posted
I don't know what the percentages are of people who have lyme, which are only affected physically with arthritis like stuff and how many have gone into neuro and then into the mind.
But I have a pretty good idea that since lyme gets into the central nervous system that if it is there, then the "emotional liability" is part of the organic part of the disease.
What is the difference between emotional garbage and emotional liability?
Maybe I don't mean emotional liability entirely, but also organically based depression and anxiety that comes along with what has happened to the nerves and synapse.
It's not that I feel depressed but that depression overwhelms me sometimes, like so many of us with lyme. The overwhelm of all the symptoms and the length of time it takes to heal and the herxheimers. The process is so slow. It seems overwhelm is a symptom itself. Especially for those of us who can't remember what sympoms were earlier in the day or whatever, but know only what is now.
There is the how I feel and then also how I feel about how I feel. Sometimes how I feel about how I feel is like emotional garbage maybe I can let go of and yet if inside herx, this just seems out of my control. Anyone else know what I mean?
Wben not inside huge herx then, how I feel about how I feel can be like emotional garbage to turn around. For example, instead of feeling inadequate, horrific, bad, stupid, idiotic, pathetic, fearful....because I often don't remember what I just did ... maybe I can learn to be easier on myself and stop blaming myself for this disease that is NOT IN MY HEAD, I have to keep teling even myself.
Also, the physical pain, when I can feel not so terrible about how it has changed my life, then the way I feel (the pain) is easier to deal with.
However, there are definitley those times when I am simply overwhelmed in the central nervous system and this part is not emotional garbage but the organic part of the disease.
Anyone else on to what I am trying to say? Have ideas to help or clarify??
I think a huge part of the emotional part...comes into play with the total ADD, etc. type stuff that makes real productive functioning not really in the cards so much. I wonder, is this damage permanent? But his part causes emotional response of great frustration. LIke I'm an imbecile now. Anyone else feel this way or experience or relate to what I am trying to say??
posted
onestly, I will cry...and I mean ALOT. But in the same day or the next day I won't even remember why I got so out of control emotionally.
I think it may be part of the disease, but am not entirely sure...the anxiety I get is part of the disease, that much I know...
Posts: 594 | From NJ/NY | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
imo, and, in a sense, the "situation" with tbd-induced emotional lability, is analogous to "mastur...", in that only 4% of lymies "don't have this" as a manifestation of the infection(s), and, most of the rest us are liars.
And, there are good legal, and medical reasons for not mentioning this as a tbd-induced manifestation; for one, any family member wanting to get rid of the lymie,or sometimes,"get" the lymie, any duc or llmd wanting to get rid of the lymie, or to drop the lymie at some point in treatment, can invoke the psychiatric label of the month, for real, or by threat.
if bad enough,which it too-often is, we read about it,or see it in the media.
posted
I think it is impossible to differentiate between the organic and the "psychological" at times --- I'm a therapist, so this is a question I ponder a lot.
I do know that addressing old hurts/traumas can help a lot with depression/anxiety/etc.-- but if there is an organic root, I think therapy alone is insufficient.
I've had a couple of herxes where I was crying at EVERYTHING -- happy, sad, or otherwise -- now, I know what depression feels like (all too well, I was depressed for years) and this was VERY different -- this was organic, no doubt about it.
There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind (the research bears this out, too) that Lyme can cause psychiatric disturbances -- from depression to psychosis, and everything in between.
Cleaning out the true emotional garbage can't hurt, but I think it is important to remember and respect the fact that these diseases can wreak havoc on the emotions.
-------------------- "Looks like freedom but it feels like death.. It's something in between, I guess"
Leonard Cohen, from the song "Closing Time" Posts: 822 | From California | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
The emotional outbursts drive me crazy! I think I know what you're talking about with the CNS. Lately I feel like my entire body is short-circuiting and completely breaking down. I can barely contain myself. My neurological symptoms are getting worse every day and those are the ones that really scare me. I have emotional outbursts that I can tell are from the disease. And then there are those periods of general depression that are caused by the impact this disease has had on my life. The problem is, my doctors and therapists don't seem to understand the difference. I can somewhat control my general depression but the emotional outbursts from Lyme disease take over completely. Has anyone had any luck coping with those kind of episodes. I can't seem to get control of them.
-------------------- Laura French Posts: 39 | From Bloomington, IN | Registered: Sep 2005
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trueblue
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 7348
posted
It feels very different to me. The emotional stuff that comes from dealing with a long term illness and what seems to be an actual part of the illness. (I'm pretty sure that made no sense.)
I find that a lot of the overwhelm and over the top emotional responses for me feel like Post Traumatic Stress. Other times it's different. Hard to explain. hmmm...
(About my emotional garbage it's there and can be dealt with to some extent. But when it's multiplied a bazillion times by the TBD's, and often is lately... I don't know how to finish this sentence.)
Still made no sense. I understand though, just don't know what to do with it.
edited to add: thanks for the laugh and the caution, pq.
-------------------- more light, more love more truth and more innovation Posts: 3783 | From somewhere other than here | Registered: May 2005
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posted
correction made in my prev. post, after i got 'grip' on my numerical error. i meant only 4%... , not 96%...
back to the topic:
approx. a month after finishing a single, short course of flagyl, and what tinidazole i could get, i had a major breakthrough in that instantaneous emotional lability, whether explicitly expressed, verbally, physically,was silent, but angry. i still get it, variably now and then, and it could be intense, but the the intensity of the instantaneous emotional lability is gone by 90%. i'm variably "reactive," but the reactivity,whether suppressedly silent, or verbally explicit, as in a tirade, is absolutely nothing like before treatment with the tinidazole and then the flagyl.
Serrendipitously, i think i found that one of the isomers of vitamin E,specifically dl-alpha tocopherol to be helpful,in the sense that i'll feel like reacting, but refrain from an instantaneous verbal response; my thoughts are not "out there" after its "too late." supporting my attribution of this effect to vitamin E was a quote of a study made decades ago by a nationally known nutritionist.
while i don't recall him making the attribution specifically to alpha-tocopherol, he did say that "vitamin E quieted the anxiety impulse from teh diencephalon[midbrain, i think] to the cortex of the brain."
the dl-alpha tocopherol(synthetic form) i took seems to have a negligible amount of the other tocopherols. so, one argument on this effect comes down to the 'hair-splitting,' literal minded quible of: "so is it the 'l-' form or is it the 'd-' form?
well, since the 'd-' preponderant form vetted in the medical, and nutritional lit., i'll attribute the putative effect to its the 'd-' isomer; the 'l-' form is presumed to be first enzymatically converted to the 'd-'form in order to be utilized by the body--imo.
recent lit. on vit. E says that to get the desired effects of vitamin E the natural form-- as taken in the food sources in which it occurs as opposed to synthetic forms--has better effects.
i think rice bran oil, and barley oil may be quantitatively the best sources, but verify.
paradoxical negative effect: at the same time i got this alleged calming of the anxiety impulse from the diencephalon to the cortex, i also experienced an slight increase in painful joints, but enough to cause me to temporarily stop this until i find the 'why' 'wherefrom' and 'whence' of this effect.
supporting this claim, believe it or not, was a commercial with a statement on rheu.arth. that vitamin E increased inflammation! this statement is paraphrased from the commercial i heard back in 1998-2000. i started off at 400i.u. which, according to some is too much to start with, and should be ramped up by approx. 50-100 i.u., every two weeks+; at 800 i.u. medical supervision is suggested, and; between 800 i.u. to 1200 i.u. of vitamin E is alleged to cause increased herpetic problems or outbreak.
posted
some paradoxical effects of stuff that facilitates if not augments existing lyme-induced emotional lability:
one lymie stated that gingko bil. made her "...crazed..."
same here, and i've found it dose-dependent. i also feel that, while on it, it negatively affected my thyroid, which in turn contributed to my lability, irritability. it made me go ...tirade.
moderate to large doses of oral vit. C,whether straight, as such or the multiple-mineral ascorbate form, and perhaps B6 lead to increased irritation,argumentativeness, increased confusion; looking for that lost object that was either in my ear(pen),in front of me, and so on
niacin(B3)(as in nicotinic acid), noticeably considerably quelled the these affects. magnesium may have done the same. support for claim for B3 and magnesium, comes from a blurb in a lyme news letter, that niacin,and magnesium temporarily stop increased levels of quinolinic acid by brain macrophages(microglia?). High levels of quin. acid are manifested, at the least,by increased irritability, and anger. borrelia also cause increased production of quin. acid, best i recall of the lit. i read.
one account, by a scientist with lyme, of an acquaintance or friend with lyme related that vit. C caused increased confusion in the acquaintance with increased dosage of vitamin C,and other supps., best i recall of the story.
GiGi
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 259
posted
Full of tears, full of fear, full of guilt, full of rage -- I lived through it also.
I was told by my doctor, in exactly these words, because I taped it and listened to it every day:
"Emotions take place in the Limbic system.
That's a part of the brain that is very, very sensitive to the toxins. They go straight up the lymphatics into the Limbic system. That's where your emotions are. Just know that it is not you. Just know that that is toxins causing this."
And I can tell you for certain that that is not you --- it is caused by neurotoxins (dental toxins are the worst). With successful treatment, it will all disappear. I can hardly remember that I lived with this horror - only your post reminded me.
Take care.
Posts: 9834 | From Washington State | Registered: Oct 2000
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hopeful123
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 3244
posted
hi pt, i suffer from post traumatic stress disorder, which is under "control" through therapy and antidepressents. when something hits me out of the blue, i get very emotional and cannot seem to right myself. for instance, when i was balled out at work a little over a month ago, i couldn't stop crying. is this lyme or ptsd? or both?
i am doing much better with both the ptsd and the lyme, but still have setbacks like above. what i find, is that all of the coping skills i have learned over the years through the 12steps and therapy, really help me get past the rough spots. yesterday, i thought my car with 289,000 miles was biting the dust. fortunately, not!! i tried a mantra - everything's going to be okay. over and over again.
i don't know if this helps at all, but the past can get in the way of the present, so clear up the emotional garbage, the best you can and you will, imo, have more energy to heal in the present.
i was told that i have to watch two things, stress and sleep. go for the latter, and stay away from the former. not easy for someone who still feels everything way too much, good and bad, and can take things personally that shouldn'/t be taken personally.
rambling here. veryyy tireeddddd.....
slept something like 12 hours last night, but still exhausted. i hope this is a herx and not stx getting worse.
take care
-------------------- some days you're the bug, some days you're the windshield Posts: 1160 | From NY | Registered: Oct 2002
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It is much easier to talk about the physical than it is the emotional and mind but it's clear that lyme does damage to both.
Limbic system....I may affirm with some mantras or something, though, if they work in a herx...I'll have to let ya know!
Once my cardio tests come back clear, I'll be getting final parts of the mercery in teeth worked on. I hope it helps.
For any of us who have gone the gamut of this disease and Dr. B himself writes what it can do to a person, we know how crazy it is.
For me, I must agree with minimonkey that it really is impossible to separate out the self from the disease with regard to emotional garbage and emotional "whatever, you know what I mean". So the emotional garbage aspect of healing what lyme has done to central nervous system and brain is a huge hurdle, just as challenging as the rest. If not more so. Because it is the organic part that is being done to the organs and nerves and then it is the processing of response. So at the very least, I am trying to siphen out what emotional garbage is under my jurisdiction and do something about it.
All I know is I wanna fix my limbic system!
I think since it went on so long in that area without treatment that it is harder for me to comprehend the entirety of it what has happened over the progression of its stages. Much like post traumatic stress.
Seems I don't have access to myself anymore, what it has done to the brain but it sounds like I'm not the only one. It also sounds possible to recover no matter how long it's gone untreated.
Maybe this should have gone in General, but medically speaking, even though we can't run an emotional test like we can a blood test....it is still a medical aspect of the disease, just a different branch of the tree -- and considering how untrustworthy those blood tests are anyway, we'd probably all test negative!
posted
I had one therapist tell me I was like scrambled eggs-and it was going to be very hard to separate one from the other. No wonder I'm all mixed up!
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I have finally had to give my self a break! I forgive myself my outbursts, my anger, my rage. Sometimes, underneath it all, there is even a very good reason for it. For example, giving myself two Bicillin shots twice a week and getting abcesses from it and being on such a tight schedule of medications that I have to rely on my alarm/watch to take them on time and taking care of a 3 year-old 24/7. This is all a tremendous strain not to mention the financial aspect.
I have done years and years of therapy and insight meditation. There was a reason I couldn't see my anger before I was ready to blow - it was Lyme making me feel so crazy or at least adding a layer on top. There is just no way that all that psychological work is for naught.
Can you tell that I'm coming down off a rageful day?
I'm just holding it together as best I can. But I still think all us folks with Lyme deserve to give ourselves a break. This illness is insidious and difficult.
D
Posts: 261 | From San Mateo, CA | Registered: May 2005
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