I feel pretty good today. MIL is triggering me mildly, but what else is new. I forgot to take my ambien last night and wondered all the way till 5:00 am why I wasn’t sleeping. Won’t make that mistake again soon. 😦 But at least I knew what the problem was. I know that the medicine will make me sleep. It’s no longer a crap shoot. I have finally found the right sleeping pill.
So much of what we go through is a guessing game. New meds come on the market all the time. They might work, they might not work. They will cost an arm and a leg while you try them on for size and you can only hope that your doc has samples or coupons or something else to help afford these new meds.
Now, if you are bipolar, you will need a mood stabilizer, an antidepressant and potentially a sleeping pill. Minimum. I take an antidepressant, a bipolar depression medication, a mood stabilizer, an anti-anxiety “rescue” medication, and a sleeping pill. Those are just the meds I take for my mental issues. I also have an autoimmune disease that adds three meds to the mix.
I have spent the entire year trying to find the right mood stabilizer for me. I tried, and failed, three different medications. The year has been an experiment in failure for me. My doc finally talked to me about going back to Seroquel XR. I was on it before and it worked. Two problems, which I consider major problems. One…there is no generic for Seroquel XR (there is for regular seroquel, just not the extended release) so it’s wicked expensive. So far, my doc has kept me going with samples, but that won’t last forever. Second, and honestly I’m not sure which is more upsetting, but this medication makes me gain weight. A lot of weight. If I don’t go to sleep fairly soon after taking it, I will eat every single piece of food in my house, as long as it’s not healthy. Ice cream, candy, cookies, crackers, almost nothing is off limits. I have gained 15 pounds in the last 3 weeks. Now that the sleeping pill situation is resolved that weight gain will hopefully slow if not reverse. It took 5 tries to find a sleeping pill that would not only put me down, but more importantly, keep me down.
As soon as my boot cast is off my left foot (plantar fascia release surgery) an exercise regimen will begin. ‘Cause damn, I’m fat!
Bipolar disorder is also stopping me from helping my loved ones. I have a couple members of my family who are very sick. It seems that almost all the cousins on my mother’s side have terrible diabetes and two of them, plus their father are needing kidney transplants. I talked to my doctor about it the other day and she said that she would never clear me for donating organs. I’m too messed up, too stressed, too depressed and all while being medicated better then I have been in awhile. Besides the stress of donating, there would be the stress after of missing an organ. Because one of my issues, is concern about my physical well-being. And if I’m short a kidney, that is only going to make that issue worse.
Bipolar disorder causes us to be unsure, almost all the time. What mood will I wake up to tomorrow? What mood will I switch to when my husband gets home? Will I pull out of this funk long enough to shower? Will this burst of energy that defies all medications to stomp it out ever end or will I just run around like a wild person until I die from lack of sleep? Even well medicated, any of this could happen.
Some people are able to be medicated well enough that they can work and socialize and live a rather normal life. The rest of us wrestle with an inability to work or live a normal life. Beyond that, we must come to grips with the fact that social stigma puts us down for not working. Since our disability can’t be seen, we must be faking it. Milking it for the free money. Living off the system. If only the accusers knew how little money comes with disability.
None of this is really new information to those of you who visit regularly. I just felt like this was what I wanted to talk about today.
Well, we KNOW you’ll take Ambien tonight, right? 😉 I take lithium & the MAOI Parnate & around 15 mg of Seroquel for insomnia, which I’m tapering off as it makes me too groggy in the morning, even at just 15 mg.
I can’t imagine how hard it must be to have that boot cast on and don’t worry, you’ll lose the # when it comes off. I’ve gained weight on Seroquel too (not the XR, it’s the generic) at night is when I eat. I’d fall asleep & then wake up at midnight and have some fattening snacks. Ugh. I work out almost every day but I eat way too much unhealthy food – my weakness is sugary chocolate stuff – so it’s a never-ending battle.
I relate to so much of what you write about here, especially about the invisible illness part. Today was awful.
I ended communications with my toxic brother & his evil wife because I got triggered – he has been an ass since 2007, but last night I caught him slandering me in an email he sent to my Mom, who accidentally sent it to me. He only wrote one line about me, but it was triggering enough that I flipped.
My brother and his wife and son live only 15 minutes away from us. I’m staying away from them and I probably won’t see him until our mom passes away. He doesn’t get it when it comes to bipolar. He never has tried to make an effort to get it, even when I got some NAMI information for family members and asked him to read a chapter. He said no.
His wife wanted to distance him from us ever since they got married because she’s a control freak and phony.
My brother probably never will get any insight about bipolar unless his 5-year-old inherited the bipolar gene & it manifests. (Which I hope he doesn’t have, of course, but tragically that is most likely the ONLY thing that would force my brother to understand what bipolar is truly about. Maybe he’d finally return to being a compassionate person. He used to be kind until he married the Iceberg from Hell.)
—-Please—— forgive me for venting……
night, night, sweet Leslie,
Dy
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Vent away my dear. That’s why we came together, so that we could express ourselves without any fear. You have just given us an example of how the invisibility of the illness affected you. I am so sorry (glad?) about having to cut your brother off. It’s a hard decision to have to make and I don’t envy you. But we have to stand up for ourselves, because no one else will. Big Hugs!
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Thanks so, SO, so much – here’s one last vent and then from now on you can bill me for virtual therapy, Leslie!
God, I’m still upset today, but at least I know that I’ve done nothing unethical/sick ‘n twisted.
I secretly (well, now not so secretly) hope he divorces the cretin and finds someone in touch with her emotions – someone who doesn’t use our mother for money & gifts and then turns on her, and who encourages him to have a healthy relationship with his closest family member apart from our Mom: me!
How did you sleep last night? I was able to not take my usual Seroquel but my sleep was its usual sick – I hope your Ambient did the trick! :))))) Let us know…..
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I hope he divorces her, too. It’s always sad to see someone attached to a person that is nasty.
My depression is back and I’ve been doing nothing but sleeping, unfortunately.
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Hoping you’re feeling MUCH better today (Monday) – I’m sick with a friction’ evil cold….I’m not much fun to be around! Oh well – at least I don’t feel guilty for sitting on my ass, you know? 😉
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Feeling physically sick is almost a relief because you can lay around and chill and no one questions it.
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On the week that I took Seroquel for a spin I spent most of my time sleeping. I was awake for 5 hours max, so I had to quit it. Also on the XR version. Made me feel dead. I think 300mg for my tiny self is way too much. Is there any way to counter the weight gain? Or is that built in with the drug? I didn’t gain an ounce, but then again I barely ate because I was sleeping most of the time.
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No there doesn’t seem to be a way to counter the weight gain except diet and exercise. When I took it the first time I joined Weight Watchers and I STILL gained weight. So all the surgeries this summer have been so that I can get out there and get moving. It’ll hopefully start to counteract the weight loss. It’ll also get me away from MIL for a bit 🙂
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