There was a 34 year old woman who went to the doctors one day for a sinus infection. After a round of antibiotics, the infection seemed to return. After numerous trips to the doctors office, she was diagnosed with allergies, and immidiately put on allergy injections. After a few weeks, this woman was feeling worse than ever, getting really bad headaches, vertigo, low grade fevers, and extreme fatigue. The histamines building up in her body were dangerously high levels. Whe she tried to take antihistamines as the doctors prescribed, not only did she get worse headaches, but also throbbing and bloody sinuses. She would try everything the doctors told her to try, but she kept getting worse. She went to specialist after specialist, doctor after doctor. Some wanted to label her a depressive, with psycho-sematic symptoms, none of them really helping her. She finally had to quit her job, after the symptoms escalated to include total exhaustion and brain funcion problms, including the lack of reasoning power, short term memory loss, unorganized thinking, and loss of decision making power. This woman's blood pressure was unusually low, causing her to almost pass out on some occasions. After two months of being on allergy injections, this woman decided that she'd had enough, and against doctor's orders, took herself off of the allergy injections. By this time, her day consisted of getting out of bed at 9AM, trying to get soemthing done, and by 11 AM, she was back in bed sleeping. She would try again to get up at 1PM, only to be back tin bed sleeping by 3PM, and it would go on like that until around midnight, when for some unexplainable reason, she would start to feel good and it was the only time she could get any work done for a couple of hours. During the day, she would forget how to wash dishes, or forget why she was in the shower. Since the doctors were of no help, this woman deicided to take matters into her own hands and find some kind of natural supplement of any nature to hlep any of her growing symptoms. She experimented, toyed with and tried every herb, homeopathic and over the counter medication she could find, reading up on all of it, made lots of notes to remind herself what she had already tried and what she didn't, finally comuing up with a combination of immune boosters that would at least giver her a day or two of relief from the worse of the symptoms. Soon, the two hours she could stay awake turned into four, and then finally, six. she found that she could now get her body to be on a normal sleep cycle, and then finally, didn't have to take naps anymore. But he symptoms persisted, the brain function problems causing the most distress, as well as the low blood pressure, the low greade fevers and recurring respitory infections, adding to that muscle weakness, joint, tendon and muscle pain, arthritis, chemical sensativity, and continued fatigue. One day, this woman went to her immunologist, and finally was greated her request to be put on long term antibiotics. It improved her life by 70%, knowoing what she had been through, it was a remarkable recovery. However, she worried that relapses would still come, and they did, but not as severe as they had once been. The future of this woman is uncertain. How do I know? Because that woman is me. I have been ill with Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfuntion Syndrom for over almost 10 years. There is no known cause or cure, and there are still some professionals in the medical community that believe that me and millions like me have no illness. I was lucky to have the support of my husband and my prents during the worse part of my illness, only those closest to me knew what my life was like. I have sworn to myself that I will never be that sick again,and I will try any and all natural supplements to ensure that. Most of the prescripion medication that was prescribed to me never did any good, and in most cases made my symptoms worse. I have had to learn to be my own doctor, and find some of the answers for myself that the medical communtiy has failed to do. I also belong to a local CFIDS support group, and am a member of the CFIDS Association of America. I have a link at the bottom of this page if you want to learn more about CFIDS.
Update: 6/21/03
Since I have been on the Doxacyline, I have been pretty stable with my condition. I continue to have muscle, joint and tendon pain, some allergy-related sinus problems, and get over fatigued if I try to do too much. Most of the brain fog has lifted, of which I am grateful for, since that was the one symptom that interfered with my quality of life the most. I am still prone to infections, but have learned the warning signs of getting to the doctors early enough for treatment. I continue to use natural and herbal supplements when I need them, and try to rest in between shopping trips or excersions that my husband and I take on the weekends. Even after all of these years, I still have hope that I will have a complete recovery, but take one day at a time, and, in the words of my husband, do what I am able to do each day.
Update 5/22/04
I continue to struggle with various infections, having two lung ifections in the past three months, and I'm fighting off an ear infection now. My immunologist has said that I do not have Lupus, but there is some kind of autoimmune problem going on in my body. As long as my quality of life stays high, I am thankful.
Brenda Eller Davis
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