Depression...

Almost a year after my hysterectomy and nothing has been the same. Probably the first big mistake I made was listening to the doctor when she said, let's wait six months after surgery to see what your body does. I should have insisted on have all my levels tested before surgery and then within a week or so after surgery testing them again and started on medicine. I didn't, and it's true, hindsight is twenty-twenty.

Now don't get me wrong, my life is defintely better off afterwards. I was in so much pain from the cysts in my ovaries and the fibroid in my uterus that I wasn't living. I was spending more time in bed in pain than doing anything else. I will still tell people, if it has been recommended to you, then go ahead, but to keep your ovaries if at all possible. For me it was not possible to keep my ovaries. The only problem is that almost no one that I talked to had lost their ovaries too. I had no idea what I was going to be in for. Maybe more research, maybe more talking, maybe just more fighting for it the way I felt was right.

I started getting depressed about six weeks post-surgery. It was about like post-partum depression, but I didn't have a nursing baby to help take the edge off the depression. It was just getting worse and worse to the point I had to call the doctors office, so a prescription for an antidepressant, but that didn't do it. I think I have the brand changed twice and the dosage changed more than I can think since then. Of course after six months out, the hormone replacement got added in, and that brought it's own set of problems with it.

I haven't been able to sleep since the surgery. Which I hear is normal, but of course no one wanted to do anything about it, oh let's get some hormones in you and it will get better, finally last month they gave me something to sleep that works as bout as well as jelly beans! So I was fed up and called the doctor's office first thing Monday morning, with the promise that the nurse would call me back that morning. Yeah right, finally Friday afternoon about an hour before the office closed someone called me back, but of course they didn't do anything.

After almost a year of not being able to sleep it has finally caught up with me, and the depression has deepened. When you aren't sleeping, it is very easy to fall deeper into the depression. So I was already depressed after the surgery and it wasn't being handled well, then top that with not being able to sleep, that wasn't being treated at all, and I am a mess. You want to talk about the hormones?

The migraines started about four weeks out from surgery, and they were terrible. I think I have been on three or four different migraine medicines, and no matter how many times I say, that the medicine was doing nothing for the migraines. I mean I can only take two pills in 24-hours and the migraines will come back in 6 to 8 hours some days. I keep trying to tell them that they aren't working, but no one wants to listen, which only makes the depression worse because I feel like I am not worth listening to, The hormones only help to create more of them.

I finally got on hormones, got on a patch. Of course that didn't do too well, still ave headaches, so they added a estrogen gel. As long as I was taking both of those on schedule and not skipping a patch change or the gel, I was getting fewer headaches. They added some progestrone, not sure why, but it has seemed to increased the headaches.

Now I still love my doctor. She delivered all three of my kids and she has been great. But when I first started seeing her, she was a new young doctor in an office of older doctors, then she moved out on her own into a small office, that soon grew and grew and now has three doctors and two midwives in the office. She is still a great doctor, but her office has grown too large. The office staff no longer seems to care. I can remember when I would call in and all I had to say was my name and all the staff knew my history and could help with anything. I mean, let's put it this way, my account number in her office is #38! I have no idea how many people they have in there now, but I know that I almost never talk to the same person, and I have caught a couple of nurses saying things to me that were out-and-out lies, and I am not going for that and had to call her on it, and of course she was upset, but yo know, once your office gets too large, it is out of your control.

I made the hard decision this week, in a few of my more lucid moments to research a new doctor. I had been needing to have a general doctor anyway, and that is what I looked for. A general practice doctor, but one that had underlying specialities in women's issues and HRT. So on Wednesday I called and they got me in the next week on Thursday. They were trying for Tuesday, but didn't have one early enough to make sure I would get home before the kids got off the bus. I was shocked. I am used to having to call four months in advance to get an appointment. I am looking forward to hearing another view on all this, and really hoping for some answers. Or at least if not an answer, someone to listen and be willing to work with me to find an answer, not just brush it off like it's no big deal.

I am sure I will be blogging about my thoughts from the appointment next week. Oh you poor people, you have to listen to me ramble! Oh well, you knew what you were getting into when you read the title of the blog and still kept reading!