Cody Updates by Mom

A good 18 months after my total gastrectomy, I started feeling very tired.  This tiredness was similar to feeling like I hit the two o’clock wall and was there 100% of the time.

I talked with my doctors and ended up meeting with an endocrinologist.  We did a ridiculous amount of blood work and imagine my excitement to find that there was nothing wrong.  Nothing!  All my levels were normal.

We checked all of my thyroid numbers and those were normal.  My iron levels were a bit high on ferritin but other than that all numbers were within the normal ranges.  I pushed to keep looking at my iron levels because it was the only thing that seemed to be a consistent problem with others that have had this or similar surgeries.  I finally was able to get in to see a hematologist for my iron levels.  Luckily the doc that was assigned to me for hematology was the same doc that was my oncologist for my cancer.  Even though he could find nothing in my blood work he wanted to be able to help my situation.  My tiredness was impacting my entire life and making it difficult to work or function.

My doc asked me about looking to solving the symptom since we did not know the cause.  Since I had been dealing with this for many months I was happy to finally be trying something.  He suggested that I try a very low dose of an anti-depressant.  He suggested that we try it for six months as see if there was any change in my tiredness.

I have been on this med for quite a while now and feel back to my normal self!  It took a good 3-4 weeks for it to start really changing the tired feeling but now that I have had months on it, I feel great.

I started to look into why this would be and I learned something that people do not think of.  First of all it is important that you understand how the anti-depressant that I am on works.  Serotonin is what makes us happy when it goes into the brain.  There is a flow of serotonin that goes from our bodies into the brain.  If there is any issues with it getting into the brain the serotonin will actually turn around and go back into the body.  A blocker will stop the serotonin from returning back into the body and force it to move into the brain.  Hence, more serotonin going to the brain.  This means that tiredness is reduced.

When you have gastrectomy surgery the most important thing they want you to concentrate on is protein.  It is very important that you get enough because of your overall health.  I was focused on protein first and then on the rest of my nutrition.  I did a little research and found that a high protein diet actually reduces the amount of serotonin in your brain.  I do not understand all of the reasoning but I know that many different studies were showing that if you are not getting the right amount of carb nourishment that you may be impacting the amount of serotonin getting to your brain.  Now it makes sense why the anti-depressant helped me with my tiredness.

I don’t know if this will help others as I have also learned that everyone is different but I do know that my energy levels are much more normal now.