Question:
Mary, I was sitting here trying to think of what to say (expressing myself is not one of my strong points these days) and then Ed said it. Ditto from me Mary. (and thanks Ed!) Jane
Response:
I know your right, and I would do it all again if thats the only way I could recieve this precious gift of love between me and my son. His name is Noah which means "peace" and rocking him to sleep at night brings me more peace and contentment than I have ever known. This cannot be failure, it feels to good. I hope to hold more babies in my arms someday, and may their entrance to this world be gentle and warm. Thanks for the kindness, Mary
Response:
You are definitely not a failure, Mary. Being a loving mother is far, far more important than the birth experience itself. The trauma of that experience has scarred you, but seems to have only brought you closer to your son. I’m sure you will have more babies to love, if this is what you want. But first, get yourself some help to deal with the legacy of this terrible experience. Like Ed, I can’t imagine what it must have been like. How is your marriage these days? Is the counselling helping? I don’t think you want to get pregnant again while that is so unstable, do you? Please take care of yourself. I do know how you feel about babies. I love them, too, and had lots. But there’s plenty of time. Love Carmel mary.e.chani mary.e.chani wrote: > I know your right, and I would do it all again if thats the only way I > could recieve this precious gift of love between me and my son. His > name is Noah which means "peace" and rocking him to sleep at night > brings me more peace and contentment than I have ever known. This > cannot be failure, it feels to good. I hope to hold more babies in my > arms someday, and may their entrance to this world be gentle and warm. > Thanks for the kindness, > Mary
– " Don’t wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel. Stride down there and light the bloody thing yourself." www.cyberwizards.com.au/~carmel www.cyberwizards.com.au/~jaragun
Response:
Ed, I find this very interesting. I was diagnosed with PTSD after the birth of my son thru emergency c-section. I went into respiratory distress as general anesthesia was being administered. I felt myself stop breathing, and I tried with all my might to move and tell them " I can’t breathe!" But I had been given a paralyzing agent and could not move. According to the anesthesiologist my jaw locked shut and they were unable to intubate me, until they pried my jaw open. At this time, my baby was in big trouble and they had to get him out, my respiratory function was the priority and no anesthetic was given. I felt them cut me open and remove the baby, then everything went black. I thought I was dead. My son was rescuitated and thank god seems healthy and normal. When I came to in the OR, I started screaming at the doctors, "I felt everything, Where is the baby? "I felt you take him!" (my husband overheard this) They immediately knocked me out. I was in hospital for 6 days, I was terrified to sleep, I thought I wouldn’t wake up. The day Ieft the hospital my incision split open from infection. I had had "rigors" (Chills and shaking) and hot flashes for days. Faint streaks on my abdomen, I knew I was sick but I never ran a fever so nobody paid attention. I even made maintenance check my heat twice because I couldn’t get warm. This all occurred because a nurse accidentally turned on the pitocin, (drug to induce contractions) Full bore instead of the lactated ringers she meant to give me. None of this was recorded by the nurses or doctors accurately, really vague. Lawyers say I don’t have a good case. I had/have PTSD, shortly thereafter this MS crap started. I also have lived with abusers all my life. Everytime I think I have a handle on this disease someone else brings up another cause that makes sense, it explains stress=exacerbations. I am so confused, if this cortisol stuff is true what good will it do to take the copoxone I am about to start?? I feel feeble and its not working, life is giving me more than I can take, if not for my son it wouldn’t be worth living. Yes on antidepressants, in therapy. What’s next? Sorry so long, thanks for listening, this is the first time I’ve written about this experience, it is still painful. Mary
Response:
Mary, I’m so sorry for your terrible experience! No wonder you have PTSD. Are you receiving treatment for it? There’s a new kind of psychotherapy called EMDR which is aimed at reducing the trauma of experiences like this. It’s a bit controversial, in that some psychologists don’t think it works. But it isn’t harmful even if it doesn’t. It involves using special finger movements while the patient recalls the traumatic event. It’s not hypnosis, and it sounds a bit airy-fairy, but I think it does work. Colin has been having this kind of treatment. It’s not an instant fix. That’s not possible for such awful trauma, as you will appreciate. But if you stick with it for a while, I believe it makes the thing easier to deal with. If you have access to it, I urge you to try it. I’m not a stranger to trauma, although nothing as terrible as your experience. I watched a man burn to death in a dreadful accident. I was in a tram which was immobilised in full view of the accident, and close enough to see every expression on his face. Petrol from the acccident (which involved a petrol tanker) was pouring down the road in streams of fire, under the tram, so all the people in it were in danger of the same fate as the man we were watching. I was so horrified by what I saw that I was oblivious to that, and after he had obviously died, I got out of the tram and tried to walk to a phone box to call my parents so they wouldn’t be worried. It was on fire, so I kept walking. I was in shock. The flaming petrol was still running down the street, and I was stepping over or through it. No-one stopped me. They were all in shock too. Finally, my legs gave out, and I just managed to get to my aunt’s house, and she called my parents to come and get me. This was in the 1950’s and there was no such thing as trauma counselling in those days. Soon after that, I became ill from extreme anaemia. I don’t know whether the two things are connected. I do know that it knocked the wind out of me for many years, and even now, I find it difficult to drive (or even ride in) a car when I can see a petrol tanker also on the road. Having advised you to try EMDR, I have admit I’m scared to do so myself, for fear of having to experience too much of the old trauma. I know, intellectually, that it would help, but I’m shit-scared. Also scared of finding connections that I’ve tried so hard not to see all these years. So I hope you have more courage than I have, and can manage to seek help to deal with your PTSD. Love Carmel – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -mary.e.chani mary.e.chani wrote: > Ed, > I find this very interesting. I was diagnosed with PTSD after the birth > of my son thru emergency c-section. I went into respiratory distress > as general anesthesia was being administered. I felt myself stop > breathing, and I tried with all my might to move and tell them " I can’t > breathe!" But I had been given a paralyzing agent and could not move. > According to the anesthesiologist my jaw locked shut and they were > unable to intubate me, until they pried my jaw open. At this time, my > baby was in big trouble and they had to get him out, my respiratory > function was the priority and no anesthetic was given. I felt them cut > me open and remove the baby, then everything went black. I thought I > was dead. My son was rescuitated and thank god seems healthy and > normal. When I came to in the OR, I started screaming at the doctors, > "I felt everything, Where is the baby? "I felt you take him!" (my > husband overheard this) They immediately knocked me out. I was in > hospital for 6 days, I was terrified to sleep, I thought I wouldn’t wake > up. The day Ieft the hospital my incision split open from infection. I > had had "rigors" (Chills and shaking) and hot flashes for days. Faint > streaks on my abdomen, I knew I was sick but I never ran a fever so > nobody paid attention. I even made maintenance check my heat twice > because I couldn’t get warm. > This all occurred because a nurse accidentally turned on the pitocin, > (drug to induce contractions) Full bore instead of the lactated ringers > she meant to give me. None of this was recorded by the nurses or > doctors accurately, really vague. Lawyers say I don’t have a good case. > I had/have PTSD, shortly thereafter this MS crap started. I also have > lived with abusers all my life. Everytime I think I have a handle on > this disease someone else brings up another cause that makes sense, it > explains stress=exacerbations. I am so confused, if this cortisol stuff > is true what good will it do to take the copoxone I am about to start?? > I feel feeble and its not working, life is giving me more than I can > take, if not for my son it wouldn’t be worth living. Yes on > antidepressants, in therapy. What’s next? > Sorry so long, thanks for listening, this is the first time I’ve written > about this experience, it > is still painful. Mary
– " Don’t wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel. Stride down there and light the bloody thing yourself." www.cyberwizards.com.au/~carmel www.cyberwizards.com.au/~jaragun
Response:
mary that story hurt to even read. i can’t say that i know how you feel. i can’t imagine what that was like. my heart goes out to you. as far as what good the copaxone will do. that i know something about. what i think happens to us is this. for reasons i’ve written about before. stress and our genetic makeup combine to let the aquired immune system become more autoimmune than it should. so the system creates a class of T-cells that recognize myelin as a "pathogen" or attacker. once our T-cells have learned to attack myelin, ant number of things can trigger flare ups. viruses and physical or emotional stress ar epretty common triggers and when they happen those T-cells that learned to attack us signal that they sense an attacker and then teach the T-cells coming to the rescue to recognize myelin. then we gat a flare up of symptoms when the acual attack and inflamation happen. what copaxone does is chill those parts of the immune system that are causing the trouble out. there are a lot of theorys as to why. but effectively, who cares? it works. it should help. it functions at a stage of the process that has little to do with stress. warmest regards ed — ———————————————————————– "The whole business of his life was in the plunder of his gaze…" Daniel Halevy on Degas | <include>ed’s 3d stuff | http://world.std.com/~ehill | 617-629-4625 |
Response:
Prolonged intermittent use of steroids resulted in an Addison’s Crisis for me, wherein my own adrenals stopped working. It can be life threatening is not diagnoses and takes up to a year to regain your strength. Worth considering. Mostly Irish Barb ed hill <eh…@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:FLH73y.8on@world.std.com… – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> hi folks > there have been some questions about and discussion of steroids here > recently. the following is an updated version of a post i made some time > back on their effects and relationship to some of the cognitive problems. > it’s not just a repost. i’ve added what i’ve learned since the original. > please bear with me, this won’t make much sense unless you read all of it. > the steroids we usually get treated with for exacerbations are prednisone > and methylprenisolone. these both turn into prednisolone in our bodies. > the prednisolone molecule is almost perfectly homologous with (identical > to) cortisal. cortisal is the natural glucocortical steroid that we > produce in response to stress. it’s our natural means of telling our minds > and bodies to prepare for a possable life and death struggle. it’s part of > our "fight or flight response". > for some time now i’ve been digging into what i believe to be causal > factors in MS. (now down to dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s) this > reading has led me to absorb a lot of information on stress. specifically > post traumatic stress in children. > most of the research into post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) has been > aimed at vietnam vetrans. more recently some work has been done in the > area of abused children. much of that in hopes of helping the children of > foreign adoptions to the U.S. from rumanian orphanages where the > conditions are pretty horrible. > cortisal diminishes immune function, inflammatory response and generally > helps us to continue to function optimally in a short term fight or flight > situation. in the long term, the presence of cortisal at elevated levels > is far from benign or helpful. > the overproduction of cortisal is called hypercortisalemia and it can > happen in clinical depression, cushings syndrome and PTSD. in all of these > cases, it’s been shown in clinical trials to result in atrophy of the > hippocampus. the specific nature of the damage seems to vary somewhat. in > the veterans with PTSD it shows up as a roughly 8% reduction in size of > the right hippocampal node. in women who have been abused or raped the > damage is more often to the left node. traumatised children also suffer > from hypercortisalemia. this has been shown in cases of abuse and > abandonment and in environments like the rumanian orphaneges where > children are seldom touched and the caregiver to child ratio is very poor. > in all of these cases there are well documented cognitive deficits. these > are primarily in the areas of "declarative" and "short term" memory. word > seeking suffers. the "it’s on the tip of my tongue" phenomenon occurs > several times in a conversational paragraph rather than once a day or > week. memory IQ drops, paragraph testing showes significant losses of > recall as do similar tests of graphic recall. more frighteningly, there is > less learning in a given situation. subjects scores don’t improve as > rapidly in repeated tests as controls. > glucocorticoids directly effect the hippocampus biphasically. it has two > types of cortisal receptors. type 1 binds cortisal at lower levels and > helps facilitate the formation of incoming memory. type 2 binds cortisal > during stress when it’s present at higher levels and this actually > interferes with memory formation and recall. possibly by blocking glucose > uptake, depriving the neurons of the energy required to handle the energy > hungry memory processes. > there are more specifics but i think the point is made. it’s also my > belief that the amigdala is effected by hypercortisalemia. it has the > second highest density of glucocortical receptors after the hippocampus. > this damage may make it hard for subjects with the above mentioned > illnesses to differentiate between even widely disparate emotional > environments. this may be due more to elevated levels of > catecholamines(sp) stimulated by the presence of the cortical steroid or > that at extremely elevated levels, cortisal simply clogs up all of the > glucose receptors and causes atrophy of the dendrites and eventually the > neurons of the amigdala as well. in either case if the amigdala no longer > functions properly allowing clear, reasoned assesment of environmental > conditions. this may render any shift in either direction between threat > and comfort stressful and threatening. > in the absence of clear emotional definition, a shift in either direction > may start cortisal production creating a cascading cycle of damage. > if that’s what happens in the case of the relatively modest endogenous > production of naturally produced cortisal. then the cognitive deficits > seen in (MS) multiple sclerosis, (RA) rheumatoid arthritis and asthma > become more understandable. > in each of these diseases, the cognitive losses mentioned above are > common. often quite early in the course of the diseases. in studies of > early cognitive changes in MS little relationship is found between white > matter lesion load or location or physical level of function (kurtzack, > EDSS) and cognitive loss. > kids with asthma show lower linguistic skills, more frequent ADD, lowered > learning ability, poor short term and lowered declarative memory. > again, asthma isn’t a neurological disease. the commonality of cognitive > loss "footprint" and use of glucocortical steroids as treatment leaves > little doubt of the cause of the damage. > in rheumatoid arthritis a connective tissue disorder, prednisome is the > common treatment. in tests of cognitive function, RA patients exhibit the > same losses as the above groups despite the fact that RA doesn’t attack > the cns. > my studies have led me to believe that and extended period of > hypercortisalemia early in life is common if not universal among MS’rs. > hence damage to conversational memory has probably occured long before we > become symptomatic from MS. this makes it very imortant to weigh the > potential benefits of avoiding steroid treatments given their likelihood > of aggravating one of our most difficult cognitive deficites. > against the well documented lack of any long term benefit associated with > their use. > best wishes > ed > — > ———————————————————————– > "The whole business of his life was in the plunder of his gaze…" > Daniel Halevy on Degas > | <include>ed’s 3d stuff | http://world.std.com/~ehill | 617-629-4625 |
Response:
In article <9297-38384734…@storefull-611.iap.bryant.webtv.net>, meochin…@webtv.net (mary.e.chani mary.e.chani) wrote:
| I | think part of my desire to become preg again is so I can enjoy the birth | experiance, naturally, and hold my baby on my chest after birth, you | know bonding. I did not do this, I was drugged and my baby was alone. | I have already been preg and miscarried since. | I feel like a failure as a women. Mary Mary, Don’t let that feeling get to you! You must know that the past was not your fault. Keep your energy for the pregnancy and child rearing (this takes lots and lots!). Hope things go well for you. — Take care James (#11)
Response:
hi mary just a thought about what you went through and your perspectives on yourself as a woman being effected. one of the few really valuable lessons i’ve gotten fromMS is that what happens to us physically is often beyond our control. that was certainly the case during that c-section. you were literally a prisoner forced to experience a horrer i can’t even guess the scope of. it might feel natural to blame yourself for your baby being "alone’ during that delivery. but look at your own words and you can’t possibly blame yourself for what happened there. you clearly tried to do things differently and were unable to do so because of the drugs. it was way beyond your control. i don’t know what a definition of a "successful" or "failed" woman might be. but i strongly suspect that defining doesn’t take place during a short, traumatic experience beyond your control. maybe it’s partly about expressing love in different ways over a lifetime. daughter, lover, mother, freind. guess it’s up to each of us how we look at that stuff. but i don’t think a few hours in hell make for failure as a human being. best wishes ed meochin…@webtv.net (mary.e.chani mary.e.chani) writes: >Thank you for responding, at all, when I read what I wrote I thought no >one would touch it with a 10 ft pole. I know they saved us and did the >best they could but they also put me there by giving me an overdose. I >had a normal healthy pregnancy everything was supposed to go fine. I >think part of my desire to become preg again is so I can enjoy the birth >experiance, naturally, and hold my baby on my chest after birth, you >know bonding. I did not do this, I was drugged and my baby was alone. >I have already been preg and miscarried since. >I feel like a failure as a women. Mary
– ———————————————————————– "The whole business of his life was in the plunder of his gaze…" Daniel Halevy on Degas | <include>ed’s 3d stuff | http://world.std.com/~ehill | 617-629-4625 |
Response:
hi mary my previous answer to your post was inarticulate to say the least. frankly i was pretty stunned by the description of your experience. they kept both of you alive, but at a terrible cost to you. that was a life changing experience. i still can’t really wrap my head or heart around what you went through. as far as copaxone helping or not. it should. and i wouldn’t hesitate to start on it given that you are prolly living with serious stress from the memories. the sooner you cut the odds the better. in my lay opinion you also might to look at anxiolytics. at least while you get a handle on the MS and life after DX. i’m gonna guess you relive that horrer pretty frequently. the anxiolytics might help with that while you get some distance and perspective on it. i don’t know if they could have done anything differently. i think not given the realities of the moment once things got moving. but that can’t make you feel much better about the pain. warmest regards ed — ———————————————————————– "The whole business of his life was in the plunder of his gaze…" Daniel Halevy on Degas | <include>ed’s 3d stuff | http://world.std.com/~ehill | 617-629-4625 |
Response:
Thank you for responding, at all, when I read what I wrote I thought no one would touch it with a 10 ft pole. I know they saved us and did the best they could but they also put me there by giving me an overdose. I had a normal healthy pregnancy everything was supposed to go fine. I think part of my desire to become preg again is so I can enjoy the birth experiance, naturally, and hold my baby on my chest after birth, you know bonding. I did not do this, I was drugged and my baby was alone. I have already been preg and miscarried since. I feel like a failure as a women. Mary
Response:
Mary, I don’t know what to say – what a terrifying experience! Hoping you and your baby are coping… In article <9332-38362D50…@storefull-614.iap.bryant.webtv.net>, meochin…@webtv.net (mary.e.chani mary.e.chani) wrote:
| Ed, | I find this very interesting. I was diagnosed with PTSD after the birth | of my son thru emergency c-section. I went into respiratory distress | as general anesthesia was being administered. I felt myself stop | breathing, and I tried with all my might to move and tell them " I can’t | breathe!" But I had been given a paralyzing agent and could not move. | According to the anesthesiologist my jaw locked shut and they were | unable to intubate me, until they pried my jaw open. At this time, my | baby was in big trouble and they had to get him out, my respiratory | function was the priority and no anesthetic was given. I felt them cut | me open and remove the baby, then everything went black. I thought I | was dead. My son was rescuitated and thank god seems healthy and | normal. When I came to in the OR, I started screaming at the doctors, | "I felt everything, Where is the baby? "I felt you take him!" (my | husband overheard this) They immediately knocked me out. I was in | hospital for 6 days, I was terrified to sleep, I thought I wouldn’t wake | up. The day Ieft the hospital my incision split open from infection. I | had had "rigors" (Chills and shaking) and hot flashes for days. Faint | streaks on my abdomen, I knew I was sick but I never ran a fever so | nobody paid attention. I even made maintenance check my heat twice | because I couldn’t get warm. | This all occurred because a nurse accidentally turned on the pitocin, | (drug to induce contractions) Full bore instead of the lactated ringers | she meant to give me. None of this was recorded by the nurses or | doctors accurately, really vague. Lawyers say I don’t have a good case. | I had/have PTSD, shortly thereafter this MS crap started. I also have | lived with abusers all my life. Everytime I think I have a handle on | this disease someone else brings up another cause that makes sense, it | explains stress=exacerbations. I am so confused, if this cortisol stuff | is true what good will it do to take the copoxone I am about to start?? | I feel feeble and its not working, life is giving me more than I can | take, if not for my son it wouldn’t be worth living. Yes on | antidepressants, in therapy. What’s next? | Sorry so long, thanks for listening, this is the first time I’ve written | about this experience, it | is still painful. Mary — Take care James (#11)
Response:
hi folks there have been some questions about and discussion of steroids here recently. the following is an updated version of a post i made some time back on their effects and relationship to some of the cognitive problems. it’s not just a repost. i’ve added what i’ve learned since the original. please bear with me, this won’t make much sense unless you read all of it. the steroids we usually get treated with for exacerbations are prednisone and methylprenisolone. these both turn into prednisolone in our bodies. the prednisolone molecule is almost perfectly homologous with (identical to) cortisal. cortisal is the natural glucocortical steroid that we produce in response to stress. it’s our natural means of telling our minds and bodies to prepare for a possable life and death struggle. it’s part of our "fight or flight response". for some time now i’ve been digging into what i believe to be causal factors in MS. (now down to dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s) this reading has led me to absorb a lot of information on stress. specifically post traumatic stress in children. most of the research into post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) has been aimed at vietnam vetrans. more recently some work has been done in the area of abused children. much of that in hopes of helping the children of foreign adoptions to the U.S. from rumanian orphanages where the conditions are pretty horrible. cortisal diminishes immune function, inflammatory response and generally helps us to continue to function optimally in a short term fight or flight situation. in the long term, the presence of cortisal at elevated levels is far from benign or helpful. the overproduction of cortisal is called hypercortisalemia and it can happen in clinical depression, cushings syndrome and PTSD. in all of these cases, it’s been shown in clinical trials to result in atrophy of the hippocampus. the specific nature of the damage seems to vary somewhat. in the veterans with PTSD it shows up as a roughly 8% reduction in size of the right hippocampal node. in women who have been abused or raped the damage is more often to the left node. traumatised children also suffer from hypercortisalemia. this has been shown in cases of abuse and abandonment and in environments like the rumanian orphaneges where children are seldom touched and the caregiver to child ratio is very poor. in all of these cases there are well documented cognitive deficits. these are primarily in the areas of "declarative" and "short term" memory. word seeking suffers. the "it’s on the tip of my tongue" phenomenon occurs several times in a conversational paragraph rather than once a day or week. memory IQ drops, paragraph testing showes significant losses of recall as do similar tests of graphic recall. more frighteningly, there is less learning in a given situation. subjects scores don’t improve as rapidly in repeated tests as controls. glucocorticoids directly effect the hippocampus biphasically. it has two types of cortisal receptors. type 1 binds cortisal at lower levels and helps facilitate the formation of incoming memory. type 2 binds cortisal during stress when it’s present at higher levels and this actually interferes with memory formation and recall. possibly by blocking glucose uptake, depriving the neurons of the energy required to handle the energy hungry memory processes. there are more specifics but i think the point is made. it’s also my belief that the amigdala is effected by hypercortisalemia. it has the second highest density of glucocortical receptors after the hippocampus. this damage may make it hard for subjects with the above mentioned illnesses to differentiate between even widely disparate emotional environments. this may be due more to elevated levels of catecholamines(sp) stimulated by the presence of the cortical steroid or that at extremely elevated levels, cortisal simply clogs up all of the glucose receptors and causes atrophy of the dendrites and eventually the neurons of the amigdala as well. in either case if the amigdala no longer functions properly allowing clear, reasoned assesment of environmental conditions. this may render any shift in either direction between threat and comfort stressful and threatening. in the absence of clear emotional definition, a shift in either direction may start cortisal production creating a cascading cycle of damage. if that’s what happens in the case of the relatively modest endogenous production of naturally produced cortisal. then the cognitive deficits seen in (MS) multiple sclerosis, (RA) rheumatoid arthritis and asthma become more understandable. in each of these diseases, the cognitive losses mentioned above are common. often quite early in the course of the diseases. in studies of early cognitive changes in MS little relationship is found between white matter lesion load or location or physical level of function (kurtzack, EDSS) and cognitive loss. kids with asthma show lower linguistic skills, more frequent ADD, lowered learning ability, poor short term and lowered declarative memory. again, asthma isn’t a neurological disease. the commonality of cognitive loss "footprint" and use of glucocortical steroids as treatment leaves little doubt of the cause of the damage. in rheumatoid arthritis a connective tissue disorder, prednisome is the common treatment. in tests of cognitive function, RA patients exhibit the same losses as the above groups despite the fact that RA doesn’t attack the cns. my studies have led me to believe that and extended period of hypercortisalemia early in life is common if not universal among MS’rs. hence damage to conversational memory has probably occured long before we become symptomatic from MS. this makes it very imortant to weigh the potential benefits of avoiding steroid treatments given their likelihood of aggravating one of our most difficult cognitive deficites. against the well documented lack of any long term benefit associated with their use. best wishes ed — ———————————————————————– "The whole business of his life was in the plunder of his gaze…" Daniel Halevy on Degas | <include>ed’s 3d stuff | http://world.std.com/~ehill | 617-629-4625 |
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