Today was C's last day of school for the term. She had a barbecue and bouncy house at the preschool, and I wish more than anything I had been there to see her bouncing around and laughing her head off. :D Now, we have seven weeks of summer vacation. SEVEN WEEKS. Of having her all day. Meaning no "free time" to go to the grocery store without her yelling and grabbing at everything she sees. No quiet brunches with my, well, imaginary friends, I suppose, since I no longer have people in the area to brunch with, heh. Seven weeks of caring for her 24/7 without those precious 16 hours a week to go to the salon, go to the gym, run errands... And all while my own school is starting back up for the summer term. Whee! Life is an adventure, LOL.
The new meds seem to be working remarkably well. I haven't had any mood issues whatsoever; the adjustment was pretty seamless. The only pitfall seems to be that they make me incredibly drowsy. It's not like the last meds, which made me pass out without warning behind the wheel of a car... This is gradual, a heaviness that drifts in like a slow-moving fog and takes over. That being said, I've been napping a lot lately. I'm hoping that will wear off as I get used to the new prescription, and, indeed, I slept much less today than I have been sleeping, so I'm taking that as a sign of progress!
It's great to be in a show again. Rehearsals are something I look forward to, and the work is... well, gratifying. I feel like I'm creating something again, like I'm collaborating creatively, and like I'm working toward an attainable end goal. In many ways, I feel like I'm starting over, trying to remember skills that I haven't practiced in half a decade... But it feels SO GOOD. I can't believe I've been doing anything else with my time for this long.
Showing posts with label prescription. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prescription. Show all posts
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
So Far, So Good
Well, I've been doing my jaw exercises, my ice/massage/heating treatments, and taking my anti-inflammatories, and I'm definitely noticing some slight improvements with my TMJ. I still can't open my jaw straight up and down, but the deviation is DRASTICALLY reduced. I'm clenching my jaw a lot less, which means less tension, less popping, and less locking. All of which translates into less pain. So, if things keep up like this, maybe I won't need surgery after all. *crosses fingers*
On the friend front, I've met a LOT of promising prospects! I have plans to meet with someone tomorrow for lunch and someone else Thursday night for dinner and drinks. I have two other people that have expressed an interest in meeting, but we haven't tried to schedule anything yet, so we'll see. The girl I'm meeting Thursday has a very active circle of friends, so I'm hoping I can work my way in with them and meet even more new people through her. Hubby's a bit anxious about the guy I'm meeting tomorrow for lunch. He has every right to be uncomfortable, but I've made it very clear to all parties involved that I WILL NOT be engaging in any inappropriate activities, and the guy still wanted to meet me. He's either clueless or genuinely interested in a platonic relationship, so I've decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, meet, and figure out what his intentions are. One wrong move, and I simply block him. Easy enough!
A while back, I posted about some of the symptoms I was experiencing in relation to the reduction in my medication. Well, somehow, without me even noticing, those symptoms faded away into nothingness. I have adjusted to the lower dose now, and I'm sleeping well, functioning normally while awake, and my moods are nicely in check. I haven't fallen asleep behind the wheel driving since the dosage was changed, so all is looking good.
The contractor is back today. There are a few very minor touch-ups that need to be done. Today, he's replacing the hardware for the blinds that was lost so that we can re-hang them, and he's fixing the latch on our door that stopped lining up when they took out the carpet. We still haven't moved our stuff back into the room; I think Hubby and I are both kind of enjoying the clutter-free feeling of empty bookshelves and closet rods. ;)
C is on her first day of Spring Break today. Because her school is year-round, it's a three week break. Here's hoping we both get through it without any major meltdowns! All in all, though, life is really good right now.
On the friend front, I've met a LOT of promising prospects! I have plans to meet with someone tomorrow for lunch and someone else Thursday night for dinner and drinks. I have two other people that have expressed an interest in meeting, but we haven't tried to schedule anything yet, so we'll see. The girl I'm meeting Thursday has a very active circle of friends, so I'm hoping I can work my way in with them and meet even more new people through her. Hubby's a bit anxious about the guy I'm meeting tomorrow for lunch. He has every right to be uncomfortable, but I've made it very clear to all parties involved that I WILL NOT be engaging in any inappropriate activities, and the guy still wanted to meet me. He's either clueless or genuinely interested in a platonic relationship, so I've decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, meet, and figure out what his intentions are. One wrong move, and I simply block him. Easy enough!
A while back, I posted about some of the symptoms I was experiencing in relation to the reduction in my medication. Well, somehow, without me even noticing, those symptoms faded away into nothingness. I have adjusted to the lower dose now, and I'm sleeping well, functioning normally while awake, and my moods are nicely in check. I haven't fallen asleep behind the wheel driving since the dosage was changed, so all is looking good.
The contractor is back today. There are a few very minor touch-ups that need to be done. Today, he's replacing the hardware for the blinds that was lost so that we can re-hang them, and he's fixing the latch on our door that stopped lining up when they took out the carpet. We still haven't moved our stuff back into the room; I think Hubby and I are both kind of enjoying the clutter-free feeling of empty bookshelves and closet rods. ;)
C is on her first day of Spring Break today. Because her school is year-round, it's a three week break. Here's hoping we both get through it without any major meltdowns! All in all, though, life is really good right now.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Not Quite Right
Well, it's been about a week since I switched to the lower dose of meds, if my daily pill sorter can be trusted. So far, things are... not quite right.
Today, I feel like my skin is crawling, and I kinda want to just rip it off. I keep thinking about taking a shower, as if that might help. I'll probably give it a try, because, while it may be a stretch, it may have a placebo effect. At the gym today, I got dizzy (par for the course) and had to sit down on the gym floor for over 5 minutes (NOT normal) until my head got right. Even then, I felt nauseated and achy and all around WRONG. I felt like the only thing in the world I could do was crawl into bed and sleep it off.
I was really moody the first few days. Poor Hubby had to deal with quite a few temper flare-ups, mostly from my inability to take a joke. It's hard to be carefree and happy when your body feels terrible.
It's difficult to explain, but when your meds aren't right or you're adjusting to a new dose, there's this sort of disconnect between your head and the rest of your body, and things don't feel right in either place. In your head, there's a sensation of being detached from your thoughts, almost as if they're coming from an outside source. I'm not hearing voices or anything that extreme, but I feel like thoughts are handed to me instead of created within my own brain. On top of that, my body feels vaguely like I've got the flu, and my skin feels like it's been glued on top of my body. I feel like I could peel it off.
Emotionally, I'm doing alright. My moods have leveled back out again, although I'm experiencing some increased rates of anxiety (the reason my dose was up so high in the first place), and it can get a little emotional when you feel like your body's just OFF. So I cry a little. No big sobfests, but tears of frustration that I have to feel lousy and there's nothing I can do except wait for my body to adjust to the new levels of medication in my system.
In other news, I've set out on a mission to make some new, local friends. There's a website that's intended to be used as a dating site but has an option to select for just friends, too. I've met some really cool people on there in the past, so I started up a profile again and have started putting out feelers. I actually had plans to meet this really cool chick for drinks this evening, but something came up and she asked to postpone. Maybe she found my blog and realized I'm secretly crazy and got scared away. ;) In any event, I've met a couple of interesting people, mostly local. I'm having to be careful because there are far more guys on there than girls, and the hubby's not too interested in me making new guy friends, so I'm trying to be polite but distant with the men while sorting through the women and looking for those who have shared interests and/or interesting hobbies. I have GOT to get a social life! Our last local friends moved (ironically to the city where my parents live, so at least I'll still be seeing them a few times a year) on Saturday, and we didn't see THEM nearly often enough... I need to befriend someone who has a social circle so I can branch out and have people to see movies with, to go to dinner with, to go see local bands with, and maybe someone who doesn't work in the mornings who would like to get brunch once in a while while C is in school. My social life has been on the back burner for years now, and I think it's contributed a great deal to the troubles I've had. I can't keep waiting for my girlfriends in OK to suddenly decide they want to move to Reno or for us to get magically summoned back by some unforeseen job offer in Norman. We've settled in here; we bought a house here; I'm starting a career here... It's time to make it official and MAKE SOME FRIENDS HERE.
Today, I feel like my skin is crawling, and I kinda want to just rip it off. I keep thinking about taking a shower, as if that might help. I'll probably give it a try, because, while it may be a stretch, it may have a placebo effect. At the gym today, I got dizzy (par for the course) and had to sit down on the gym floor for over 5 minutes (NOT normal) until my head got right. Even then, I felt nauseated and achy and all around WRONG. I felt like the only thing in the world I could do was crawl into bed and sleep it off.
I was really moody the first few days. Poor Hubby had to deal with quite a few temper flare-ups, mostly from my inability to take a joke. It's hard to be carefree and happy when your body feels terrible.
It's difficult to explain, but when your meds aren't right or you're adjusting to a new dose, there's this sort of disconnect between your head and the rest of your body, and things don't feel right in either place. In your head, there's a sensation of being detached from your thoughts, almost as if they're coming from an outside source. I'm not hearing voices or anything that extreme, but I feel like thoughts are handed to me instead of created within my own brain. On top of that, my body feels vaguely like I've got the flu, and my skin feels like it's been glued on top of my body. I feel like I could peel it off.
Emotionally, I'm doing alright. My moods have leveled back out again, although I'm experiencing some increased rates of anxiety (the reason my dose was up so high in the first place), and it can get a little emotional when you feel like your body's just OFF. So I cry a little. No big sobfests, but tears of frustration that I have to feel lousy and there's nothing I can do except wait for my body to adjust to the new levels of medication in my system.
In other news, I've set out on a mission to make some new, local friends. There's a website that's intended to be used as a dating site but has an option to select for just friends, too. I've met some really cool people on there in the past, so I started up a profile again and have started putting out feelers. I actually had plans to meet this really cool chick for drinks this evening, but something came up and she asked to postpone. Maybe she found my blog and realized I'm secretly crazy and got scared away. ;) In any event, I've met a couple of interesting people, mostly local. I'm having to be careful because there are far more guys on there than girls, and the hubby's not too interested in me making new guy friends, so I'm trying to be polite but distant with the men while sorting through the women and looking for those who have shared interests and/or interesting hobbies. I have GOT to get a social life! Our last local friends moved (ironically to the city where my parents live, so at least I'll still be seeing them a few times a year) on Saturday, and we didn't see THEM nearly often enough... I need to befriend someone who has a social circle so I can branch out and have people to see movies with, to go to dinner with, to go see local bands with, and maybe someone who doesn't work in the mornings who would like to get brunch once in a while while C is in school. My social life has been on the back burner for years now, and I think it's contributed a great deal to the troubles I've had. I can't keep waiting for my girlfriends in OK to suddenly decide they want to move to Reno or for us to get magically summoned back by some unforeseen job offer in Norman. We've settled in here; we bought a house here; I'm starting a career here... It's time to make it official and MAKE SOME FRIENDS HERE.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Side Effects and Withdrawals
Over the past several months, my medications have kept my moods stable. I have felt myself collected, on firm and steady ground, without any major mood swings or breakthrough episodes of mania or depression. Things have been good. However, a disturbing side effect began to rear its head some months ago, and, recently, it has become so severe that I've had to adjust the dosage of my meds. That side effect? Narcolepsy.
Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. I don't know the clinical diagnostic criteria for narcolepsy, nor have I been diagnosed as having such. All I know is, I'll be fine, and then I can't keep my eyes open. Like, literally CANNOT keep them open. It doesn't matter if I'm standing, sitting, working, relaxing, carrying C, or even DRIVING (this is what gets so scary). I have become addicted to caffeine again in my attempts to overcome the overwhelming fatigue that hits suddenly and quickly makes me comatose. Even large doses of caffeine only dull the effects. I have fallen asleep in classes, and I have fallen asleep numerous times behind the wheel before I could get safely pulled over.
So, in an effort to protect not only myself but all the other good people who might be on the roads I drive, we have decreased the dosage of my primary mood stabilizer, Geodon. It's been about three days since I started the new dose, and last night, it hit me HARD. I take my pills at bedtime so any drowsiness will be put to good use as I settle in for the night, but at medication time, I started getting sweaty and shaky. My heart was racing, I couldn't catch my breath, and my thoughts went into a tailspin. I swear, I was hearing myself think at a hundred words a second, and none of it was in English. (I'm not claiming it was in any real language, mind you--I don't think I secretly know any other languages, nor do I believe it was any form of speaking in tongues, but the words that I was thinking--VERY LOUDLY--were definitely NOT English words.) My stomach ached, and I was on the verge of tears. I felt like I was dying. Every instinct in my body was screaming at me to go take another Geodon to increase the amount in my system, to combat the withdrawals. Of course, while trying to decrease a dose, taking extra medication doesn't do any good. Besides, there was no way to take a pill and get anything other than MORE than my previous dose, and who knows what effect that might have? For about an hour, while I waited for the evening's pills to kick in, I sat in bed and wished that I would die. Then, as suddenly as it started, the symptoms vanished, and I was able to enjoy a little television with the hubby before I rolled over to go to sleep.
We're not sure how effective this lower dose will be at controlling my moods. We're also not entirely sure that decreasing the dose will stop the frightening narcolepsy-like side effects. If the lower dose doesn't work, for whatever reason, I will have to change medications and begin again the arduous task of finding the right dose of the right medication. That means months of trial and error, of feeling like I'm walking a tightrope over a pit of bleak insanity, of struggling just to get through my day-to-day tasks. It's not something I want to go through again. Ever. It's a miserable process, to be sure. I'm hoping that, after these first few weeks of adjusting to the new dose, I'll be able to control my moods without falling asleep at inopportune times, and the withdrawal symptoms will cease. In the mean time, I am fortunate to have a strong and understanding husband to support me, to hold me, and to reassure me that these feelings will pass, and I'm not going to die.
To anyone who thinks that living with bipolar disorder is easy, let me assure you, it is not. Then again, living without bipolar disorder probably isn't so easy, either. We're all in this together.
Edit: It's only fair of me to point out the one positive side effect of this change in my medication: My appetite has decreased remarkably. I'm forgetting to eat, which means I'm not overeating for a change, which is always a good thing. We'll see how long THAT lasts, though. ;)
Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. I don't know the clinical diagnostic criteria for narcolepsy, nor have I been diagnosed as having such. All I know is, I'll be fine, and then I can't keep my eyes open. Like, literally CANNOT keep them open. It doesn't matter if I'm standing, sitting, working, relaxing, carrying C, or even DRIVING (this is what gets so scary). I have become addicted to caffeine again in my attempts to overcome the overwhelming fatigue that hits suddenly and quickly makes me comatose. Even large doses of caffeine only dull the effects. I have fallen asleep in classes, and I have fallen asleep numerous times behind the wheel before I could get safely pulled over.
So, in an effort to protect not only myself but all the other good people who might be on the roads I drive, we have decreased the dosage of my primary mood stabilizer, Geodon. It's been about three days since I started the new dose, and last night, it hit me HARD. I take my pills at bedtime so any drowsiness will be put to good use as I settle in for the night, but at medication time, I started getting sweaty and shaky. My heart was racing, I couldn't catch my breath, and my thoughts went into a tailspin. I swear, I was hearing myself think at a hundred words a second, and none of it was in English. (I'm not claiming it was in any real language, mind you--I don't think I secretly know any other languages, nor do I believe it was any form of speaking in tongues, but the words that I was thinking--VERY LOUDLY--were definitely NOT English words.) My stomach ached, and I was on the verge of tears. I felt like I was dying. Every instinct in my body was screaming at me to go take another Geodon to increase the amount in my system, to combat the withdrawals. Of course, while trying to decrease a dose, taking extra medication doesn't do any good. Besides, there was no way to take a pill and get anything other than MORE than my previous dose, and who knows what effect that might have? For about an hour, while I waited for the evening's pills to kick in, I sat in bed and wished that I would die. Then, as suddenly as it started, the symptoms vanished, and I was able to enjoy a little television with the hubby before I rolled over to go to sleep.
We're not sure how effective this lower dose will be at controlling my moods. We're also not entirely sure that decreasing the dose will stop the frightening narcolepsy-like side effects. If the lower dose doesn't work, for whatever reason, I will have to change medications and begin again the arduous task of finding the right dose of the right medication. That means months of trial and error, of feeling like I'm walking a tightrope over a pit of bleak insanity, of struggling just to get through my day-to-day tasks. It's not something I want to go through again. Ever. It's a miserable process, to be sure. I'm hoping that, after these first few weeks of adjusting to the new dose, I'll be able to control my moods without falling asleep at inopportune times, and the withdrawal symptoms will cease. In the mean time, I am fortunate to have a strong and understanding husband to support me, to hold me, and to reassure me that these feelings will pass, and I'm not going to die.
To anyone who thinks that living with bipolar disorder is easy, let me assure you, it is not. Then again, living without bipolar disorder probably isn't so easy, either. We're all in this together.
Edit: It's only fair of me to point out the one positive side effect of this change in my medication: My appetite has decreased remarkably. I'm forgetting to eat, which means I'm not overeating for a change, which is always a good thing. We'll see how long THAT lasts, though. ;)
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