Need an advice!

[franhardin]

Hello everyone, I'll try to keep myself short and clear, I hope you guys can at least give me an advice of what to do. It's about my girlfriend, something's not right with her. First of all she has no energy at all, she feels anxiety and occasionally has panic attacks. On top of all she sleeps a lot. Every day she gets up at around 17-18 PM, and goes to bed a round 4-5 AM. Me on the other hand I sleep normally, but now when I'm trying to be there for her I started falling asleep at the same time as she does. Well at least I'm trying, although she says that when I fall asleep she stays in bed and can't sleep until 8-9 AM. We visited the local doctor and shrink, we told him everything and he prescribed her some anti-anxiety pills or something, along with pills that are supposed to relax you down when you are feeling stressed and are about to have a panic attack. These work at least, but not the others. It's been 2 months and no effect. Same thing every day. She gets up at 18 PM and before she figures out what to do today it's already evening and time for bed. At first I thought it's insomnia or something, but she doesn't think so. Her past was colorful. At teenage she was getting drunk a lot and doing drugs. Eventually she stopped doing all that at the age of 19-20. The after effects were getting a headache even from a glass of beer or wine. I don't know if what is happening to her now is some after effect of the drugs, and if so how the hell can she get rid of them? She is 22 now and this can't really go on forever. I'm running out of patience, we have to start living a normal life. Additional details would be pains in the body, like really big pains (at least that's how she describes them), mostly in the back and stomach. At the time of her monthly period it hurts her so much that she sometimes even cries. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but I have no clue of what's happening and I wanna give you guys all the details. As of her back, it hurts often with no reason, without doing any physical activity, just hurting out of nowhere. When she is awake it takes half an hour to get up from bed. Also if she gets any energy to do something, it is in late night. I mean, when she gets up she is doing nothing all day but watching TV, and when midnight passes she starts doing some activities around the apartment, cleaning and fixing stuff. While me I'm dying for some sleep at that time. We tried making a schedule for her, even tried not sleeping for more then 24 hours so she can fall asleep in a normal time in the evening, but with no success. What else, hm... Oh yes, we went to the doctor again after some time and he was thinking of sending her to some mental hospital. I was negative about that. In my opinion, there's gotta be something that's just there but no one sees it, like the core of all her problems. Like something that's triggering all the other problems. I'm sure there's something I've missed but I'll write it down if I recall it. I'm hoping this much information can help you guys to determine any disorder or sickness she might have. Oh also she was thinking she has ADHD, whatever that is, but I don't think so. I really hope you guys can give me an advice, at least something that will give me a clue of what to do next cause it's really terrible wasting the days like that, after all life is short. Thank you, if you want additional details I'll check occasionally to see if anyone has answered!

[alankay]

Does sound like depression. Have the docs checked her thyroid levels and done a blood test(Complete Metabolic Profile)? The drugs were 2+ years so ago I don't think that would apply here, perhaps a symptom of self-medicating(her trying to feel better) if she felt bad back then just not as bad as now. Hypersomnia(too much sleeping) is more of a depression symptom then anxiety although most report insomnia, some indeed have it the other way around. If this is that bad and they did the blood tests to really rule out a physical cause, it might be in the long run to go inpatient. I'll tell you why. Compliance and to protect the patient. Docs. need to be SURE she's taking the meds as directed so they can record all and steer therapy best. Noncompliance(not doing as directed with regard to meds and all other things) is often found when therapy fails, of course not always. Now if you feel she is not a danger to herself, you can work with the docs and she can likely get improvements if you verify her taking meds and go to appts. with her, etc. To a depressed patient(and bipolar patients like my Dad was) the doc having a set of eyes and ears at home is INVALUABLE. My Dad would often say he was "fine", feeling better" to the docs, and I'd say, "now wait a minute Dad" and give the docs the true info.........the docs told me that helped them(AND him) sooooooo much. If ssri's failed and they'd tried several, Effexor(Venlafaxine) an SRNI is often tried for getting out of a deep, dark funk. Try and hang in there for her. If you can help with the docs. appts. and help make sure she complies with meds., I'd stay outpatient and work with her and the docs that way. If Effexor fails they try a TCA or a ssri augmentor, etc. Yes, it takes weeks to work and she'll have to comply fully to maximize the odds of a favorable result. PLEASE message me directly any time!!! Alankay

[Sineidin]

Hi franhardin, I am not a doctor - but it sounds very much like Depression, your girlfriend needs to go back to her GP and say exactly how she is feeling, and go with her if you are worried and tell the doctor what is going on "be assertive" - Depression is very serious, and can effect how you feel and respond to every day situations. Bless her - she needs to speak to someone. The very fact that you are discussing how she feels says that you care for her deeply, and I think that you are very brave to talk about it, but you have done all that you can - it is time for you to go to the Doctors and get this sorted!! I wish you well x