What the hell?

(First, know I only swear when manic).

8 days ago I lowered (with permission) my clozaril dose from 275 to 250. I was fine although there were minor sleep adjustments that I was getting used to and weren't problems.

Last night I didn't sleep. I was up until 6:30 and then slept 5 hours in 2 2 1/2 hour chunks. To get that sleep required an extra mg of klonopin and 200 mg of gabapentin. I forced myself to get up and be active so I'd be tired tonight.

I had a migraine which is a problem this time of year. I go from 2-4/month to 15-30/month. I eventually took vicodon which should have increased my sleepiness. I took meds at 7:30 as usual. It is now 11:30 and I'm agitated and wide awake and anxious and agitated, hypomanic I think. I should be completely out of it.

My med change apparently didn't work. But it's so weird it was fine for a week. I tend to get manic this time of year but usually earlier so we thought it was safe to try this. Obviously not.

This is so bizarre. I am so sick of meds.

I am stressed about ending my career for good and something to do with my therapist but neither of them are enough to upset me into mania.

I hate this feeling. I want to go pace around outside but my head still hurts and moving makes it worse. I am going to wait a few more hours and if I don't fall asleep I'm going to take whatever PRNs I have to to knock myself out, even if it means I'm out for tomorrow.

Bipolar sucks.

Sorry you're going through this. Can you try doing something boring before bed, like reading a book? That might help the PRNs work. Do you think maybe you should go back up on the clozaril?

Boring doesn't help although I'm doing it. I'm holding off on the PRNs until I'm tired enough they'll work. I will go back up on the clozaril tomorrow; I needed to be sure that was the problem so I didn't take it tonight. I am so mad; I really wanted to be less sedated and maybe lose a little weight from the clozaril. Guess that won't be happening. I waited well over a year between trials of dose reductions so I'm really sad this failed. And the timing is amazing. My therapist is away but I had a back-up in place who has seen me before. I'd go in to see her but they are closed on Fridays and on this coming Monday and Tuesday. I see my therapist Wednesday so the soonest I can be seen. Not that they can really help, I just feel like my brain is flying and would like to have some help grounding it. At least my head stopped hurting.........

Funny my annual June mania played a trick and waited for the 28th to hit. Usually it is early in the month and quite predictable. But I missed it last year and this year only went up a tiny bit and then stabilized so it seemed like the clozaril was holding me. We should have waited to lower it.

Now I remember why I stopped caffeine. I used to use caffeine to make myself feel ike thiss. Now I hate the feeling. I want to do something and I can't figure out what to do. Which is good; I need to stay calm, not tackle some big project in the middle of the night.

Ugh. I do need to email my pdoc. Maybe I'll try to do that since it will take work to make it concise and with a point. Rambling is not really effective for her.

I can relate. I thought I could be on a lower dose of seroquel but now I'm going through a psychotic depression.

I do hope getting in touch with your pdoc helps.

Pretty much I'll just tell her what I'm doing. I won't hear back unless it gets to next week. Getting much attention from her on a Friday is unlikely. My pdoc is the residency director for a major hospital so reaching her can be a little tricky but I have a number of things I can do until I see her or get in touch with her. Friday is a tough day because she doesn't see patients on Thursdays and so Fridays she is catching up. If it stays bad Monday I'll email and call her secretary to give her a message as well. All she'll tell me is to resume my old clozaril dose and I am doing that anyway.

My poor kittens are so confused. They are only 13 weeks old and haven't seen me like this before. My old cats both died but they were used to my cycling.

I want so badly to go scrub my bathroom.......but I really need to not do that.

Sorry you are going through this and couldn't lower your dose as hoped. It must be so frustrating for you. If it doesn't resolve with the increased dose maybe contact your pdoc as it could be caused by something else.

Yes, I am frustrated and mad and that's probably not helping me calm down. It is bad enough to have to be on the tough med and it's really annoying that I can't lower the dose.

I'm sorry you are having such a tough time. It sounds like you've got a good plan worked out to resolve it. I hope you get some good quality sleep. Best wishes.

How frustrating!

I hope you have slept by now.
I also hope today is a better day!


WC

Hope you got some sleep, let us know how your doing....hugs

I'm so sorry this is all hitting at once when you have no support. hopefully the raise in meds will help and you can go down on meds later.