please help, wife's mutliple health issues

B

bsc1280

Registered User
Hi All


I am posting here to get some help regarding some health issues my wife is facing

Some background

. She is in her late twenties, we have an active 3 years old kid at home.
. She has a relatively immunity since the time I know her, especially when it comes to sore throat, flu, allergies and has mild asthma at times.
. We have a full time helper at home and she is a SAHM. She has been complaining of the hectic work for past few years (off and on). I think the work load is there but nothing that is unmanageable as we have a fulltime helper.
. Things have aggregated since last 1 years, when she suffered a miscarriage in 12th week. It was a major setback for both of us and it took time for us to come out of it.


Current situation:
. for past 5-6 months, she has been complaining of extreme fatigue, pain in body, disturbed sleep. She finds it too hard to manage the household work and I can see the fatigue is increasing with time.
. She also has low grade fever (~37.5 ? 37.6 ) every few days and with this she complains of pains, tiredness, fatgue. She does wake up 1-2 times at night to feed out kid and then wakes up around 10 am in the morning, still complaining that she did not get enough sleep. Crying that she cant handle the work etc etc
. Mood swings and sign of depressions have been increasing. Often complaining of how small out apartment is (by HK standards it still a 1100 sqft), how bad the life we are living, etc etc. The mood gets better when we go out (over weekends), eat out etc.
. She did not loose any weight , she had gained with the pregnancy last year. She has infact gained more weight. Eating habits are not that good
. She does not do any phsycial excericse. Complains that she is too tried to do anything. This is a a vicious cycle and I have been unable to break it.



I did some research and found these causes for these symptoms. Personally I feel it?s the chronic fatigue syndrome. Or it can be depression too (but it does not cause low grade fever I think).

Symptom Search for General weakness, Fatigue, Low grade fever on Yahoo Health

I know this is not a medical forum but I REALLY need your help here. Please if

. If you have suffered or know anyone who have suffered from these symptoms, please share your experiences

. If you know of a doctor who is very good and experienced with such treatments, please let me know. I am sorry to say but majority of HK doctors won?t even listen to the long story above and such diseases as CFS are easy to be misdiagnosed. There is some issue cauing depression/mood swings or the depression is causing other ailments?.

This is really affecting my personal life, the environment at home is stressed at times. I have tried my level best to help her with household chores, cheer up her mood etc but I think we really need some medical help now.
 
Sorry you're going through this. I would first take her to a GP and just get some simple blood work done and hopefully rule out any medical problems that maybe causing the fever.

I would also recommend seeing a counselor. The St. John's Cathedral offer counseling services or perhaps your Dr can recommend someone. Also sounds like your wife maybe homesick? Do you think a parent or sibling can come visit?

http://www.stjohnscathedral.org.hk/counselling.html
 
I don't have any medical advice or doctors to recommend, unfortunately. But I wanted to ask why she can't give more work to the helper? For example, why does she do any housework at all if she has a helper. My full time helper does all the housework, cleans, cooks and does occasional babysitting. Also, if your child is 3 years old, I'm also wondering why your child is being fed 1-2 times a night. If you can't cut the feedings, maybe you should do the feedings?

Also, a 3 year old child can be enrolled in a nursery class or K1 actually....if not school, then there should be plenty of activities you could enroll your child in. If the helper can take the child out, then your wife could get more time to rest.

These are just practical thoughts that jumped to my mind before you even approach the medical issues.....
 
Thanks Rani and FutureHKMom

We went to our hometown in summers and she was better there. Atleast not complaining about the fatigue as she had 2 helpers and family support.

We did some bloodtests done a few months back and there was nothing too obvious there.

The problem is that the helper is actually doing a lot of household work. cleaning, grocerry shopping, doing the basic food cooking or atleast helping in cutting etc. So I think its not the amount of household work! Its either emotional or something medically wrong with the body (i am more inclined to believe the later).

My kid is not very friendly with the helper but she does help take care of the kid when my wife goes out alone sometimes. So in my opinion, the household work is there but much manageable for a SAHM mother. My wife has been physically very unfit since last 1 year. Complaining of getting tired after 10 misn walks to mtr etc etc

The problem is that it would be very very tough to be able to convince her to goto a counsellor and she is generally quite doubtful about just going to any GP. In my opinion we need to start with some doctor who is experienced in handling such cases and do the test for CFS or other related problems. Its some mild depression causing these or these conditions causing a midl depression......

please can you all help me more on this..................
 
though I've not been to her myself I hear good things about Dr. Sarah Borwein at Central Health. She is a GP but she also has a psychologist and psychiatrist in her practice. so your wife can be referred if need be
 
Thanks a lot everyone
I will check for more info about her. She has a degree in infectious diseases, etc

I am hoping i will find someone who knows of a doctor with similar experiences....
 
Sorry you are going through this but sounds like your wife is going through some sort of depression, maybe related to the miscarriage?

I'm no doctor but if the depression gets bad enough and psychologically the person themselves "feel" unwell, then it can cause physical problems too. I would definitely suggest seeing a counsellor or psychologist to try to sort things out and help pull her through.

Hope things get better!
 
i do understand that there is a mild depression affecting her as things have become worst in past 1 year. however i measure her temperature and its 37.5-37.6C every few days, she complains of shortness of breadth when we walks for long...complains of body pains almost daily....and how our life is so miserable with no car, no house, HK pollution etc etc etc....
 
bsc1280 said:
i do understand that there is a mild depression affecting her as things have become worst in past 1 year. however i measure her temperature and its 37.5-37.6C every few days, she complains of shortness of breadth when we walks for long...complains of body pains almost daily....and how our life is so miserable with no car, no house, HK pollution etc etc etc....
Click to expand...

37.5 isn't really a fever. If it' s below 38 I wouldn't worry about it.

She sounds depressed to me.
 
I does sound like a depression. Make sure she get to see a psychiatrist or a psychologist. But also get her to see a doctor to rule out any infections. Check also the thyroid. A malfunction of that can cause similar symptoms.
Good luck and all the best!
 
.and how our life is so miserable with no car, no house, HK pollution etc etc etc....

She may or may not have depression or some other medical disorder but she is better when she is back home. That to me that it's probably related to the environment. Why don't you just listen to her. She may HATE it here. She may just want to be home and has become deflated living here and its pushed her into depression. She seems to get better when she is home. So you need to listen to her. Be frank, if she really hates it here no amount of medication (antidepressants ect) are going to make it better, neither will counseling.
Perhaps she is missing her family now that she has a child. Perhaps the adventure of Hong Kong is over for her and she just wants to be with her friends.
 
If you want to see a GP first you could try dr Edmund cheong in central. I saw him when he was at quality healthcare and was impressed by how gentle and considerate he was. He now practices privately. Once I went when I was pregnant basically because I was worried I had contracted some dreadfull disease and he was very patient about it. My friend still sees him and swears by him. I think the number is 25268088.
 
Thanks a lot everyone
We visited dr Sarah and she took blood tests etc to get all the investigation started
She recommended a psychiatrist too but the fee is 2000/consultation

Do you know if public hospitals cover this ? Will we have to wait a lot ? Any reasonably priced good psychologist / psychiatrist ? Thanks again
 
Did she say psychiatrist or psychologist/counsellor. If the latter, PM me, I have some experience in the public system with this.
 
Oh, Charade. You are a lifesaver! I saw wonderful Edmund Cheong for 10 years at Quality Healthcare. Then he disappeared and they refused to tell me where he went. He's a great GP -- very kind and willing to listen. I will look him up now.
 
bsc1280 - My husband has suffered from despression. It made me realize that it really is a disease -- including physical symptoms -- and not just like a normal person being sad. If your wife is really depressed, she will need professional counselling and medical attention.

Pointing out practical reasons for a depressed person "not to be depressed" does not work. My husband knew he had a nice wife, kids, job, house, etc., but he still could not control his moods without help. A vacation home might help things temporarily, but not for the long-term.

If your wife has depression, it will not matter if she has a physically comfortable life. Because you are right: a SAHM with one child, a full-time helper and 1,000+ sq ft home should not be exhausted. Think of how many working moms there are with several kids!

My husband's depression caused obvious physical ailments like stomach cramps, fatigue, loss of appetite. Other people get rashes, vomiting, greater appetite, etc. So maybe a low-grade fever is not surprising.

My husband refused help at first - most depressives do. But, if your wife is serious, she will need basic tests to make sure she is not suffering from some imbalance, or anemia, or other physical problem.

She can also try the counsellors at Resource.
ReSource The Counselling Centre

The first two times, I had to physically go with my husband to convince him. But with support and treatment, he has returned to normal. Good luck to you two!
 
@ Gracey I know, he's awesome and I had the same problem when i called Quality Healthcare. I tracked him down through a friend. Actually, the number I posted, I got off Google. If it doesn't work, give me a shout and I can track down the number from my friend again.
 
Agree with the other posters - get her to a good doctor. Great post about depression being a serious illness with a physical basis which needs good professional treatment.

Also, often people with undiagnosed illnesses may also seem to present with depression (the fact of having an illness that's having that much of an impact on life quality can also make people depressed).

I'm not sure where 'home' is, but have things like hepatitis, glandular fever or Lyme Disease been ruled out? The latter is relatively uncommon in HK, so doctors may miss it. I assume she's got a good gynae who can rule out the more common forms of gynaecological malignancies? Is her blood pressure stable? Fasting blood sugar levels ok?
 
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