Do meds help when the underlying issue remains?

[Mushroo]

I am currently depressed (I think) and have high levels of anxiety and feelings of despair. I have suicidal thoughts but I’m not suicidal.

The reason is my little boy (10 months) has multiple, life threatening food allergies. More keep appearing and every meal time I’m just waiting for a reaction, and each new one feels like a death sentence.

I can’t stop crying, doom scrolling, I have no enjoyment and it’s robbed my fun of motherhood. I can’t concentrate on tv programs and I’ll quite regularly have a glass of wine to calm my mind down. I feel sick to my stomach most nights.

I can go and see my GP but I don’t think meds would help here? I know the problem is the allergies rather than a general depression. Or do meds actually help still?

Yes they absolutely help (or they did for me)

They helped me get more control of the thoughts spiralling, give up the doom scrolling and helped me engage in therapy more effectively. The underlying problem was still there but I had the tools to cope with it much better.

You sound like such a caring and responsible mum, you deserve being cared for and supported as you are doing such a great job with your little boy.

A good psychiatrist would point out that the medication is to take the edge off so that you can cope more easily and develop other strategies or do therapeutic work.

They don't "fix" anything alone. We don't even know why they help when they do anyway.

Depression is a natural reaction to a "threat" in your environment - i.e. the allergies situation. You're suffering, if there are things that can help it's fine to explore them.

Also, is there any other support available to you? E.g. a clinical health psychology service you could access to help you learn strategies to cope with the fear and worry?

Thank you, it’s helpful to know it could still help.

I have zero professional support at the moment, just muddling through and second guessing everything.

We’ve kind of been left on our own a bit with the allergies, and I’ve not even explored what support might be available for me. It probably is worth trying to get a referral of some kind, I can’t carry on as it is I don’t think.

Yes they help you think more clearly.

Absolutely they can help. I'm in constant horrible pain and they help me cope. My XH is abusive and they helped me cope through the abuse. It's a misnomer that depression or anxiety that has a cause can't be helped by antidepressants. They can help you cope when life is really hard.

For support with your LO you need a referral to a Paediatric Allergist and Immunologist. I don't know if epi pens are able to be used on very young children, that's something I'd look into personally.

Yes, they can help make things more bearable.

So sorry you‘re going through this.

If he's had any hospital involvement then they usually have connections to "clinical health psychology" who have expertise in helping people cope with the emotional and psychological side of health conditions.

Or your GP should be able to refer you to the local clinical health psychology service. (It's separate from other types of psychology or wellbeing teams.)

You should be able to self-refer to the general wellbeing service too but that will be more generic so I'd recommend checking whether you can access clinical health psychology first as they're more likely to have had experience of managing this type of condition (emotionally/psychologically) and strategies that help. They may also know about other services you could access for practical/medical support on managing the condition.

Do explore support though, you shouldn't have to try and figure this all out on your own.

@gapattachment thank you, I’ll request that. He is under paediatric immunology so I’ll see what’s signposted

I don’t have any advice on medication but just wanted to sympathise as I am in the same boat! My 11 month old daughter was diagnosed with several nut allergies earlier this year and I absolutely dread meal times - especially as we’ve been advised to feed her the other allergens as regularly as possible and she has quite rashy skin so I always panic that she is reacting. I’ve always been quite anxious but this is another level and I think it’s very hard to understand unless you’ve been through it - I don’t know many other allergy parents in real life which doesn’t help.

I’d recommend DrFrancescaS on Instagram though - she’s a psychologist who specialises in allergy and has some great posts about managing anxiety. I really hope it improves for you soon.

Yes! My daughter has ongoing MH issues which cause me significant stress, which started really impacting my MH, this year especially. I finally started on antidepressants about 6 weeks ago and it's already helped a lot.

@Dozzie its so so hard isn’t it? The allergens that I know about actually cause me the least amount of stress! We just avoid them and it doesn’t cause any day to day problems.

It’s the second guessing of everything else that is driving me to the edge, and when we give ‘safe’ meals and he gets a rash, which means we have to go back through every component to double check it all. It’s exhausting.

I’ll give that account a follow, thank you

They have helped me to get more of a handle on my panic and despair but the issue is still very much there and on my mind every day. I was very against taking meds for this reason ie that they wouldn't change the problem. But having gone for it I'm glad I did because I can see that it's enabled me to take somewhat of a step back, but they haven't removed anything. Hope that makes sense! I'm on sertraline, started on 25mg for two weeks and now on 50. Possibly because of the slow build up I had no side effects bar slight nausea for the first few days. I totally get how you feel 💐

My friend is in this membership and finds it invaluable

drhelenallergy.kartra.com/page/MembershipwithDrHelenAllergy

I think it depends what your underlying issue is. In my experience, no. But then my underlying issue is that I'm having cancer treatment and had a stroke, and I'm going through a disability benefits appeal, so have no income. All the therapy and meds in the world don't fill my empty stomach or give me housing security. So for me it hasn't helped, I've been making plans with someone from a suicide forum to end our lives together (as my disability means I need help with it) but then he just backed out at the last minute.
Therapy and meds aren't going to get rid of your child's allergies. But I don't know, maybe they might make you feel calmer about it. The only way to find out is to try.

Yes I totally agree with all of this! Although we are just starting oral immunotherapy which hopefully will be very helpful but brings with it more anxiety about the confirmed allergies. Just know there is someone else going through the same things (I’m just off to give her lunch in the middle of an eczema flare so trying to be confident)

Whoever reported my post as being in need of mental health services, what good do you think that does? All they did is send me an email telling me to seek mental health help. I don't need mental health help, I need food. what is therapy supposed to do, teach me to ignore hunger pangs?

Yes. I had severe treatment resistant depression and psychosis after having my daughter and part of that was her multiple food allergies and reflux. She doesn't have life threatening allergies but she was very sensitive and reacted to me eating the foods. The upshot we had a lot of them identified before weaning. The meds helped even though she was 14 months before she was symptom free.
If you are in south Manchester I know a good parenting children with allergies group.
Another time I had poor mental health due to doing a phd. It was brutal and my mental health was awful but the meds kept me in the world and out of bed. They didn't take the stress away either time but in both cases they improved my ability to cope with the situations. I'm bipolar and many stresses can trigger episodes

Hi@Mushroo just wanted to check in and see how you’re getting on a month on? I’m having quite a spike of anxiety and wondered if you decided to go on the meds and if they helped?

@Dozziethank you for checking in. I’m in a much better place now. I didn’t go on meds in the end, but I have been seeing a therapist and that seems to have helped a lot. Not even really the techniques, but having a weekly meeting to just openly talk.

It has made me realise though that even if you have a clear underlying problem causing the anxiety, there are still things that can be done which help