Poll Were You Ever Prescribed Antidepressants for ME/CFS or Fibromyalgia?

[Not dead yet!]

ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia are often mistaken for depression and antidepressants are often a doctors first option. The situation is complicated by the fact that depression is not uncommon in either disease, and antidepressants can relieve pain in people with FM and ME/CFS who are not depressed. Some antidepressants may also affect immune functioning; antidepressants are not just for depression anymore.

Studies suggest, however, that antidepressants are not particularly helpful for most people.

The question is "Were you ever prescribed antidepressants and if so, how did it go?

Provide more complete reviews in our review section

• Cymbalta (Duloxetine)
• Elavil (Amytriptyline)
• Prozac (Fluoxetine)
• Paxil (Paroxetine)

Every, single, doctor, ever! I'm so tired of playing nice. I think next time I see a new doc I'm just going to start out with "forget it, no psych drugs." LOL

I've been forced to try them all. Oh? You think you can't be forced without commitment? Yeah, you can. It's basically, try this, follow instructions, tolerate the bad effects as long as I tell you, because until we've done this, I'm not offering you any other help, and you can just go find someone else then. That's exactly the attitude with 90% of doctors.

It's not just antidepressants. It's anything "girly." Even the best gyno will play chicken with you about whether or not to take birth control. (caveat: every woman has a right to BC, but I personally don't like it, it doesn't help me - my choice is personal, the existence of that choice is sacred) Even the best headache specialist will just adjust one thing at a time, and NEVER tell you that there are options - the worst of these made me add one drug at a time, without removing the previous one until I was on 5. They want you to let them choose. They never want to let you make a choice. I guess we're too dumb, right? If it was up to me I'd have said, let's just do the easy thing and use the beta blocker. It works? Ok, done, next patient.

A gastroenterologist (I'm an IBS-C so they have literally nothing much of value for me)... I asked for my record so I could take it with me when I moved. I discovered that after every session, he put a note like "try (drug name)" at the bottom. So his autopilot was so complete that next month, when I came back and said, "didn't work" he already knew what he was going to prescribe even before listening to me. The notes followed the same path they always do. Try diet change, didn't work. Try Miralax, didn't help long term. Try more exercise. Nope. How about Zelnorm? Yes that worked. Ooops, FDA had a cow about it and now it's gone.................

Until.... Maybe we could do an invasive test? Uhhhh, maybe let me think it over. I'd done invasive tests and he had the records so I got cold feet when he acted like he forgot about it. So I didn't go back. Next drug would've been Amitiza it looks like. I can tell you now it wouldn't have worked. Nothing based on water or fiber ever has. My muscles are messed up.

I call that the "patient discouragement cycle." And yeah it's a woman thing. Because my husband is aghast by the way I'm treated by doctors. His don't play this game. He wants a cortisol test? Sure np, don't expect it to be positive, but happy to look for you. Not with me. I get the "maybe you're nuts / maybe you eat bad / maybe you're doing X thing wrong" runaround.

Back to the point... Even my current MD offered me antidepressants, although, he was much nicer about it and didn't force it, we simply tabled the discussion until we had tried other things. Once it became obvious that some tests would show something, he never mentioned it again. I think even he was thinking he would show me that nothing works except that and bingo I'd accept Occam's Razor.

But the point is, sick people aren't happy people. So why medicate them with happy pills? Why not make them well?