all the world's a stage...

Background

I was diagnosed with CFS/ME (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalopathy) at the start of 2010. Not so long after, I wrote a somewhat long post discussing what I was going through and what my plan was.

That was during my temporary withdrawal from my course for the 2009-2010 academic year. Since then I’ve attempted to complete the last year of my degree on a part time basis. This past year, the first half of my final year, has been far from satisfactory. I’ve been plagued by constant headaches, incapacitated by the fatigue and for much of the time found it impossible (or at least very difficult) to concentrate.

I’m due to begin the other half of my final year in a week’s time -well, two weeks in earnest but I use freshers’ week to settle back in. There’s a lot riding on this year. Things are serious. I need to be able to perform at my best, so I must not have a repeat of last year in terms of symptoms.

The Serotonin Experiment

…because all else has failed. Or rather, I should say that all else according to the NICE guidelines has failed. I’ve looked. It basically recommends a combination of CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) and GET (Graded Exercise Therapy). I was really hoping to be put on a programme of GET but that’s not available in my area.

29/09/2011 Edit: Have been doing some reading and actually after further consideration, in a way I’m glad I’ve not been signed up for GET. CBT may not alleviate any symptoms but at least it won’t make me worse either. To be honest, neither GET nor CBT do anything to treat the underlying causes of my condition. At best they are simply coping strategies. At least in my own endeavour to boost my serotonin levels, I’m seeking to put right something that research suspects ME has caused to go haywire - i.e. caused low sertonin levels.

So officially, all I have available to me is CBT. It may or may not be helpful in some way down the line but I’ve yet to hear back as to when my first appointment will be. But however helpful it is, it will do nothing to alleviate the actual symptoms (the CBT practitioner at the assessment concurred).

So I’m faced with having to endure the constant headaches, fatigue and difficulty concentrating. Those are the main three symptoms for me anyway, other sufferers of the condition, your mileage will vary.

My GP hasn’t been particularly forthcoming in terms of recommending possible treatments or medications beyond referring me to the regional CFS service as per NICE guidelines. Something needed to done and it needed to be done now because I need to be completely on the ball this year. I’m thinking in terms of last resorts and I will to try anything that might help alleviate symptoms and help me not fail my degree due to the illness.

I’d done some reading and found research suggesting that a feature of CFS is low serotonin levels. I’d been given the SSRI fluoxetine before and tolerated it well enough with minimal side effects. SSRIs are normally used as antidepressants but have other applications too. Let me reiterate that my symptoms are not the result of clinical depression and nor am I currently suffering from depression. For good measure, a quote from that article:

It needs to be emphasized that these drugs are helpful not because patients are primarily depressed (although depression may occur as a result of the illness), but because they often have low levels of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine

There were other sources too but this one was the most concise. So based a hunch I went to the GP to ask about taking an SSRI to increase my serotonin levels. I was confident that I could get the go ahead because I was no stranger to SSRIs so we’d already knew that I would not react badly to it. As it turns out, my GP was very amenable to the idea saying that treating CFS was often a matter of trial and error so it was worth a try.

The Serotonin Experiment has begun.

I’m going to try to keeping a diary as I work my way through my 4 week supply of sertraline. It’ll be helpful in monitoring effectiveness and who knows, maybe it might be of help to someone else. I’m going to file all these entries under the tag “serotonin experiment” so if you’re only interested in reading about this then click/bookmark this link. [Link fixed!]

Update:

Day 01  |  Day 02  |  Day 03  |  Day 04  |  Day 05  |  Day 06  &  Day 07
Day 08  |  Day 09  &  Day 10  |  Day 11 to Day 19  |  Day 20  |  Day 21
Day 22  |  Day 23  |  Day 24  |  Day 25  |  Day 26  |  Day 27  |  Day 28 
Epilogue

Links:

• Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: International Consensus Criteria, Journal of Internal Medicine, 20 July 2011 - PDF of short version.
• An analysis of the above: 10 Things I love about the International Consensus Criteria for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis