My Journey with MS and Other Ailments Part Two

As I Reread part one I realized there was nothing about the spiritual side. During this time I had one bad episode of anxiety. That was in 2010. I learned what psychosomatic illnesses are. I was anxious all the time and losing sleep over it. I was afraid for the future and was spending all my mental energy thinking about what I would do when the next step and the next step after that would happen. I wanted to figure something out. You know I was an engineer so overthinking things is a personality trait.

I truly depend on the Lord but my anxiety was robbing me and giving me symptoms of digestive disorders. After a battery of tests over a month they found nothing in my digestive, renal and such that could be causing my problems. I realize my problems were psychosomatic and went back to my primary care doctor and he put me on an anti-anxiety medication. The first week of this medication was very difficult. It seemed to raise my anxiety and introduce depression on a level I had never experienced. I called Dr. after three days and told him I didn’t think I can make it. It was considered a medication that needed a week for adjustment to the medication. He asked me to hang on for another few days and see if it changed. After six days of the med I stabilized and found it works fantastic. I have been on it ever since. No side effects. It’s amazing how some of these new medications are so subtle and have no side effects. At this point I have to praise my primary care physician, Dr. John Roof. In all my MS physical trials he has been the best help of any one I could find. I trust him implicitly.

After I went on the antianxiety medication (it is also considered antidepressant) I slept much better. I had been waking up at night and trying to solve future problems. They just went round and round and round. I know worry robs us of our joy and they found the medication broke that cycle of fretting over and over and over and over about the same thing. I still would wake up at night planning for the future but it would not keep cycling and I could go back to sleep easily. I know some Christians say you should not use these type of drugs and just trust the Lord. I trust the Lord implicitly and believe some of these medications are here to help us not rob us. My rule over the years has been that if a medication makes me feel drugged or sedated I don’t want to be on it. If that happened then I need find a different medication or just tough it out. That is one of the reasons I like Dr. Roof because he understands how I feel about this and tells it to me straight.

This is part two in my series I hope to continue. Right now the results from dropping my trigeminal medication are looking very positive. I am hesitant to announce the good news until I go a few days or a week with good results. Stay tuned “same Bat time, same Bat channel”. I think you have to be in your late 50s to understand that reference.