Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Or Depression

Demographic Intrapsychic Interpersonal And Health

Our nationally representative study supports the majority of findings of the previous research on depression and CFS from regional community samples and from clinical samples. In accordance with the previous literature on demographic characteristics associated with depression among those with CFS and among those with other chronic illnesses,, we found that being younger and/or female was associated with depression. Both socio-economic status, in generaland food insecurity, a measure of extreme poverty, was associated with an increased risk of depression. Marital status was associated with depression in the bivariate but not the logistic regression analyses. Unlike previous research on depression among individuals with inflammatory bowel disease, education level and immigrant status were not significantly related to depression. Although the association between immigrant status and CFS was not significant in this analysis, it would be helpful if other studies would investigate this under-researched topic with larger sample sizes.

The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Chronic fatigue syndrome , or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis , is an ongoing disorder that causes constant fatigue that does not disappear with sleep or rest and may affect routine activities. The majority of the time, it affects the nervous and immune systems. Its also know as post-viral fatigue syndrome .

Patients with ME-CFS experience severe fatigue, which is caused by post-exertional malaise . The bodys ability to recover from even tiny amounts of energy causes an increase in symptoms. A feeling of being tired may be different than normal fatigue and can last for a few days after physical, mental, or emotional stress.

Commonalities Between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Depression And Insomnia

Antioxidant Therapies Address Common Underpinnings of These Chronic Conditions

There is not a day that goes by that healthcare practitioners dont face challenges. Attending to many complex patients stacked back-to-back, communicating bad news to a patient, working with insurance to cover labsmost physicians encounter at least one of these, if not all three, each and every day. One of the additional challenges we face with complex patients is addressing a long list of diagnoses as integrative providers, we often find ourselves trying to treat not just one, but often three or four health concerns in a single visit. With our broad education and tolle totum vision, it is difficult to avoid this tendency.

Fortunately, there are many nutritional therapies that address conditions we commonly see coexisting. Here, we look at factors in a set of conditions that commonly overlap: chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, and insomnia. More importantly, we discuss some shared solutions that will help the integrative practitioner support patients with these difficulties.

Common Underpinnings

A Common Solution?

Vitamin C

Vitamin E

N-Acetylcysteine

Coenzyme Q10

Lipoic Acid

Melatonin

Antioxidant Minerals

In addition to these antioxidants, certain minerals play a very important part in our antioxidant systems and are critical for normal immune system function. Zinc and selenium are two minerals of particular importance for these reasons.

References

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Alternative And Holistic Therapies

Alternative or holistic therapies may provide some comfort to those with a long standing illnesses but be cautious of any method that claims to offer a cure for chronic fatigue. If the therapy has not been published in respected peer-reviewed journal or is expensive you should talk to your GP before trying it. Until further research is done, no-one can be certain whether someone with CFS/ME might benefit from alternative therapies.

Depression & Cfs: Which Came First

I just had another article published online about CFS. Here is the whole article including a link to where you can find it online.

There has been a lot of controversy over the years over whether Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is a result of depression or if the depression comes once the illness has started. It is kind of like the chicken or the egg which came first?

Skeptics and the medical professionals who do not believe in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome believe that the illness is psychological in nature and may be a result of depression. For those of us living with the illness, we know from our own medical history and life that depression was not an issue for many of us before becoming ill. If depression was an issue, it wasnt extreme enough to warrant symptoms like those of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

With depression, the person will lose interest and not want to participate in any activities, hobbies or anything that they previously were involved in. As I have explained over the years to doctors and other medical professionals, it is not like that with CFS. Those of us with CFS want to do all of the things we once could but physically we are unable. The desire and mental drive is still there to do these things, the physical capability is just not. The frustration of not being able to live life as we previously did is what often leads to depression in CFS patients. Depression is often a symptom of this chronic disease, not the cause.

Feelings of hopelessness or pessimism

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How Cfs And Depression Are Alike

CFS and depression can cause fatigue, sleep problems, a lack of energy, pain, digestive problems, headaches, memory lapses, or trouble with concentration.

The way you live with CFS is similar to the way you live with depression. You can try cutting back on activities or avoiding anything that causes stress.

CFS and depression are chronic illnesses. Both conditions may last for years, although your symptoms could be better or worse at times.

CFS and depression are more common in adults, but also affect children and teens. Women are more likely than men to be diagnosed with either CFS or depression.

CFS and depression often affect more than one member of the same family.

Depression And Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: How Are They Linked

Written byMohan GarikiparithiPublished onDecember 22, 2016

Depression and chronic fatigue syndrome, although different, may actually be linked. In both conditions, the patient will feel extremely fatigued, regardless of the sleep quality the night before. It is possible that a patient may have depression and chronic fatigue syndrome simultaneously, or mistake one condition for the other. Its important to recognize the key difference between depression and CFS in order to receive a proper diagnosis.

Depression is the feelings of sadness, anxiety, or hopelessness experienced for extended periods of time. Depressed individuals often have difficulty sleeping or may not sleep at all.

In CFS, the patient feels extremely fatigued even when well rested, and there is no explainable cause of this fatigue. CFS is often misdiagnosed and taken for depression, according to research findings.

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How To Prove To Your Doctor You’ve Got Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Me/cfs And Are Not Just Depressed

by Cort Johnson | Apr 26, 2014 | Depression, Diagnosis, Homepage |

Wrong diagnoses hurt. They lead doctors to prescribe treatments that dont work and may even be harmful and they keep doctors from prescribing treatments that do work. They waste patients money and, given the fact that the earlier a person is diagnosed with ME/CFS the better chance they have of improving their health, they contribute to poor health.

Many people with ME/CFS and FM are mistakenly diagnosed with depression first

The fact that only from 15-20% of people in the U.S. with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome have been diagnosed with it suggests wrong diagnoses run rampant in this disorder. Of all the wrong diagnoses, being diagnosed with depression is surely the most common.

Who has not been diagnosed with depression at some point? I was diagnosed with depression by my primary care provider only to have the psychologist I was sent to tell me, I know what depression is and youre not depressed.

I was lucky.

Fortunately, Dr. Lenny Jason has come up with a way to convince your doctor that youre not simply depressed. But first, a little history.

Tips For Dealing With Depression And Fatigue

To better cope with depression and fatigue its important to:

Mohan Garikiparithi got his degree in medicine from Osmania University . He practiced clinical medicine for over a decade before he shifted his focus to the field of health communications. During his active practice he served as the head of the Dept. of Microbiology in a diagnostic centre in India. On a three-year communications program in Germany, Mohan developed a keen interest in German Medicine , and other alternative systems of medicine. He now advocates treating different medical conditions without the use of traditional drugs. An ardent squash player, Mohan believes in the importance of fitness and wellness.

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Me/cfs Is Not A Somatization Disorder

Somatization disorders occur when a person misidentifies psychiatric symptoms for physical ones. The high levels of mood disorders present in ME/CFS and its many symptoms have sparked efforts by psychiatrists to label the disease as a somatization disorder.

A 2019 study which assessed the effects of having a comorbid disorder such as fibromyalgia or a mood disorder on the symptoms associated with ME/CFS attempted to clear up that issue. Since mood disorders have a multiplier effect on somatization disorders the researchers determined if the presence of mood disorders (or comorbid disorders such as exacerbated the symptoms associated with ME/CFS.

Because mood disorders did not exacerbate the symptoms associated with ME/CFS but have a comorbid disease did, the researchers determined that ME/CFS is not somatization disorder and is not closely allied with mood disorder but that it is closely allied with diseases like FM and irritable bowel syndrome . The increased rate of mood disorders in ME/CFS is most likely simply the result of having a difficult, chronic illness.

Treating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Although there is no cure for chronic fatigue syndrome there are a number of ways to help manage your symptoms.

Because of the complexity of the illness, its changing nature and the number of possible symptoms, different things work for different people. Your GP may be able to support you through managing your individual symptoms. They may be able to refer you to a specialist service or to a service that will help you to manage individual symptoms but this depends on the services available in your area.

To decide what treatment is right for you, you should look at the evidence, including published research and patient surveys, and make sure you fully understand what the treatment involve, before you make a decision. You have the right to decline any treatment option you do not feel comfortable with.

Your GP may suggest some of the following treatment options.

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Different Methods Of Providing Light Treatment

It may also feel like they arent being as encouraging as they might be sometimes. The area you picked has info meant for healthcare providers chronic fatigue syndrome and depression only. Please accredit that you are a health care carrier by clicking the Yes web link listed below or click No to go back to the previous web page.

Similar preventive notice modifications were implemented by the Japanese Ministry of Health. Physical exercise has been located to be effective for major depression, and also might be recommended to individuals that want, inspired, and also healthy and balanced enough to participate in a workout program as therapy. It is equivalent to using drugs or emotional treatments in many people. Sleep as well chronic fatigue syndrome and depression as diet plan might also contribute in depression, and also interventions in these locations might be a reliable add-on to conventional approaches. In observational research studies, cigarette smoking cessation has benefits in depression as huge as or larger than those of medicines. Comatose depression is an uncommon and severe form of major depression involving disruptions of electric motor actions and various other signs.

If I Was Cured Tomorrow

The Forgotten Plague Facebook page had a “If I was cured tomorrow…” campaign encouraging ME/CFS patients to upload their dreams to highlight this difference from depression.

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Fatigue: Don’t Assume It’s Depression

Fatigue is a part of a wide spectrum of diagnoses ranging from being a symptom in depression, anxiety, seasonal affective disorder, and multiple other diagnoses to being a full syndromal disorder in CFS, yet CFS goes undiagnosed in 80% of cases and is often misdiagnosed as depression. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders doesn’t list CFS as a diagnosis although the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, does. In clinical practice, CFS presentations range from complicated cases associated with a psychotic state resulting in multiple murders in one case report to noncomplicated presentations with multiple psychiatric disorders, primarily depression. It is very important to understand the distinctive features between chronic fatigue and depressive disorder when evaluating a patient with a main complaint of fatigue. A full detailed history accompanied by questionnaire forms can be very helpful to differentiate CFS from major depressive disorder. There is still no specific test that can confidently differentiate between them. Multiple studies have tried to find distinctive factors and they are listed in .

Why Are Chronic Fatigue Syndrome And Depression So Alike

So alike can chronic fatigue syndrome be to depression, and so often do the two coexist, that chronic fatigue syndrome can often go diagnosed. Ongoing fatigue can affect ones life to the extent it causes depression, and depression causes fatigue.

Chronic fatigue syndrome and depression present a a chicken or egg situation. Did the low moods come first and help cause a diagnosis of CFS, or are they are result of the physical challenges of CFS making life so difficult moods inevitably drop? It is possible that it is for many a bit of both.

The difference between chronic fatigue syndrome and clinical depression is said to be that those who suffer from CFS do not have thoughts of suicide. That said, those with low levels of ongoing depression dont necessarily have suicidal thoughts either. So its still a blurred boundary between the two.

It is interesting to observe that chronic fatigue syndrome bears more similarities to mental health issues than other medical conditions in that:

• it can be challenging to diagnose
• there is no test to prove someone has the condition
• there is no exact symptom list but it varies by individual
• it can make moving forward in life seem more of a challenge

So at the very least, there is something to be learned by looking at the ways mental health issues can be managed and helped if you suffer from CFS.

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Addressing Depression In Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Anxiety and mood disorders, especially major depressive disorder , are highly prevalent in patients with the condition known as chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis , also sometimes called Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction or Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease .1 The reason for the high prevalence of depression in patients with ME/CFS has not yet been fully explained, and the topic remains a subject of debate among researchers, patients, and patient advocates.2

Although the true prevalence of ME/CFS is difficult to ascertain because of the varied methods of assessment, a meta-analysis of 14 studies estimated it at 3.28% on the basis of patient self-reports.3 ME/CFS is characterized by persistent and disabling fatigue of at least 6 months duration that is not alleviated by rest, and which may worsen with mental or physical exertion. At this time, most diagnostic criteria state that patients should not be diagnosed with ME/CFS in the presence of an identified medical or psychiatric cause for fatigue. Laboratory markers are presently not available to confirm the diagnosis of ME/CFS or point to optimal treatments.4

Other researchers contend that CE/MDD is an atypical manifestation of anxiety or depressive states, and that it is best understood as a psychological disorder. Still others believe that the depression common in patients with ME/CFS is a natural response to the severe fatigue and disability imposed by the disease process.6

Details About Chronic Fatigue Syndrome And Depression Unveiled

The individual needs to carefully comply with the guidelines that feature the light box. Shorter days and also longer hours of darkness in fall as well as winter season might cause greater levels of melatonin and lower levels of serotonin. Conventional antidepressants are often used to deal with seasonal depression. Bupropion XL is presently the only medication that is FDA-approved specifically chronic fatigue syndrome and depression to prevent significant depressive episodes in people with SAD. Do the cold weather obtain you down more than you assume they should? If so, you may have seasonal depression, likewise known as seasonal depression. When scientists straight compared CBT with light treatment, both treatments were equally reliable in boosting depressing signs and symptoms.

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Hhs/iom New Criteria Study 2015

On 15 August the US Department of Health and Human Services issued a notice of intent to award a contract to the Institutes of Medicine for a Study on Diagnostic Criteria for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome with the purpose of : “recommending clinical diagnostic criteria for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome “. The award of contract was halted due concern over “potential sole source requisition” although subsequently joint funding was agreed between The Office on Womenâs Health and the HHS. The IOM commenced work on the project in the Autumn of 2013 with its first public hearing listed for 27 January 2014.

The completed report recommends a name change to Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease , a new diagnostic criteria, and some testing. It was published with a lengthy literature review, and various materials, all of which are available at the National Academies of Science website.