Tag Archives: bipolar disorder

Seroquel samples, 1. Me, 0.

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I briefly entertained the idea of going off of my medication this week.

I’m pretty used to Seroquel by now. I take it and everything seems to balance out. I feel like I can manage my life and my emotions better. But I recently ran out of my 400mg prescription, and started taking the samples I’d saved again. For some reason, the samples feel stronger than the prescription. If I miss one night, and take it the next night, it will literally knock me out for hours. I missed a whole day this weekend because of it.

I’ve now missed two nights. I’m afraid to take it because I’m afraid of missing work or waking up in time for work but being too lethargic to get through the day. The only thing that has kept me resolved to taking it tonight is because I know that going off of it would probably be very bad. My regular prescription doesn’t make me that tired. I’m hoping to get it refilled this weekend. (It just sucks because my copay is $40!) Until then, I have to keep taking the evil samples.

Has anyone else ever experienced something this weird? I mean, I know I react to medications pretty oddly, but this is odd even for me!

Let's add another specialist to my doctor soup

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An inch of snow on even the most fragile tree branches

When I saw Pam — my PA-C — on Friday, my mission was to make sure that she looked into Crohn’s Disease. With all of the symptoms together, knowing that my aunt has Crohn’s, and knowing that my symptoms are cyclic as opposed to occurring all of the time, Pam decided to send me to a gastroenterologist. (Whom I forgot to call today and yesterday.) It also turns out, interestingly enough, that the doctor Pam referred me to is also my aunt’s gastroenterologist. My aunt said that he was the first doctor to say to her, “I don’t know what’s wrong, but your problem is real, and I’m going to figure it out,” sort of like how Pam is to me. My aunt also said that he was the one to diagnose her.

I’m probably getting my hopes up here, but maybe he will be the one to diagnose me — even if it isn’t Crohn’s.

Pam also bumped me up to 300mg of Seroquel XR. I’d been on 250. So far, I’m still not seeing any difference — at least, I don’t think so. I think it may be helping a little, but she said that if it were working, I would notice it. If I haven’t noticed a difference by Friday, I’m supposed to call her so she can bump me up again. Luckily, she’s been really cool and has given me tons of samples so that I don’t have to keep buying different prescriptions as she changes my dosage.

I have noticed that it makes me pretty fatigued. I think today wasn’t as bad as the previous weeks, and Pam said that it is supposed to ebb as my body gets used to it, but damn it sucks. I’m tired enough, you know? Between all of the hours I work, barely sleeping, whatever this autoimmune disease is, and now this med, I’m beat.

Still, I’ve been accomplishing a lot lately. Letters of Love now has a community for pen pals. It’s doing pretty well. I’d like to see more interaction between everyone, but it’s still early. Right now, my focus is building up a readership for the myLOL blog.

I’ve also been reading a lot. Right now I’m reading On the Road, and before that I read The Lovely Bones.

As soon as I finish the big client project I’ve been working on throughout the last few months, I’m going to give this place a makeover, finish my design for Freaking Bookworm, and do something about Letters of Love and myLOL so that they match (right now myLOL has a generic theme). Being a designer, I can’t stand not making them look unique. It’s time to make my digital homes look like home.

Maybe the Seroquel is working. I feel a lot more positive. Then again, my mood is like a roller coaster; I never know when it is going to change and how long it is going to remain the same.

I guess we’ll see what things look like on Friday.

So far, so good, oh well

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I’ve been kind of avoiding my blog lately, to be honest. I haven’t really had a lot to say. So much for blogging every day, huh?

Tonight I graduated to 200mg of Seroquel. I accidentally skipped my 150mg dose the night before last, so I’m not sure if that’s going to affect me in any way. I couldn’t call Pam to ask, and totally forgot to ask my mom, so we’ll see. I feel fine, if not a little tired and cranky at times, but that could just be normal and have nothing to do with the meds.

So far, I think the Seroquel is working. I mean, I don’t feel any different — at least, I don’t think so. But I guess that’s a good thing, since most medications affect me in weird ways. I was on Zoloft for about a year when I was a teenager, and it eventually made me completely and coldly apathetic; I wouldn’t have given a shit if my whole family died. That’s a scary feeling, let me tell you. I had to wean myself off of it — because if you just stop taking it, it could make you suicidal (go antidepressants!) — and didn’t want to try anything else. Then, not too long ago, I went on Cymbalta because my rheumatologist thought it might help with the pain and the depression. Cymbalta made me more energized than the Energizer Bunny; I was like the Energizer Bunny on CRACK. I didn’t sleep at all. After about four days, I stopped taking it.

Pam says that people with bipolar disorder don’t respond well to antidepressants; they either don’t respond at all or have weird side effects — like what I experienced. So I guess my PA-C is pretty sure I’m bipolar, which is good; I really like that she listens to me and takes into account what I think. I told my mom years ago that I thought I was bipolar, and she brushed it off. (She still doesn’t think I am, whereas most of the other people I interact with do agree that I could be bipolar. I think she’s just seen way too many extreme cases at work; she’s a psych tech in the behavioral disorder section of a hospital.)

Seroquel does do one thing, though: it makes me super tired once I take it. I have to get a good night of sleep, or else I’ll be out of it for hours the next day. Pam warned me about this, and I’m stoked to for once respond to medication the way I’m supposed to. (Remember Neurontin? After about a week of being on that stuff for my pain, I ended up high as a kite on night in Mike’s basement, not knowing where I was or who I was with. Yeah. I so want to take that again. NOT.)

I see Pam again on Friday. I hope that she was able to get some ideas out of my rheumatologist’s notes. I try really hard not to think about the fact that it might take years more to get a diagnosis. I try not to worry that between now and then, whatever it is could get even worse — devastatingly worse. So far, I’ve been lucky. I mean, it sucks to be in mind-numbing pain when the pain hits, but so far it hasn’t done any damage — that I can see, anyway. I am pretty much stuck until I do find out what it is, though.

Anyway. How are you doing?

PS: I need some feedback on a couple of sections from Secondhand Mom, so I’m thinking about posting an excerpt here. Would you be down?

PSS: Freaking Bookworm is back up!

Time to kick some depression and autoimmune ass

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I leave most doctor appointments feeling pretty frustrated, as if I’ve gotten nowhere and am starting over — all over again. Having an undiagnosed autoimmune disease means bouncing from doctor to doctor, telling my story over and over, and usually receiving a response something like, “Well, shucks, you’ve got a lot of symptoms, but fucked if I know what’s wrong! Also, all of your blood work is normal. You’re normal. Yay!” I try not to blame the doctors, but really — they’re doctors. They’re supposed to know, dammit!

I’m also always very hesitant to admit when I’m depressed. It’s easier to write about it here than it is to say the words out loud while looking someone directly in the eye.

But today — well, okay, technically it is now past 12am Saturday so this all happened yesterday — I shoved all of those fears aside and went to see Pam, my PA. And you know what? It wasn’t bad. At all.

Pam asked what I was there for, and I right away admitted that I’m having a hard time with my depression, and that things weren’t going too well with my rheumatologist. When I explained to her how I’ve been running through cycles — wanting to kill yourself one night and then being high on life the next two days is so not normal — she immediately agreed that I need to be tested for bipolar disorder and drew up a plan of action.

“I’d rather start you on medication used to treat bipolar disorder right away so that we can see if it works,” she said. We then discussed a few psychologists and a pain management specialist that she really likes, and narrowed it down to psychologist Dr. M and pain therapist Dr. P. We also decided that I would try Seroquel, a medication used to treat bipolar disorder. She explained that she has people start with 50mg for three days, then 100mg for three days, then 150mg for three days, then 200mg for three days, and so on, and that I would start to notice the effects within a couple of days. She also explained that people with bipolar disorder don’t normally respond to regular depression medication — or that it does odd things to them — which would explain why Zoloft basically made me a zombie and why Cymbalta made me hyper as a kangaroo on crack. She gave me samples of the Seroquel so that I wouldn’t have to pay for several different prescriptions, and said that she would see me back in two weeks to check on how the meds are working (and to call her in the meantime if anything comes up). I’m to call Dr. M before I contact Dr. P and am to start seeing Dr. M as soon as I can get in.

Then we moved on to my mystery autoimmune disease.

I told her that my aunt has Crohn’s, which I had apparently forgotten to tell her before. I also told her about the weird thing with my hands (I sometimes get little “spots” that are sensitive to the touch, as if I’ve been burnt or scraped, but there is nothing there). She confirmed my suspicions; this is another classic autoimmune symptom. She said that autoimmune diseases can attack the skin cells, so that is why I have that sensation. I’ve had this since childhood but never thought anything of it; I thought it was normal up until a week or so ago, when my hands were pretty much covered in these little invisible spots and I couldn’t let anything touch them because it fucking hurt.

We discussed me getting a colonoscopy to test for Crohn’s, and she said that she would contact my rheumatologist for his reports to see if he had any thoughts as to which autoimmune disease it could be before sending me to a gastroentologist. The last report he sent her was in September, and I continued to see him once a month through to November. I told her about how he didn’t really seem to remember me from visit to visit, and how each visit his ideas would change; one visit he would suggest that it was my birth control, the next he would send me for more blood work. From her face, I could tell she agreed with me that he is pretty out of it. (He’s a nice guy — don’t get me wrong! — but he’s pretty old. His brother was exactly the same way: nice, but very forgetful and a little cooky.)

Pam is going to get my reports from Dr. G (rheumatologist), and when I see her again in two weeks we’ll go from there.

I may not have gotten any solid answers this time, but I still feel like I got somewhere. I got the ball rolling on taking care of my mental health, which is ironically the easiest thing for me to fix (with counseling and medication, and with a diagnosis that will hopefully confirm my suspicions of bipolar disorder*), but it’s always hard for me to admit that I need to get help and to actually go get the help. I got the ball rolling on my physical health again, as well. I feel like I got a lot accomplished, because I took the steps I needed to take.

*Other people around me have also seriously suggested that I may be bipolar, including a social worker I used to see when in high school. Ms. Amenta, wherever you are, I miss you so much. You were the best.

PS: I should totally just make a “Depression” category.

My mental illness is a motherfucking leech

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Wednesday, I hid.

I called out of work. I threw on some headphones. I buried myself under my comforter, afghan, and fleece blankie. I stayed like that for about an hour or so, falling in and out of sleep while listening to Lacuna Coil’s “Shallow Life” and Silversun Pickups’ “Swoon”, my current comfort albums.

I thought about going to the hospital. I thought that maybe I should talk to someone, someone who would get it and would be able to point me to a therapist who would get it even more. I imagined being handed a prescription to try, that might give me more energy and a little more sparkle inside.

I finally got up to go get dressed and eat so that I could go to the hospital, but I could barely eat and didn’t have the energy to get dressed. I crawled back into bed for another hour or so.

I know it was bad. I know that I need to get my ass into a therapist’s office. I know that I need to be tested for bipolar disorder, put on some medication, and need to go through pain management therapy. I know all of this, and still I shy away.

I make passing references to the people around me about how I’m feeling, but I don’t go all the way and say, “THIS IS BAD. IT’S REALLY BAD. I REALLY NEED HELP.” I don’t reach out. Instead, I keep it all to myself. I drop little hints, enough so that I can tell myself I said something, but not enough for anyone to get really concerned. Because, if I did truly say how bad it is, they might be very concerned.

It’s been a long time since I hid like I did on Wednesday.

In a way, it was just what I needed. I needed to regroup. And yet, on Thursday I felt the same as I did the day before. I felt drained, like I wasn’t really here, but at the same time it felt as if there were little teeny jumping beans inside of me and static fluff in my head. I barely sleep, I barely eat, and I feel like I’m barely making it through the days. Thoughts race through my head, about everything going on: about Popi, about Dad, about my stupid mystery autoimmune disease, about my relationship with Mike, about my new niece, about my clients, about my day job. On Thursday I felt like, at any moment, I was going to split into two. Or four. Or nineteen-thousand.

Today, I felt sort of normal — if normal means being on the verge of tears one minute and wanting to laugh like a maniac the next. At the moment, though, I feel okay.

It’s not just everything that’s going on; I go through these cycles all the time, for as long as I can remember. Last week, I thought about killing myself. For two or three days after, I felt high on life. And then I dropped again. I didn’t feel like dying, but I still dropped.

Part of me is ashamed. Part of me admonishes myself. “This was supposed to be over,” that part says. “We don’t want to go back to therapy. We were already there. Things should have been resolved then.” But the other part steps in and say, “That therapist didn’t do her job, and neither did the second therapist we saw about a year ago. We need to be tested for bipolar disorder. We need pain management skills. We need someone to talk to about everything.”

And the argument goes ’round and ’round, until I’m so tired of hearing these thoughts wrestling each other that I consider cracking open my head and throwing a grenade in there. (That’s a joke. You can laugh. I’m not actually going to grenade my brain.)

The truth is, my friends, that I NEED HELP. I am drowning, and with all of the external things going on as well as what is normally in my head, I’m having a really hard time staying afloat. I don’t want to die. I don’t want my mental illness to kill me. I don’t want to be the zombie I feel like. I’m tired of faking. I’m tired of being afraid to say anything to the people around me, partially because I’m afraid they have enough problems of their own and I don’t want to be yet another weight on their shoulders.

It’s also because I am partially ashamed of going back to therapy. I don’t want to. I tried it again, with Kitty Bhide, and she sucked. I know that if I just try a few different people, I’ll find the right person. But then I make the excuses of, “Well, I don’t have that kind of money,” and “It’s going to take forever to get in anywhere, and by the time I get in, I won’t feel this way anymore.” Even though that’s true — hi, that’s why I need to be tested for bipolar disorder — it’s still not a good enough excuse, because I still know that soon I will feel this way again.

I go through this, every time.

And it’s draining.