13-09-2013, 12:02 AM
(12-09-2013, 11:39 PM)n0v0s Wrote: Its definitely an easier life style, and after doing it for a while - most things patients come in with are routine and have easy to spot patterns. Boring though! And with the nhs and reforms and all that jazz, i wonder how long it will remain cushty. They've already increased training time from 3yrs to 5 now I think (for the better imo). GPs are mini businesses, but when your customers are patients, its a tricky one!
I can see how that must be difficult for you. Is it a psychiatrist you have been referred to?
From my relatively limited exposure to mental health so far, I know they can prescribe SSRIs (anti-depressants) for OCD which can help take the edge off obsessive thoughts. Then of course, you also have the benefit of the med helping your mood directly and indirectly - if you are able to cope better at home with those around you due to the reduced ocd symptoms.
Cbt is supposedly the best long term solution for ocd, helping suffers to deal with the intrusive thoughts and urges.
The bowel has a complex nervous system of its own if you like, as well as being linked to the brain. So with your chronic (long term) stress and anxiety issues, it can obviously royally fk things up. IBS is what they tend to diagnose in people who have bowel problems but without any kind of obvious other problems - coeliacs/crohns etc. Have you been ruled out for other bowel problems?
I don't know what I've been referred to lol. 'Suffolk Wellbeing' apparently. I have referred myself (as asked by the GP) via email and asked firstly for a diagnosis and then CBT or whatever they recommend to follow. They'll ring me back to arrange the first meeting I think... Hopefully I've done that right.
Medication is a difficult one - OCD stops me from allowing myself to risk anything that could make me ill, no matter how small the risk of it actually is - and SSRIs are well known to cause illness to start with. So I can't take them, not just that I don't want to, but that I physically cant, my throat wont allow me to swallow them. I was prescribed some last year when I was just diagnosed just as anxiety by a GP (my own fault, I couldn't explain myself properly as I was panicking and hadn't thought to write it down, which I did this time).
I am expecting (or hoping) CBT to be quite effective, and also ERP (I think) which is the system they used on the OCD programme that I posted up the other day. I had an app't for CBT last year, but due to the travelling distance to town I was such a mess time I got there, I had a major panic attack and froze outside the building and couldn't go in. So I gave up for a year since that lol. Have been told they should be able to meet me at the docs surgery though, which is closer and a bit more doable.
IBS is something I've never been diagnosed with, but I have massive 'evacuations' before going out (yeah every ingle time I go out, school/college/work was a nightmare!) or even at home if I'm doing something stressful like waiting for a courier or trying to cope with a whole weekend of people at home. But not if I'm home alone all day with nothing stressful on - so in my mind it has to be stress related. I've tried avoiding various foods (wheat, dairy, sugar, etc) but nothing has made a noticeable difference. And I can't take a proper food diary because of the frequency of stress causing it means I never know if any food has done it! Oh and I have a massive phobia of needles (as well as most other things lol) so blood tests aren't a possibility either.
Yes I know I'm my own worst enemy!
