I am really happy to say that my appointment with my new doctor went really, really well. Better than I was even hoping, which is always a pleasant surprise.
The doctor herself is just great. We clicked, and I feel like that's really important in psychiatric care. I clicked with Dr. Wright, but not with Dr. F, and I'm relieved that Dr. C and I connected. She was very patient, and thorough, and asked questions that really . . . helped highlight the key points of my whole long history with this BS. Not all doctors know how to do that. Her practice is really tiny, which I like, because I feel like with fewer patients she can be more invested in each patient. Her office is in this beautiful old house downtown, with narrow doorways, creaky hardwood floors, and the most amazing built in bookcase I've ever seen. (I know that the aesthetics of the office really aren't important treatment wise, but I felt like it was worth mentioning). She only has one employee, who does the billing/scheduling/reception type stuff, and she's also super nice. It's just a very calm space overall. It's also a pretty old fashioned kind of practice: they're all paper records, they don't do electronic billing, and I left with an actual handwritten prescription.
Which brings me to my next point: I walked out of the appointment with a prescription for Lithium! I really wasn't expecting that at all--I was expecting to leave with an order for blood work and get a prescription at my follow up next week. But Dr. C said that since I've already been on this medication and all that, she was comfortable with starting me on it, then getting blood work once I'm almost at my old dose. Which meant that my follow up appointment got pushed back to mid October, which means I have some time to figure out the financing stuff.
So all in all, it was just great. Great doctor, great staff, great office, a prescription, not having to pay for another appointment for 3 weeks . . . awesome. Like I said, better than I was even expecting. It was as pleasant an experience as it could be for being an overall unpleasant thing, but I think I'll elaborate on that later.
Right now, I'm just glad it went so well, glad it's over, and glad to have my medication.
9.25.2014
9.18.2014
Struggling
The past week-ish has just been . . . well, kind of a struggle.
It's really just a little bit of everything. Stress at work, a sort of sinus infection kind of thing (which I've actually had for like the past month . . . ever since my co-workers' kids went back to school last month, it seems like at least one co-worker a week comes down with something, and then they bring those nasty little kid germs into work . . . blech), the whole iffy mental health treatment thing . . . I just haven't been doing well.
Stress at work is high right now because there's some shifting around going on in my department at MHC. Nothing about it will directly impact my job; in fact, the only thing that's really changing for me is that my office mate is moving out, and that's a pretty welcome change at this point. It's really not the shifting of things that bothers me, it's the attitude behind some of it that gets on my nerves, but I think that once everything's done things will calm down. I try not to let myself get too worked up over it, because there's really no point in doing so. Again, absolutely nothing is changing as far as my actual day to day duties, and I know that my boss thinks I'm doing really well job performance wise, so ultimately, there's nothing for me to worry about. I just don't do well with change in general. Besides all of that, a certain incompetent co-worker is getting more and more incompetent, and I'm just getting to my limit of dealing with this person. That feeling is not limited to me, it's pretty much the whole freaking clinic, but the only person who could do something about it chooses to ignore it so . . . it's kind of a mess.
On top of all that, I can feel my mental health slipping a little bit. I can feel myself disengaging, losing interest in things. Not for long periods of time, it kind of comes and goes, but it's still not fun. I've also just started to feel down and anxious quite a bit (again, it kind of comes and goes), and that just sucks. My nerves are also just . . . I don't know. Shot right now. Not all the time, but I've noticed lately that when I have to do something that would make me nervous anyway, it's incredibly magnified. I don't like it. I've also been stress eating and retail therapying, which are both bad ideas. My bank balance is going down and my weight is going up, and I would really like the exact opposite to be happening.
Plus I'm just nervous about the whole new doctor thing. I'm nervous about the financial aspect, I'm nervous that she and I won't click, I'm nervous that she won't be willing to put me back on the medication I'd been on before, I'm nervous about having to get blood work and all that kind of stuff done. I'm nervous about having to re-hash my whole story to someone new, because that's never fun. It's all a little overwhelming. (I did go into her office today to turn in my new patient paperwork, and being able to see the office and sort of feel its vibe has calmed me down quite a bit. I liked what I saw).
Right now, I'm just telling myself to just get through it and it'll all be fine. All of the mental health symptoms I'm having now are ones I've had before, and even more significantly, they're all ones I've beaten before. And there's no reason to think that a decent doctor would totally ignore my history of success with Lithium and not prescribe it again.
Deep breaths. Deep, deep, breaths.
It's really just a little bit of everything. Stress at work, a sort of sinus infection kind of thing (which I've actually had for like the past month . . . ever since my co-workers' kids went back to school last month, it seems like at least one co-worker a week comes down with something, and then they bring those nasty little kid germs into work . . . blech), the whole iffy mental health treatment thing . . . I just haven't been doing well.
Stress at work is high right now because there's some shifting around going on in my department at MHC. Nothing about it will directly impact my job; in fact, the only thing that's really changing for me is that my office mate is moving out, and that's a pretty welcome change at this point. It's really not the shifting of things that bothers me, it's the attitude behind some of it that gets on my nerves, but I think that once everything's done things will calm down. I try not to let myself get too worked up over it, because there's really no point in doing so. Again, absolutely nothing is changing as far as my actual day to day duties, and I know that my boss thinks I'm doing really well job performance wise, so ultimately, there's nothing for me to worry about. I just don't do well with change in general. Besides all of that, a certain incompetent co-worker is getting more and more incompetent, and I'm just getting to my limit of dealing with this person. That feeling is not limited to me, it's pretty much the whole freaking clinic, but the only person who could do something about it chooses to ignore it so . . . it's kind of a mess.
On top of all that, I can feel my mental health slipping a little bit. I can feel myself disengaging, losing interest in things. Not for long periods of time, it kind of comes and goes, but it's still not fun. I've also just started to feel down and anxious quite a bit (again, it kind of comes and goes), and that just sucks. My nerves are also just . . . I don't know. Shot right now. Not all the time, but I've noticed lately that when I have to do something that would make me nervous anyway, it's incredibly magnified. I don't like it. I've also been stress eating and retail therapying, which are both bad ideas. My bank balance is going down and my weight is going up, and I would really like the exact opposite to be happening.
Plus I'm just nervous about the whole new doctor thing. I'm nervous about the financial aspect, I'm nervous that she and I won't click, I'm nervous that she won't be willing to put me back on the medication I'd been on before, I'm nervous about having to get blood work and all that kind of stuff done. I'm nervous about having to re-hash my whole story to someone new, because that's never fun. It's all a little overwhelming. (I did go into her office today to turn in my new patient paperwork, and being able to see the office and sort of feel its vibe has calmed me down quite a bit. I liked what I saw).
Right now, I'm just telling myself to just get through it and it'll all be fine. All of the mental health symptoms I'm having now are ones I've had before, and even more significantly, they're all ones I've beaten before. And there's no reason to think that a decent doctor would totally ignore my history of success with Lithium and not prescribe it again.
Deep breaths. Deep, deep, breaths.
9.13.2014
A Year Without A Psychiatrist
I said in my last post that I've been without a psychiatrist for nearly a year now, so I thought I'd follow that up by talking about what I've done this past year to keep myself on track treatment wise.
The first few months were pretty easy. Between the last of my refills from Dr. Wright, and the refill Dr. F gave me, I was fully medicated until the end of November. In December I broke into my "emergency" Lithium stash, which was basically about a month and a half worth of old prescriptions that I'd never taken. (I had this partly from those times when I just wouldn't take my medicine, and partly leftover from when the couple times I switched medications before the current Rx ran out, if that makes sense). I lowered my dose a little bit and my emergency supply lasted until the end of February.
At that point I had been unsuccessfully trying to work things out with my old doctor/been looking for a new doctor, and it was taking longer than expected. I knew I couldn't just cold turkey stop my medication, so I started looking for an alternative. I remembered an old Hastings co-worker telling me she was (self diagnosed) bipolar, and that she took a natural, OTC Lithium supplement. I didn't think such a thing existed, but after I did some poking around on the internet, I found it. It's called Lithium orotate and you can get it on Amazon. It's obviously not the same formulation as Rx Lithium (which is Lithium carbonate); it's a lower dosage made mostly of elemental Lithium, and there's some evidence that the bioavailability is different as well. It hasn't been studied very extensively in humans, but I was desperate, and it was something, so I bought it. I started myself out on a dosage that was higher than what the bottle recommended but lower than my therapeutic dose of Rx Lithium.
And it actually helped. I will say that it's not as effective as "real" Lithium, but it has most definitely kept the edge off of my worst symptoms for the past 6 months. I haven't had any manic or hypomanic episodes; I've had a few down swings but not any true depressive episodes either. It was the most helpful the first couple months I was taking it (March thru July). I mean, in June I was able to get a second job, so obviously I was doing OK. It's only been the past few weeks that I've started to feel like the effectiveness was dropping off a bit, which is why I started focusing on finding a psychiatrist again.
Like I said, it hasn't been perfect. Since the end of August, some things have fallen by the wayside: I haven't written in a while, I haven't been working out or eating right, and my house is in desperate need of a deep clean. Right now, though, those are all things I don't have the mental energy to do. But I have been able to get up and go to work every day and hold down my job and even do really well at it, and that's amazing. I also haven't had any suicidal ideation or thought about cutting. So while the past 6 months of alternative treatment haven't been my best, they've far and away not been my worst, either. I can tell you that if I'd just gone unmedicated, I'd be unemployed and possibly dead right now, and I'm neither. All in all, I call it at least a semi success. I'm also really proud of myself for being able to find an alternative and at least do something to keep myself well, because old me would have just let it go and suffered the consequences.
Right now, things are on a bit of a downslope. I haven't had any energy the past couple weeks, I can feel my temper getting shorter, and in general, I just haven't felt well. I'm just trying to make it through as best as I can, and in less than two weeks I'll see my new doctor and everything will get better from there. I can't even express how much I'm looking forward to my appointment, because I'm ready to get back to where I was.
9.02.2014
Finally
For the past few days I've been meaning to write about a bunch of things . . . like the pretty crappy down swing I've been on mentally, and the strange epiphany like thoughts I've been having lately, and what a fabulous time I had this past weekend when some friends were in town and I put on real pants (on a Saturday!) and actually left the house. I will, eventually, write about all those things.
For now, though, I just want to say that after almost a year of not having a psychiatrist, I finally finally finally finally finally found a doctor here in Flagstaff, and I have an appointment on the 25th. I am immensely relieved and honestly feel like a weight's been lifted off my shoulders.
For now, though, I just want to say that after almost a year of not having a psychiatrist, I finally finally finally finally finally found a doctor here in Flagstaff, and I have an appointment on the 25th. I am immensely relieved and honestly feel like a weight's been lifted off my shoulders.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)