Tomorrow I complete week 40. At week 37, I raised my dose of Citalopram 10mg up to 20mg. It instantly helped with the unbelievable fatigue I started getting more of, and since raising the dose, it instantly gave me more energy; I'm no longer finding myself putting myself into this posture where I hang my head backwards, and rub my neck, and sigh a lot, and feel like falling asleep, and need to drink loads of Coca Cola (with caffeine). It's not that I was depressed so much as I was so crashingly fatigued, although I do think the two seem related, but I'm a very happy bunny at the moment.
Dont want to frighten people who are considering doing treatment; rather the opposite actually, as I have been meaning to list all my treatment side effects, but I'm one of those people who had most of the side effects which my nurse warned me about, plus other side effects which she didnt even know about. (which I'll list in a separate posting), but I can never quite tell if I'm having a tx side effect or a condition symptom.
The complicated thing about this whole thing is that I had "side effects" long BEFORE my treatment started, like 5 years before, which although the fatigue side effect started in June 06, if I think about my life for a couple of years before that, there were symptoms which were nothing I would have associated being anything to do with HepC, like anxiety, high blood pressure, panic attacks, depression, dizziness, burning feet, eyesight deteriorating, (which I now since read are commonplace in people with HepC)....when the crashing fatigue started around June 06, I went to the GP really concerned that something was very wrong .....The GP did some blood tests. I was convinced they'd come back showing I'd been poisoned. I was dizzy, hungover, puffy eyed, (mind you, I was drinking almost a bottle of wine every night, and had done so for the previous 5 years), and it didnt occur to me that alcohol could be a cause for my condition, because even after my last drink on 28 December 06, I didnt feel any better a week later, or 2 weeks or 3 weeks later or 8 weeks later !!!! (I was a bit annoyed I'd stopped drinking, but that was over 11 months ago...not a sip of wine has passed my lips since, I'm so proud to say)
When finally treatment was to start in March 07, (because my GP decided that my already diagnosed but untreated HepC was the likely (but not conclusive) reason for my symptoms) there was no promise from the HepC nurse that these symptoms would improve with the illimination of the virus....quite the contrary the HepC nurse warned me; I would feel far more tired on treatment, and could even find myself feeling depressed and more anxious......Wonderful !!! She was right.
Dont want to frighten people who are considering doing treatment; rather the opposite actually, as I have been meaning to list all my treatment side effects, but I'm one of those people who had most of the side effects which my nurse warned me about, plus other side effects which she didnt even know about. (which I'll list in a separate posting), but I can never quite tell if I'm having a tx side effect or a condition symptom.
The complicated thing about this whole thing is that I had "side effects" long BEFORE my treatment started, like 5 years before, which although the fatigue side effect started in June 06, if I think about my life for a couple of years before that, there were symptoms which were nothing I would have associated being anything to do with HepC, like anxiety, high blood pressure, panic attacks, depression, dizziness, burning feet, eyesight deteriorating, (which I now since read are commonplace in people with HepC)....when the crashing fatigue started around June 06, I went to the GP really concerned that something was very wrong .....The GP did some blood tests. I was convinced they'd come back showing I'd been poisoned. I was dizzy, hungover, puffy eyed, (mind you, I was drinking almost a bottle of wine every night, and had done so for the previous 5 years), and it didnt occur to me that alcohol could be a cause for my condition, because even after my last drink on 28 December 06, I didnt feel any better a week later, or 2 weeks or 3 weeks later or 8 weeks later !!!! (I was a bit annoyed I'd stopped drinking, but that was over 11 months ago...not a sip of wine has passed my lips since, I'm so proud to say)
When finally treatment was to start in March 07, (because my GP decided that my already diagnosed but untreated HepC was the likely (but not conclusive) reason for my symptoms) there was no promise from the HepC nurse that these symptoms would improve with the illimination of the virus....quite the contrary the HepC nurse warned me; I would feel far more tired on treatment, and could even find myself feeling depressed and more anxious......Wonderful !!! She was right.
Some of the known side effects of Interferon / Ribavirin treatment matched precisely those symptoms I was already having anyway - the mild flu, the anxiety, the migrainous headaches, the head fog, and I anticipated this would be a struggle identifying what symptoms would be due to what - the treatment, the virus, the liver, my brain, my alcohol withdrawal, or even something else altogether which the GP couldnt find the cause of, and which I insisted the GP continues to investigate, presently undergoing tests at the Adult Audiology department at the ENT Hospital, Kings X.
The whole virus thing could be one big red herring. When I stopped drinking (I decided it was about time anyway!) I did feel worse for a while, but the dizziness, and fatigue and anxiety and grogginess particularly in the morning on waking, are my main symptoms, and they havent subsided at all...there are many others, but I'll list them in a different posting.
So, for now, it's first things first. I'm kind of giving way to treatment and giving up trying to work out what has caused my various physical and mental states, which chop and change with the wind, and for the time being, whilst I'm making a very arduous attempt at trying to suss it all out, ( I probably never will) I am hoping that by illiminating the Hep C Virus, quite literally, I will have hopefully illiminated one of the possible causes of the multigamut of symptoms I have. And in doing so, I just might save my liver in the process........
The whole virus thing could be one big red herring. When I stopped drinking (I decided it was about time anyway!) I did feel worse for a while, but the dizziness, and fatigue and anxiety and grogginess particularly in the morning on waking, are my main symptoms, and they havent subsided at all...there are many others, but I'll list them in a different posting.
So, for now, it's first things first. I'm kind of giving way to treatment and giving up trying to work out what has caused my various physical and mental states, which chop and change with the wind, and for the time being, whilst I'm making a very arduous attempt at trying to suss it all out, ( I probably never will) I am hoping that by illiminating the Hep C Virus, quite literally, I will have hopefully illiminated one of the possible causes of the multigamut of symptoms I have. And in doing so, I just might save my liver in the process........
1 comment:
Glad to see you updated. if you were unwell before starting tx then you would expect to feel ill on tx too. nothing to be gained trying to label your ailments at the moment - too much going on in your body at the moment. Wait to see how you feel after detox. It will be easier to work out whats happening (if anything) then.
You are so nearly there you lucky sod.
starbuxecdkiz
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