Things have been been going up and down and round and round recently. While things did improve once coming off the Sertraline and starting the Cymbalta for my OCD/Emetophobia, it hasn't improved all that much.
I'm still stupidly tired all the time, with pain most days of variable degrees but what have gotten a lot worse over the last 6 months is the light-headedness/dizzyness when upright, the breathless when moving and heart and chest pains. The doctor I saw at the M.E clinic back in Janurary said that I obviously had some form of Orthastic Tacycardia and wrote to my GP to get him to do some tests to discover what sort.
Last week I had an Active Stand Test at my surgery with one of the nurses. I was having a pretty bad time of it anyway and the test itself wasn't that great. From my reading I knew that during the test I was supposed to lie down flat for 10 minutes before standing very, very still for 10 minutes while my blood pressure and heart rate was taken at 2, 5 and 10 minutes. I don't think the nurse knew this. I only lay down for a few minutes, which wasn't long enough really for my heart to calm down from the walk from the waiting room to the office and then when I stood up, she took my heart rate and blood pressure straight away and then said, 'well it's not changed that much.'
I said to her that it was supposed to be taken repeatedly over the next 10 minutes, to which the nurse responded 'we can do that if you want to.'
If I'm honest I was not very impressed.
However, as I stood for the next few minutes and I started to feel worse and worse- clammy, dizzy and a little sicky- my heart rate went up and up. I had to call an end to the test half way through because I felt like I was going to pass out. I ended up spending the nest five minutes sat with my head between my legs (I know lying down is best- but I just can't lie down on the doctors floor!) until I felt a bit better.

My doctor called me this morning with the results of the test- congratulations it's POTS. Yet another chronic illness to add to my list. Ha! He is referring me to the cardiologists at the local hospital for treatment and management and in the meantime I am to drink water like I'm dying of thirst and he has prescribed me some compression stockings- which I am sure will be unbelievably sexy but hopefully will help with the standing up. I also recently bought a rollator, a walker on wheels with a seat so that when the fatigue allows I might be able to spend more time out of the house and able to shop and queue!

That is the plan anyway!

I am still waiting to hear back from Hellesdon after that assessment I had in January. I've called twice and been told that they would get back to me. Maybe they are thinking I will grow bored and suddenly 'TA-DA' I will be cured and better. But after having severe OCD/Emet for the last 7-8 years now I don't think that's going to happen.

It has been a long time since my last post, I have been having some bad ups and downs and health issues recently.

The main one is probably the switch in meds for my emetophobia and OCD. I'm on my third month with Sertraline and my third increase in dose- I'm now on 150mg a day and we are currently waiting to see if this is the golden dose. I'm hoping it is as 200mg a day is the maximum dose. My anxiety in the last few months has been awful- really, really high most of the time and then when something bad happens it seems to get impossibly higher still. My doctor is hopeful that this will be the dose and I'll start to feel some effect in a week or two. If nothing by the end of the box then we'll increase once more and hope that works or I'll have to start this all over again with another type of anti-depressant.

I've also been struggling with my M.E this last month or so, and struggling with my activities. I still can't get it into my head that everything is now classed as an activity and not just things like going out or cooking a big meal. Things like going to the bathroom, washing my hair and getting dressed are all activities too- as are nice things like knitting or watching TV. This seems to be an almost impossible task to comprehend and I hope that it suddenly sinks in one day. But I am trying to do more around the house- I got too scared to do anything extra really in case it made her more unwell. But in the last week or so I've been trying to do a bit around the house or to do something for someone else- even as its as small as making my mum a cup of tea. Mum's noticed I've seemed a bit brighter since doing that.

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This is how far I got writing this post back in November. It's now February. Sertraline is evil, that is a now a known fact. I got up to 200mg of it a day and all it did or me is make the chronic fatigue so bad that a lot of days all I managed to do is make some breakfast and go to the toilet. I went way too long between being able to wash myself and my hair and doing things like cooking dinner. I didn't leave the house for a month Dec-Jan. I went to my dads for a few hours on Boxing day and then didn't leave the house at all again until my first appointment with the ME clinic on the 26th Jan. I'm now off Sertraline completely and have started a new SNRI Cymbalta instead. This one is supposed to be really good for treatment resistant OCD as well as reducing pain an fatigue in people with ME/CFS and fibro so it's worth a try anyway.

I'll talk more about my first appointment with the ME/CFS clinic at a later date. And I had YET ANOTHER assessment at Hellesdon last week to try and get some treatment for my OCD and emet- I came away from that assessment very unsure how it all went. It was a lot of form filling-in and tick boxes and I'm not feeling very hopeful this time around.