Idealist,

I this caught my eye too, as my "old friend" has come to sit with me for a while right now.

Whew, there's so much I can say on this subject! I firstly agree with your dr. that depression can, and will, cause weightloss due to lack of appetite. However, when I do that, I also feel a lack of alot of this as well...a basic lack of zeal for anything. I FEEL the depression.

I've never suffered long, or serious depressions, and usually force myself to move past them by keeping very busy (I can do that because most of my depressions are psychological/situational. It they were physical, I couldn't do that more than likely, or not successfully)...during those times I will lose weight as well. Does this sound similar to you possibly? Have you recently been depressed?

If you know that you cholesterols, etc., are good, it sounds like your dr. has run good, and effecient bloodwork on you that would pick on on any obvious physical causes.

If you've been depressed and are "forcing" self to move past it, possibly you're doing like me and keeping self so busy that eating just doesn't happen like it should or at all?

Regardless, I do understand.

KD

I just found this post.

Certainly depression can cause weight loss. But 7 lbs a month is a substantial
amount. For a male, this can lead to loss of the blood carrier proteins that carry hormones around your body. I saw a study in males over 40, who lose their
testosterone binding capability and hence secondary sexual characteristics.

Here is a link with a list of possible causes:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/e...cle/003107.htm

If you are already lean, then you must be losing muscle mass. This is NOT GOOD.
Cardiac cachexia is more common than people think. And today I see younger and younger patients who have heart failure. Sometimes in their early 40's.
http://www.webmd.com/hw/health_guide_atoz/tx4124abc.asp

Also, hidden malabsorption syndromes, like gluten intolerance, can lead to
a loss of nutrients due to failure in absorption. This can be slow, and have few if any symptoms for some people. So hence people may be eating well, and not absorbing much from their food, due to villi damage in the small intestine.
I went back to some of your earlier posts here, and found references to chronic pain, and abdominal pain. So I would seriously suggest you visit our Gluten/Celiac forum here. There may be answers for you there. If you are taking opiates long term for pain, these suppress the hypothalamus pituitary axis and lead to hormone changes. This may be significant for you too.

Once you start to metabolize your muscle mass, you will eventually lose cardiac muscle as well. So I think you should carefully consider a metabolic, medical issue for your weight loss, other than depression (which may be there as a consequence not as a cause.)

I would not trivialize this symptom, and would continue to find an answer for it.

We have a member DogtorJ who is a veternarian. He had severe fibro and by going gluten free (and in his case casein free too)
he turned that around. He now posts on the internet his story:
www.dogtorj.com

Idealist,

Absolutely, Celiac Disease needs to be considered and tested for. Weight loss and depression are hallmark symptoms.

Here are a couple of excellent overview articles, by the AAFP:

Detecting Celiac Disease in Your Patients by Harold T. Pruessner, MD

Gluten-Sensitive Enteropathy (Celiac Disease): More Common Than You Think by David A. Nelson, JR, MD, MS (AAFP)

GI symptoms may or may not be present. You don't mention if you have diarrhea or not, but less than 50% of those with celiac disease do. Weight loss is a classic symptom. It is not a prerequisite, but it would further increase risk. Depression can be the presenting and only symptom of Celiac Disease. There are some 250 symptoms and multiple other conditions associated with Celiac Disease and/or Gluten Sensitivity. There is lots more in The Gluten File, linked below my name. I hope you will read the Diagnostic Page if you consider testing, as you'd want to be sure all the appropriate tests are run. Sorry, you can't always trust your doctors that they will be .

According to statistics, 90% of those with Celiac Disease remain undiagnosed, and the average length it takes for someone to get a diagnosis exceeds ten years. Awareness has increased a lot in the last five years, so that should be getting better....but many doctors still believe it is a rare disease and do not even consider it. It's actually common. Prevalence is 1 in 100.

Anyway, I hope you will consider this possibility. If you have already been tested for Celiac Disease, please obtain your lab results to see what tests were run. You can definitely be gluten sensitive and symptomatic without testing positive for Celiac Disease antibody markers, which is something that is just starting to be recognized.

Cara

P.S.

These symptoms are a red flag that should prompt testing for Celiac Disease/Gluten Sensitivity testing.

This page gives some pubmed abstracts about celiac disease/ depression.
http://jccglutenfree.googlepages.com...,anxiety,panic

Wow, everyone. Thank you all for wealth of info and links. It's going to take me a few days to go through it all, but you have all got me taking this a lot more seriously than I was a few days ago.

KimmyDawn, you may have hit the nail on the head. Just a few weeks ago I went through an exploratory surgery to try and diagnose my pain. It was my last real hope of finding a specific cause for my pain, but in the end revealed nothing. Since then I've been trying hard to accept that, for now at least, the search for a cause is over, and the chances of a full recovery are getting pretty slim. Maybe that's at the root of this. But, like you said, I've just been keeping myself busy and trying to get past it.

I do suffer from constant abdominal pain on the left side, and sometimes from extreme IBS symptoms. I've been tested for Celiac disease, but that was four years ago, when my symptoms first started. Maybe I should ask to be tested again, although I don't notice any ill-effects from consuming wheat.

Thank you, thank you, thank you everybody for taking the time to think this through so thoroughly, and doing such a good job of explaining your thoughts to me.

Idealist

I'm confused by your post, also. The only time I lost weight from depression was in the beginning.
How long have you been depressed and has this been a symptom in the past.
Weight loss can be caused by many things. I'm surprised your doctor passed it off so quickly as depression. Maybe you should get another opinion.j

Yes, retesting might be a good idea. The weight loss could mean you've progressed to later stage disease...which is what it takes to get a dx, unfortunately, because the antibodies are usually not positive until the villi are very damaged. A growing number of doctors, and a whole bunch of patients... are pushing for earlier recognition and treatment of gluten sensitivity, before full blown celiac disease develops. And..there are many people with symptoms related to gluten sensitivity who will never test positive for celiac disease because they have a different type of gluten sensitivity that targets non-gut organs and tissues (may have GI symptoms, too, just not the villi damage on biopsy)...just starting to be recognized.
Gluten Sensitivity vs. Celiac Disease

Symptoms can be delayed and vague/chronic, so there is not always a clear association to eating wheat products. Even some with full blown celiac disease don't have noticible reactions soon after eating gluten, but will suffer from related complications none the less.

Also, if you don't test positive for gluten sensitivity or celiac disease, but suffer from IBS symptoms...check out these pages for some other ideas... assuming you want to try to find some explanations for your abdominal pain and weight loss. I agree with seeking out a second opinion from a gastroenterologist.
IBS, IBD, Crohn's
Not Celiac?
Food Allergy & Leaky Gut Syndrome

Many people have found the best test for gluten sensitivity to be a dietary trial, but if you ever decide to do that...stop in and see us at the GS/CD forum...because there are a few tricks to a gluten free diet. There are other top offending foods, too, that should be considered.

Meanwhile:


Among 11 relatives, at the time of the first screening, 6 already had a positive serology and histology for CD, while 5 became positive only after a period of 2 to 5 y of negative testing.
CD can manifest itself after years of negative serological testing

Also: Follow-Up to the Catassi Study -- Scandinavia
Colin, et al, published a follow-up study to the Catassi (Coeliac Disease in the Year 2000:Exploring the Iceberg - University of Ancona, Italy) in the Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology 28(7):595-8, 1993, which demonstrated that approximately one third of the patients from the Catassi Study who had raised antibodies but no villous atrophy, did have villous atrophy when tested two years later. These results raise the number of diagnosed celiacs from the Catassi, et al study to over 1 in 200.


Gosh...have they looked for tapeworm, h. pylori, or other parasites or infectious agents????

Good luck~

Cara

I have been thinking about this thread.

For chronic IBS that does not respond, there is a new drug out that is
worth trying. Maybe you have already?
It is called Xifaxan..and it is being used for some resistant IBS patients:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/515965
Also ever since reading the studies that came out in 1999 about NSAID use
and villi damage...I have been thinking that many people have acquired gluten intolerance from use of these common pain relieving agents. The increase in incidence of gluten intolerance parallels the OTC availability of these common pain/anti-inflammatory agents. So many people may test negative, but really have damage due to these drugs. NSAIDs suppress the Cox-2 enzyme, which is very active in protecting the gut from substances in food. So when taking NSAIDs you might develop exposures to gluten, that would otherwise not cause difficulty.

There is a connection to essential fatty acid deficiency and GI troubles, and also depression. Many studies are showing improvements in depression with DHA supplements. DHA is found in fish oil, and also synthetically from algae.
The brain needs DHA to prevent depression. It is now added to prenatal vitamins for pregnant women to help the fetus develop and not rob the mother and result in post-partum depression. EFAs also are anti-inflammatory for the GI tract, and help Crohn's and colitis. So anyone with IBS should check their diet and supplement fish oil, if they do not eat well, or in this case, are
frankly losing weight. There are many many papers now on these connections. So, Idealist, if you are not eating the correct foods, etc, you need to pay attention to this factor, and perhaps help yourself heal. I will be starting the EFA thread on Vitamins here soon.

Wow, Idealist, what a great thread. It really has gotten me to thinking. I have lost 29 lbs. since June and since I can afford to lose it, I hadn't thought much about it. After reading your thread, I realize something is causing this. I take prozac for depression but doesn't take all the depression away and I am one that stays depressed but keeps it in. I am very good at hiding it. I have alot to think about now and maybe need to have a few things checked.

I hope that you can find the answers you are looking for. You have gotten alot of good suggestions and that's why BT is so important. It's such a wonderful support system and I personally want to thank you all!

Linda

Sorry, I forgot we now have a new name. NEUROTALK!!!!

Linda

Hey, Coyote. I've suffered from depression off and on for the past three or four years as a result of my chronic pain. I'd been losing weight for quite a while, but it was slowly. About fifteen pounds over two years. Then, a little over two months ago, my weight began to dive. Since then I've lost an additional seventeen pounds, and presently weigh 135. It's dropping so fast that I'm now losing a pound every other day, even though I'm already way underweight.

I did try a gluten-free diet, again that was four years ago, but I only avoided the obvious wheat products like bread, crackers, cereals, etc.

Cara - You're mention of H. Pylori is very interesting, because I was diagnosed with that following an endoscopy just over two months ago. The GE said it was the worst case he'd ever seen. I went through a fifteen day regimen of very strong anti-biotics, but I haven't been retested since then. When I inquired about a retest, I was told not to worry about it unless the symptoms returned. Well, I've been living with abdominal pain and extreme discomfort for so long that it's hard for me to distinguish a few symptoms from all the others. So a retest for H. Pylori would definitely seem worth pursuing. Thank you very much for bringing that up.

Mrsd -thank you very much for thinking about this so hard, and for all the info you've given me. I've been through this time and time again, and I can still find no pattern to my symptoms, other than the fact that I have a very localized stabbing pain in the lower left quadrant of my abdomen that hurts nearly a hundred percent of the time. That was my very first symptom, and I really believe that everything else has spread from there.

And Linda - yeah, it makes you think, doesn't it? I hope you can get your weight back up, too.

Thanks again everybody. Very much! I'm still studying this and going through the info you have all given me. God bless you all...

Idealist