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Cherryb, I'm sorry to read of your challenges. You're not alone with the anxiety and auto-immune issues. Is there any way that you can get a second opinion on the scleraderma diagnosis? I only ask this because it took 10 years for me to finally get a succinct diagnosis for my conditions, along with the proper medications to manage them.
I suffered from horrific anxiety for as long as I could remember. The anxiety was the result of all of the dysfunction that I experienced as a child. My mother was alcoholic and drank until I was 13, and my father tried to cope with the dynamics, but he just wasn't equipped - nobody is. As a result, I grew up with a myriad of behavioral and emotional issues. I chose an abuser as my first spouse, and the second spouse was a rescuer that turned out to be a very, very bad man.
After the collapse of the second marriage, I fell into a depression and anxiety spiral that left me nearly agoraphobic - I couldn't leave the place where I was living, and I was quite literally unable to interact with other people, even in the most mundane daily activities, like grocery shopping.
I was prescribed all sorts of medications, including GABA meds, and I ended up taking only the meds that address my auto-immune disorders: Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Psoriatic Arthritis. The auto-immune disorders are far more prevalent in females that have experienced long-term trauma or abuse, just as an aside. So, I accepted that these conditions existed and that I can only manage them, not cure them.
For the emotional / behavioral issues, I entered into intensive counseling therapy with someone that specialized in abuse, PTSD, trauma, and childhood issues. And, I had to practice everything that she taught me, diligently. Today, I'm able to do the things that I've always wanted to do, interact with other people, attend group meetings, activities, and even return to my spiritual practices.
For the sleep, I also was unable to sleep and, if I did, experienced extremely disturbing nightmares. I did a sleep-study and found that I had severe sleep apnea. I was given a CPap machine to help me sleep, and it changed my life. I still had the nightmares, but I didn't have 20 of them in a single night. Eventually, the nightmares dwindled, and I only have symbolic dreams that I can recognize.
One of the main things here, Cherryb, is that you are in control of your own treatment. Some of the treatments are going to have zero results. Others might have positive effects. But, nothing is going to "cure" anyone. It takes time, patience, and diligence to address all of these issues that you're suffering from, and it's "okay" to take your time to learn about everything, get the proper diagnosis and medications, and to learn ways to manage the emotional issues. It's not going to happen in one day, one week, or one month. I'm coming up on the 5th anniversary of the end of my second marriage, which was disturbing and violent (on MY part) at the very end. My CZ blog is titled, "Coping With Betrayal" and I discussed what happened and the steps that I took to recover.
So, try to be kind to yourself, keep the family histories in your mental file folder, but know that you are who you are and you're going to take control of managing these issues as an individual on an individual basis. You have the ability to change the state of anxiety that you experience, and this will have a very positive effect upon your physical health, in turn.
Brightest blessings to you on your journey.
Hello,
I don't know which forum section this topic fits to best. I hope that there are people here which know something about this.
This is about mitochondrial dysfuntion/ mitochondriopathy.
I am concerned that I suffer from this because I have elevated oxidative stress (determined via a blood test) and nitrosative stress (determined via a urine test).
The doctor who ran these tests didn't really know much about nitrosative stress. He more or less simply read to me what the lab results sheet said and then told me to take antioxidants. But I am already taking vitamins and obviously this doesn't prevent the nitrosative stress at all!
I have read about this condition in a few books but these books are basically full of chemistry charts which I don't understand at all.
It's very discouraging.
The books which I have also do not really tell you what to do as a patient when you have mitochondrial dysfunction. In the end you still need to find a doctor who knows this stuff (which is hard enough) and what's even worse is that the diagnosis requires all kinds of laboratory tests which aren't covered by the insurance.
And the vitamins and supplements you need to treat the condtion are also not paid by the insurance.
I heard of people who basically spent a fortune on so called "anti aging" experts which sold them supplements and ran expensive blood tests all the time and they ripped them off their money.
I don't want to go to such a doctor who only wants to run expensive tests and sell me supplements.
I don't know what to do now. This is really dragging me down cause it seems like something which orthodox medicine cannot help you with. I asked my intern about it and showed him the lab report where it says I have nitrosative stress and he told me to ignore it.
But I have many different health conditions and no doctor can help me. I really have a lot of strange things for someone at my age (30). I have been felling okay until around 20 and then it started to go down the hill.
Some stuff I struggle with:
lipomatosis & painful fat tissue
multiple joint pains (rheumatologist found no explanation)
generally feeling weak and fragile
physical weakness (cant even do 1 regular pushup)
visual disorders (visual snow and other things)
blue field entoptic phenomenon (seeing white blood cells, started a few years ago and it's really depressing)
skin eczema
irritability
strong light sensitivity
ADHD-like symptoms
anxiety
eye floaters
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