Depression & Anger

i am very lucky in that I have not suffered from any anger issues although I have noticed increased depression but it is never that bad. My depression is mainly about being a different person now. Like others I am very, very independent and the thought of being a slave to this bloody condition and to the drugs drives me mad but I also know that stress is a huge trigger in relation to the recovery journey so I never allow myself to be stressed about anything, well as much as I possibly can. I do have dark thoughts mainly about never recovering from PMR and being constantly on preds but that depression only lasts a few days and luckily for me I'm soon back to my normal self.

again like many on this site I have always been a leader, a doer and the thought of having to rely on others is a definite no no! That helps me considerably.

again like others my depression involves the loss of "me" I'm only 53, jogged, played tennis, Zumba, decorated, ran a very successful media company, retired to cornwall to live "my life", the life I'd always dreamed of only to get PMR!  But I thank god I'm still around and unlike many of you have my pain well managed. I played tennis 2 weeks ago for the first time since symptoms developed. I was rubbish and I cried about that, then for at least 4-5 days after the tennis pained all over my body, but I will get back out there again, even if it takes 2,3,4,5,6,....... Years, and of course I won't be anyway near as good as I was but that's life!

the level of medication you are on at present has been touched on by others and I want to add this. I have a very good gp and consultant that started me on this recovery journey by pretty much sticking to the Bristol PMR plan and because of that I am recovering well. When I am pain free I am mentally the person I was pre diagnosis however I did have a flare in October of last year and it took along time to get all the pain back under control. During that period I did feel more depressed and I definately had very negative thoughts but as the pain subsided I soon returned to my normal self.

i suspect that some of your depression is because you are still in so much pain and therefore for you you cannot see a light at the end of the tunnel.

i think you were perhaps not prescribed a large enough dose of preds in the first place, so all your inflamation was never brought under full control. It was then upped to 20mgs and that did the trick, now you are back down to 10 and things physically have not improved. This is not a good place to be. We all need to feel and believe that we are improving and that no matter how long things take we will get better. I believe you need to up your dose and then reduce little and only when you feel you are well. You have not mentioned if you are having check up blood tests every 3 months. Yes, I know that they are not always 100% reliable but maybe if you'd had some they could have confirmed that inflamation is still there and therefore you know that you should never have reduced.

as I said, try upping your dose and follow the Bristol PMR plan. If you cannot reduce initially by 2.5 try reducing by only 1mg at a time then when you get down to 10mgs stay on that dose for as long as possible, my Dr had me on 10mgs for 6 months before I reduced further and I believe that my flare was probably due to reducing by 1mg from 9 to 8mgs and if I had used Eileen's slow, slow method and tiny reductions I would have been ok.

tony things will get better but I do think you need to get your medication and thus pain under control, then and only then I believe you will be in a much better place both physically and mentally. All the best, christina 

Then of course there's this steroid stuff. My GCA has its own dosing regimen and doesn't care how sensitive I am, so I had 60mg then 80mg of steroids. Yeah. not good. So I can totally sympathize. I do not suffer side effects gladly. I ran, I didn't walk, to my GP and demanded something to counterbalance the crazy mood swings. Luckily she warned me in advance that this was a possibility. Luckily I was already on a very low dose of Prozac to counterbalance the crazy side effect of the Topamax for my migraines (yep, been thru this before). so she just upped the dose 10mg and no more crazy. I would suggest a trip to the doc for something like that. The selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or other antidepressants can be taken just while on these things and each one is different so you can see if it works for you in a very low dose. Migraines, GCA, PMR, all stink. No need to add a mood disorder to the mess of side effects. My body was falling apart. I was not going to let my relationship with my family fall apart too. I am not one to suffer in silence and to wait til something goes away. I scream and shout, research and try everything sensible until I find something that works. I found something that worked for me.  I hope you do too. 

It occurs to me this may also be useful. I get frustrated. Which led to angry.

In systems and programming I rely heavily on intense concentration for relatively long periods. And I'm used to very good short term memory.

The higher doses of pred effected both enough for me to notice, enough to slow me down, enough to have to change how I was working. Problems in logic which I used to solve almost instantly became major efforts with flawed solutions. Things which I previously saw clearly were hidden in "brain fog" (I like that, describes it well).

I've read of tennis players, other sports people, musicians, meditators, etc., being "in the zone". I know what that's like in systems work. But it was lost to me. And I made mistakes. A downhill spiral. To frustrated and add to the angry.

Not so bad on the lower doses now but also not totally as it was. Losing the edge I always had.

So now I do what lots of others do. I write notes to refer back to. When someone asks a now too hard question I get back to them later (instead of using that wonderous instant replay in my mind that I could always refer to) while quietly wishing they'd simply go away and stop bothering me. I find work arounds to compensate.

But most of all. This PMR / Pred stuff is just another problem to be overcome. I may not overcome it, I may never return to my former self. But it won't be for want of trying. I'm much better on the lower dose, but as everyone here keeps reminding me - patience. It happens at its own pace.

Being of an engineering background I can always make the cup smaller, then its fuller.

Mum, Dad and 2 daughters (11 and 10) at the top of McKinnon Pass (Milford Track) after 10 years of thinking about it was one of our more memorable family moments. I'd been there before when it was easy for me. But that time was very different. We'd had to overcome a whole heap more obstacles.