Bipolar check-in #42

Right Now I'm feeling like I want to sleep all day. No, actually eating is making me feel a bit better, but still not sure if ill be ready to face what I need to do. I got interrupted sleep this morning and I guess I'm just tired from the workout?? I dunno. Plus, I seem to be a bit bored. There's a show on in an hour (well, now its in 15min lol) I'd like to catch, but I've got some work to do. Not sure if ill make it! :/ I seriously don't know what's wrong with me. Am I depressed again? Or is this anxiety making me sleep poorly and feel like cocooning in bed? I'm kinda thinking the latter, although I am bummed from the boredom.

Just finished reading "Gorilla and the Bird". Took me 4 days. Good descriptions of psychosis and mania.

Suddenly it's snowing where I am. That's quite unexpected. It's barely snowed at all in my neck of the woods.

I have a slight upset stomach. I stress-ate a whole bunch of Terra chips. I did the same thing last night, eating the whole bag between last night and this afternoon. Normally I don't buy such snacks. Hubby bought them. I can't force him not to, but will admit that they do me much more harm than him. He is the type that will eat 3 chips and that's all. Then not eat more for 3 days. He does eat something more than I'm aware of, because he's even more overweight than I am.

Today was definitely not one of my better days. I pretty much stayed in bed all day long, only getting up to eat, get water/espresso, and go to the bathroom. I have zero motivation to make dinner and everything easy I can think of is cholesterol increasing crap. I'd be OK not eating anything for dinner, but I do feel the obligation to give hubby something. If I don't, he'll be a little annoyed and eat canned sardines and bread. He may even ask for a few Terra chips. I'll have to tell him they "were eaten by snakes".

I'd order something for hubby, but it's severely difficult with his garlic allergy. Evil difficult. Like, there's absolutely nothing except desserts and beverages at some places, for him, unless he skips the sauces, skips the veggie sides, skips the protein, and just eats lettuce.

I have the same problem with my husband. He'll bring home snacks and he can eat portions like that, while I tend to overeat or at least eat daily till they're gone.

Just right now I stress ate a whole meal when I just had breakfast less than two hours ago. I'm nervous because I have to go out in the snow. Drive or walk? Driving makes me nervous even without snow and with someone, but I'd be alone in this snow...but I don't know if I can walk and handle the cold either.

Someone crossed 2 lanes of traffic to get into a gas station to my right- right in front of me! I had to slam on my brakes and even then I just narrowly hit her! Another car waiting to pull out of the gas station was just shaking her head at the lady!

When I was juicing, I'd add apple and lemon to the beet juice. Tasted great! Everyone in the house wanted it!

A trick if diabetic and drinking juice(s): You can slow down the absorption of any sugar by adding an oil. I am not diabetic; however, I did often drink carrot juice with flax oil in it to slow down the rapid sugar intake.

I love the brand fern has mentioned.

My brother drinks 1 cup twice a day, straight beet juice, to control his blood pressure.

There are also many brands of powdered beet juices. Some are just beets. Some have other flavors mixed in, like cherry, apple, etc. My mother makes a mega health drink each morning. She adds powdered beets and loves it.

You might be interested in:

Investigators at the University of Iowa used SuperBeets to conduct a randomized, placebo-controlled crossover study comparing the use of SuperBeets to use of a placebo over 4 weeks. The results showed after the 4-week trial period that those individuals using SuperBeets experienced a beneficial effect on blood pressure levels vs. the placebo group.

Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2018 Jan 1;314(1):H45-H51. doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00389.2017. Epub 2017 Sep 29.

I am not sure that the specific brand used in this study is necessary for helpful effects. I have not heard anyone complain of adverse side-effects; yet, there may be some. Please seek advice from doctor/pharmacist.

I hope this info is helpful to someone at some time!

Rough day. Ran into a pole with my face while running for bus. Broke glasses, fell. Big goose egg. Same side as last time my face hit an immovable object. Went into work (have an icepack there) as I was almost there anyway. Worked for awhile, but I'm having slight confusion, so took off. They were actually able to fix my glasses up at a nearby shop. I couldn't believe it -- they were a mess (lens out, the whole deal)! Going to look for some glasses anyway. They'll not survive another crash, and my record's bad there.

In other news, I called about how much MRI would cost me. 100% out-of-pocket. Over $1000. Not going to happen. I don't know what that will mean for my vertabrae/arm situation.

In good news, that company that I worked for said they did not offer insurance (true). TG. I was really worried about that. (I have Marketplace insurance, which does not allow that.)

Oh no! I am so sorry you've been hurt! Wow. Quite an account.
Has your confusion cleared up?
MRIs are so expensive! Can you get financial aid from the hospital to pay for the MRI?
Please take it easy. I hope you will be alright.

Hey everyone !

Lots of self care was needed and I’m feeling much better

I have missed you all

As long as your blood pressure doesn’t drop to low you should have some wiggle room on doseage.

Have you tried cogentin ? The inability to sit still could be akathesia, years ago when I was on Haldol I needed both meds.

It would suck to have to change your meds as your current seem to be doing a good job overall. Yes it sucks to need other meds to allow you to take other meds.

Are you still getting good sleep ? I’m sure you have talked about that but o can’t even try and go back to catch up so forgive me if I’m repeating advice you already have gotten it tried.

Hope things settle down soon

So glad you didn’t get stuck wasting hours turning in paperwork

I’m sorry you had some hiccups...

Again congratulations on the new apartment. My daughter recently moved into a new place and she’s enjoying getting settled on and has some ideas on decorating but that will take time , moving in tapped her out money wise.

Enjoy your new digs

So glad you weren’t in an accident. So many horrible drivers on the road

Yay!!!! So happy you’re back! You’ve been missed.

Welcome back Christina!!

Thanks! And it's great to see you around here again

Welcome back Christina

I’ve now been stable from a bipolar perspective for 6-7 months which is fantastic. Anxiety is pretty severe. I’m weaning off Seroquel under pdoc supervision which is probably why the anxiety is so severe. My pdoc has asked me to consider an AD for my anxiety. We’re not sure if it’s a good idea given that an AD may destabilise the bipolar.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Welcome back Christina!!!

I am feeling well now. Turns out my low mood was due to getting my period. I didn’t connect the two because I haven’t freaking had my period since July, when I started my new birth control. Who knew it could just appear out of nowhere to **** up my day? I’m in the middle of my pack too, so no telling when it may show up again. Damn being a woman.

I’ve had a good week work wise. Monday was rough because my student was super upset about missing school on Friday and an upcoming psychiatrist appt. he has never been to a psychiatrist before (he’s 11) so he was convinced the dr was going to berate him for being stupid. I tried to calm him down telling him that’s not what doctors do, but once he gets something in his head, he can’t stop ruminating on it. But on Tuesday, he was calm as can be, because he said the dr told him there was nothing wrong with him. Today he told me he started on a medication to help him with his anger, but it wasn’t helping. I asked when he started and he said last night. I then assured him it will take some time for the med to get into his system and then it should help. It’s nice to have the personal experience I do!

It was really crappy out today weather wise. Cold, pouring rain, 50mph winds. We usually go out to eat on Fridays but I absolutely did not want to set foot outside again. So I made a microwaveable Aldi meal with some quick brown rice. It was good enough.

Tomorrow we are taking my mom to the shore to eat at one of our favorite bbq restaurants. On Sunday my son has a birthday party. Then next week, four day weekend for Presidents’ Day! Yay!

My cat is doing well. He’s much more cuddly and doesn’t seem to be in too much pain. I got his special food yesterday and he likes it. I was worried he wouldn’t. That **** is $70/bag! If he didn’t like it I don’t know what I would have done lol.

Thanks !

Well trying to live with ongoing stress that does in fact effect your daily life is to me really not acceptable, eventually that stress will probably flip you into a nasty Bipolar episode.

There are AD’s that some people with Bipolar can take, in the past I was able to tolerate Doxepin , I took it mainly for the sedation effect at bedtime. When I first tried it I just had to be hyper aware to watch for a AD induced mood shift.

I personally would give it a try just start with a baby dose of whatever your Pdoc feels would be best. Keep a daily mood chart, make sure to especially watch your sleep.

Chronic stress is just hell.

Hope you find relief

Ahhhh yes the joys of being a female maybe write this down somewhere so if you start to have trouble again it could give you something to consider that it’s period related instead of bipolar related ..

You student is lucky that you do have personal experience. So many people do think meds should work in a day or two.

Ohhh I have been craving BBQ , enjoy some for me please

I’m glad your fur baby is better ! Yikes 70 a bag!!!! I hope it’s not a small bag. Maybe contact the company and ask about rebates or something... maybe it would be cheaper to order from them directly ? Worth a try.

Glad your doing well

Thanks! My lungs are improving fast, and my anxiety decreasing. You are right. Fresh air is good and although I live in a big city I’m right near the beach so I get plenty of it.

Good luck with your French class.

I ended up walking to the store. Wasn't as cold as I feared. It actually worked out that I could count this as my exercise for today as it took about 20minutes there and back and then I went halfway back to the bins to throw out some old shoes, a total of 30 minutes, which is about what I typically do. I might still do some yoga tonight though. I feel tight and the stretching should help that.

Kinda weird how I ate at like 3/3:30 and it's now 830 and I'm not really very hungry. hmm

Copy/paste from another thread so I don't have to try to remember it all again...

.....

Sorry I've been non-existent lately. I've been pretty busy with school and stepping out of PHP into IOP and doc appointments and everything else going on.

School is really taking up a lot of my time.

My speech class is online and it is a lot of work, but I think the workload would be the same in a classroom. I'm just getting overwhelmed with the level of work there.

My other class is a lot of fun. It's Basic Illustration. We just turned in our first project yesterday. I got really good critiques from the other students (yes, we have to critique each other in class before turn in the project...) and I liked how mine turned out too. We were doing basic shapes and values (shading). The next project is single point perspective. We have to draw a city street basically, but we don't have to shade it in at all.

Chaos

Congrats on the stability!

I'd be reticent to mess with things, too; yet, is sounds like the anxiety needs treatment.

Personally, Celexa is a friend of mine. it both takes the edge off and treats my anxiety. I will share the fact that my pdoc took it away. She thought I might be more stable without it.

I am concerned. Please be extra careful that you don't choose an AD that carries the potential for QT Prolongation.

Here is a great explanation, as well as a partial list of meds that do have this potential. both antipsychotics and AD meds are listed:

Drug-Induced QT Prolongation

I hope you find a med that both does the trick and honors the many months of stability you have already achieved.

I have a three day weekend. Oh joy! I need to clean up my house. I will listen to my music now.