I am SO damned sick of fighting this disorder.
My medication dosage is not high enough to handle my symptoms, but if I go higher, I impact my ability to function at work. And I'm absolutely terrified of losing my income source, or of having it cut significantly.
Because of some personal stuff I went from hypomanic to depressed in a day. I know that can happen to anyone, but I can't concentrate on work, and will probably end up going home early. That's the kind of shit I (and maybe many of us) face: Under-medicated I'm not stable enough to be effective in my job, but more medication and I'm not mentally sharp enough to be effective in my job.
I know everyone has their cross to bear, but damn - I'm so frustrated right now, I'm not sure if I want to scream or cry. I'll do neither, of course, I'll suck it up, shove it back in my head, and do what needs to be done. I'm glad to have this outlet, the only person I can share this with is my wife, and she's over-burdened already.
Time to put the game face on and jump back into the mainstream.
Monday, November 05, 2007
The Game Face
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8 comments:
You will be okay.
Yep, I will be, always am. That's why I blog, it's my only outlet.
I know you aren't thrilled with the idea of med combos. But maybe you should think about it? I was in the clinical trials for Lamictal. It wasn't really expected to be a stand alone. For some people, yes. But the trial I was in, which was one of the ones refining just how specifically it could be used, was to show that in combination with a bit of depakote and lithium it was much more effective for rapid cyclers, esp. bipolar II rapid cyclers. It was pretty neat to be in that study simply because of that predictive approach.
Using different meds give them so many options to mess with to allow you to function. That's how I function at my high doses; we tweak things like my antidepressant dose by 10 mg (back when I was on one of those), or use/don't use Provigil.
Because I'm on several meds I have permission to mess with the doses of several as I feel needs done (with notification to my doctor), and while I'm not anyone's idea of stability, at the very least I do work most of the time. There's also little tricks like depakote increases Lamictal levels, so playing with one of those affects the other (back before I had lamictal hives of course).
I don't know. Just seems like maybe you need to think about taking a big step and trying the other approach. I only know my experience, but I said never for a long time and then found it's the only way I get relief.
(and just to state the obvious, nobody is likely to have to be on what I'm on....only the lucky get to be at the extremes!)
it is so incredibly hard to put the game face on when you are feeling this way. it is good you have this blog to vent and let it all out.
i love that you're listening to the scissor sisters...
but to the point at hand, you'll get through this, and then some. what else can you do?
it sure does seem like your meds need tweaking, jon.
Just Me - funny you should suggest this. Just yesterday the pdoc finally talked me into Lithium along with my Lamictal. I'll keep updates flowing.
Merelyme - I'm looking back at this post, and every post in the last month or so, and cringing at how much I was whining. You are 100% right, this is a great outlet. Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.
AM - I LOVE the Scissor Sisters. But good music is good music whether the singer is named Hank, Jake, Billie, Kurt, or Nat. And I did just tweak my meds, increased Lamictal and added Lithium. I'll be updating regularly.
I'm glad. Lithium really isn't bad. At low doses it's practically unnoticeable aside from you have to drink more and therefore pee more. I don't remember that really bugging me until higher doses though. I gained weight, but I was backwards from most people; gained on lithium, didn't on depakote.
Really, I LOVE lithium. I wish I could take more. I've said before that I'm not me without lithium, and I really do mean that.
Just found your blog...thanks for it and all the info on the other sites that you did.
At least you can talk to your wife sort of...that's something.
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