornot]

Hi everyone,
I was diagnosed CFS by a Neuro last month. Have since lost my physio who says that I am not in a mental state to be undertakng physio and went to call my GP as I left as she said she wanted to talk to him personally as she wanted to make sure he was aware of the mental health issues. Took me 3 weeks of panic attacks and generally driving myself insane before I made an appt. I saw the GP on Thursday and explained that I was unsure of the CFS diagnosis as I am not fatigued other than lack of sleep and muscle twitching and I don't suffer fatigue or pain after activity probably because I do nothing, granted. Anyway that aside I was concerned more about my mental health as my moods are extremely severe and eratic, I talk to myself most of the time to the point of arguing and bringing myself to tears over the things that are said, I get flights of ideas that have led to major disruption in my life including a bankruptcy 6 years ago. All in all I am a completely different person to who I was 6 years ago. I can recognise traits of "weirdness", from way back and now I seem to be permanently in that place>
My GP "advised" me that, I had seen 6 Pdocs who had yet to provide a diagnosis and 3 therapists who all claimed that they did not have the resources to treat me as it would call for a consultant Pdoc and none was available! Now my GP says that they have all wrote to him stating that I am combative and hard to treat and then looked at me and said "I can see what they are saying as you get very anxious and guarded when I see you!", what the hell!!!! He then said that he wanted to start me on Imapramine (spelling?), as he needed to talk to the Neuro regarding her recomendations for drug treatment as he was unhappy with it. Then he said I would be on them for a month and if I showed no improvement he would refer me to the Neuropsychiatrist,(hospital based), and switch to the Neuro meds providing he had a reply. He implied that the Neuropdoc was the last chance kind of thing because he works only in the hospital and specialises in CFS patients. He sat back with a little smirk on his face and told me I was repeating myself and that it was only a 10 min appt!

I feel completely discarded. I am totally bewildered as to what to think! I know in my heart there is something other than CFS happening and I'm not imagining it. Am i right to feel this confused, should I not just be grateful that after 5 horendous years, I finally have an actual diagnosis?
I truly think the Neuro was wrong and feel I should have been given an MRI to exclude lessions but I didn't say because I felt invalidated during the appt and I can't bring it up with GP as he is already exasperated with me. On top of that I got my ESA renewal to fill out and went into panic mode about that. I "feel", I am Bipolar but I'm now afraid to say anything because of the reactions I have been getting from the various medics. I know only a Pdoc can diagnose this and wonder how this could be achieved as they say I am untreatable and never listen anyway WTF!!!!!!

I can't accept this and can't seem to get them to listen! What do I do now?
Any ideas?
Thanks 123

[BlackPup]

Sounds like things are complicated by lots of factors.
A diagnosis is great for peace of mind - as hard as it can be to accept it is nice to be able to put a name to it. Nice - but not necessary, you can try symptomatic treatment, and that might help work out whats wrong. Rather than trying to get a diagnosis, maybe you can try to get something that will help you. If sleep and muscle twitching are worrying you, then can you get some meds to help that?
It can take a long time to get an accurate diagnosis, esp with things as complicated as your situation sounds. Try to be patient with the doctors, they are human - they make mistakes, but a lot of them are good at what they do. If they all say the same thing, do you think it might be true????

It also might be a good idea to see a T about how your thought are affecting your health, and to see if they can give you techniques to deal with your racing thoughs and conversations.

Sorry if this is harsh, it's just my opinion, I too am human and make mistakes
All the best for getting the treatment you need and working out what is wrong.

[pegasus]

(((((((( crazyornot ))))))))

Getting a diagnosis is good but accepting the diagnosis is much harder. Your neuro doc has had a heap load of training in what he does and wouldn't have diagnosed you with CFS unless he was certain. Bipolar is easy to diagnose also so one of your doc's would have picked up on that. I will say though that anxiety and depression are often associated with CFS and it's highly possible this is the case with you. It would be good for you to do some research on your CFS diagnosis, google it and learn as much as you can about it.

[lonegael]

CFS doesn't necessarily rule out the bipolar either, but it does mean that there are other things that need taking care of. When i worked at the pain rehab, we had people who suffered from bipolar among other things with problems like bipolar and CFS. In fact, sometimes things like Bipolar in the background can make you more sensitive to conditions like CFS, or life experiences like trauma or prolonged stress can contibute to both. Same with Fibromyalgia and other problems that concern pain and pain perception and mood disorders.

People are complicated. Very few of us only have one type of problem, and very few of our problems don't affect our other problems. That us seems to be the way we work. I hope that they can figure out how to best untangle the particular skeing of thread that has you so frustrated right now. Yep, docs aren't always the most socially gifted bunch of folks, sad to say. Life would be so much easier if they were. HUGGGGSSSSSSS!