toburnt said...
I do believe there is a way for Quality Healthcare to be a right for all. -one day
We still have that in the UK - for now. But the Tories are doing their best to dismantle the NHS whilst lying through their back teeth that it's safe in their hands.
I've got Crohn's as well. Replied in your thread on the Crohn's board. Re what you said about
a Crohn's specialist not needing surgery - was it a GI or surgeon who said that? In my experience, GIs are considerably more reluctant to consider surgery than surgeons. None of my GIs brought up surgery with me. Eventually, my patience snapped one day and I told my GI I'd had enough of this, I wanted surgery. He looked very serious at that point, and told me exactly what would be involved (a colectomy with ileostomy) but agreed to refer me to a colorectal surgeon.
The surgeon didn't mess around. She tried to book an appointment for surgery, which didn't go down well with my dad (who was with me at the appointment and later fumed about
the surgeon pushing 'radical surgery').
Long story short, it took another 12 months before I was finally ready to have my colon removed. But I realised now why no GI had ever mentioned surgery to me before: they knew my whole colon would have to go. You need to talk about
surgery with a surgeon or, at the least, get the second opinion to explain thoroughly why you are not a suitable candidate for surgery at the moment. It may be possible that you
are a suitable candidate despite the specialist's opinion.
If you don't have surgery, then you ought to get on stronger medication. In fact you haven't tried any strong medication (preferably one of the biologics, such as Remicade) then you ought to try that before surgery. People do respond differently, but the biologics are pretty effective and do work for most people.
For depression, I am on duloxetine, which is the generic of Cymbalta. The first two weeks were brutal, as the psych didn't think to start me on a lower dose, so I started on the full dose of 60mg. But I adapted and I now think it's the best med for depression I've been on. SSRIs are useless for me; they only target serontonin and I obviously need more sh!t in my brain targeted than a single neurotransmitter (SRNIs target two, serotonin and norepinephrine). Unfortunately it doesn't work so well for anxiety, which I still struggle with when anxiety-inducing events happen (I'm worrying a lot about
my teeth at the moment, for example). Benzos are hard to get from most GPs, but when I have taken valium in the past it didn't seem to do a lot anyway.
I personally think it's medically harder to treat anxiety than depression. Anything which is effective for anxiety is either addictive, illegal or both.
Apologies for a rambling post from me. Hope you feel better soon. And see if you can find a way of getting hold of generic Cymbalta from Canada or wherever :/