私は惨めです。
The doctor took one look at me and asked whether I was depressed. When I collected my pills from the chemist I noticed hehad put the dose up to 2x150mg. I somehow doubt this is going to work. I had intended to request a 100mg dosage increase anyhow, but when the time came, I felt too shy to ask. And when I do feel mentally sick I wouldn't venture to tell any medical professional because I doubt they would ever believe me.
I have a bad track record with psychiatrists. I have been chucked off their lists twice. The first time it happened a new doctor was taking over. I had never seen this new doctor before and probably I was raecting to his manner because I told him how dysphoric I felt and yet I was all smiles. I wasn't lying. But after this I began to second-guess myself, doubting I felt how I felt I felt and feeling my feelings, and any emotional condition they implied, were unreal.
When I got home I fell asleep on the couch. Later I retired to bed, hiding under the duvet. I didn't wake until past 6pm.
I hope the new dose works. x
ReplyDeleteI can sympathise with you about doctors passing you along like a broken toy they don't want to play with anymore.
ReplyDeleteNow this is my opinion and please don't be offended.
You have to tell your doctor(s) how you feel, and what emotions your experiencing not just at that moment, but from to day to day. Let the doctor make the diagnosis, even if you don't agree with it or its not what you had expected or wanted. You seem to want to diagnosis yourself, and if the doctor dosen't give you the dignosis you gave yourself, you feel like they don't understand what you're going through. You have to trust the Doctor, they have gone to med school to study mental illness, and have seen many differnt patients with similar symptoms. Also, just because you are diagnosied with one thing, doesn't mean that it will not change. After a doctor gets to know you more, and observes you, they may change the diagnosis. Plus you can always get a second or even a third opinion. Make sure to tell the doctor your getting a second opinion from what your original diagnosis is. Don't make them have to guess, if you're not going to tell them your original diagnosis it's as if your switching doctors and starting from square one.
Never tell a doctor what meds to prescribe you and at what dosage. They may think you have already decided what is wrong with you and there is no chance you could be mistaken. Then they might think that your mimicking the symptoms of the illness you have diagnosised yourself with, so the doctor will give you the same diagnosis. Most doctors catch on to this. Then you get the lable of hypocondriact. Which you are not.
Again you have to trust the professinal. He or she is the expert. They have done more than looked at websites, and read other peoples stories. Just because your symptoms are similar to this persons or that persons, does not mean you have the same illness, and the same treatments will work for you as they did for them. As you know everyone's brain chemistry is different.
Just try it, trust the professinals. You have nothing to loose and everything to gain.
Are you angry with me for making these assumptions about you? I have no idea what goes on in your mind, and in the doctor's office.
It is true that you take your medications as you think they should be given, not following the doctor's instructions. You have to take the meds as instructed. If you have side affects that you can't handel discontinue use, don't start using it how you think it should be used. It's not a pain med and you take it when you feel pain. Psycholical meds word much differently, and have to build up in your system to work properly. Benzo's are used like pain meds, taken as needed unless your doctor tells you to take as prescribed and don't start and stop.
I learned this the hard way. I've been meaning to tell you this ever since your risperdone days, and you were taking them until they problems went away or the side affects became bothersome, and then would start taking them again when your symptoms came back, and the symptoms were worse than the side affects. That is like me taking my bi polar meds until I'm stable, and then I stop taking them because I think I don't need them anymore. What do you know, the symptoms come back, and I end up wanting to die or kill myself. IF I had stayed on the meds I would have remained stable for a longer period of time, and when I did have symptoms they would be less severe.
Do you know what I mean? Its what I've learned from years of trial and error. People like you and me tend to have to learn the hard way. Instead of learning from others mistakes, we have to make our own mistakes to learn. Sucks.
Anyway, I hope the new doseage change will help your moods. Please don't be mad at me.
xx
Anna
AKELAMALU: 200mg is ridiculously low. I told the old GP, who prescribed that, that the equivalent dose to 4mg risperidone was 350-400mg quetiapine but he wouldn't listen and I never come in doing that know-it-all act that pisses of doctors so much
ReplyDeleteANNA GRACE: when I asked for a change of medication the old drug and the new drug are supposedly so similar they're practically interchangeable. The old shrink said most people who have my symptoms get put on a mood stabilizer as well as an antipsychotic but he said he would try just the antipsychotic first to see how it went and for a while I was fine. I don't want any mood stabilizer. I don't want to be on a flat mood.
The only way I take the Seroquel against drs' instructions is that I take the entire dose at night. I don't like being drowsy during the day that's why I prefer to sleep the dose off.
I do know what you mean, thanks for the message.
I'm sorry. Making assumptions is never good. I am probably way off from what is really going on, I said my opinion, but if it's an opinion of your life it is really an assumption. I friggen hate it when people make assumptions about me.
DeleteAs far as mood stabilizers, I would suggest you just try them. You are making an assumption (albeit an informed assumption) that your mood will be flat. You have never been on a mood stabilizer before for any significant amount of time. So you can't say without an ounce of doubt that the med will make you flat.
Sure some people find a mood stabilizer makes them flat or unable to feel highs and lows. Others it doesn't do this to. I for instance still have strong emotional highs and lows, but the stabilizer keeps the mania from becomming scary, and it keeps me at a perfect medium for a longer period of time. I don't feel flat at all. If anything makes me feel flat it's the methadone. Without the methadone and just the mood stabilizers I feel like what I imagine a “normal” people feel. Aside from the intense cravings for opiates, and when during the first week without any opiates you feel EVERYTHING super intensely.
Above is the long way of saying give mood stablizers a chance instead of assuming they will make you feel flat.
Just a suggestion. It is your life and your moods. If you want to keep cycling thats fine.
I hope this didn't offend you.
xx
When I contacted one of the top rehabs in this country, with details of my diagnosis and what methadone and antipsycho meds I was on they told me the methadone might actually be acting as a mood stabilizer!
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I noticed about heroin was that it put my mood on a flat line for about 2 years. For a few years after that it seemed to work as a pretty potent antidepressant. But since I had the 2 breakdowns in a row from the end of 2010 onwards heroin doesn't seem to work as an antidepressant and doesn't seem to blockade me against mania either. The last time I was hypomanic for a week, I continued taking heroin, which would in the past probably have stopped my mood going up at all.
Yeah I will give mood stabilizers a chance if they say they want to put me on them. The only one that sounds any good is lamotrigine/Lamictal. It's meant to be especially good against bipolar depression...
No of course you didn't offend me, why would you have offended me?
Re the Borderline Personality Disorder, I kind of guessed you had some personality disorder a long time ago, when you got into all that trouble about lying on your blog. I'm no expert at all on the matter but have noticed that when people who have mental problems engage in inexplicable behaviour the root cause is far more likely to be a personality disorder than a mental "illness"... having said that BPD sounds far more like an "illness" than any of the other personality disorders, what with the severe mood swings and all.
Do you find you get into over-intense friendships with people then go off them? That is supposedly a key feature of BPD but I think I do it as well.
Did I tell you I had a male friend with BPD. It's meant to be very rare in men. But he had it. He ended up bingeing on the "legal high" (as it was then) called mepherdrone or meow meow (it has no similarity at ALL with methadone except the name: it's more like snorting ecstasy and coke except it's stronger than either) anyway he was bingeing on this stuff and eventually went into florid paranoid psychosis. The drs let him off his ward and he went and threw himself under an underground train... a sad end to a short life....
Re me cycling, I don't think I cycle anything like as severely as most other people. My mood swings are probably v mild if the truth be told. I can never tell what other people mean when they say they're depressed or manic or anything else... then again I've seen some "manic" youtube videos and seriously you'd never know there was anything wrong with any of these people except they tell you so! When I was really manic EVERYBODY knew something was wrong. True most people didn't think it was a manic episode because they probably didn't know what one of those was if it bit them on the arse but everyone could see I was not my normal self at all....as for being depressed now I have no idea why.......
Should have read this b4 my last comment on 7/20/12's post.
DeleteI think alot of people saw the BDP, but were too nice to say, except the anonymous trolls who are often very ill informed, and never once mentioned they thought I have a personality defect.
RE the intense relationships, oh god yes. Although I think it's more about manipulation for me. I get what I want from them, and once I've gotten it I cut them out completely. No calls, no texts...nothing. I don't know if they know they've been used or just think they did something.
I only have two true friends.
I know this if off topic but I'm looking into starting my own blog and was wondering what all is required to get setup? I'm assuming having a blog like yours would cost a pretty penny?
ReplyDeleteI'm not very internet savvy so I'm not 100% positive. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. Kudos
Visit my blog post mood disorder