Bipolar check in #45

Hi bluebicycle. The "milder" aspect was what I was originally told, too. However, I was one of the group of people with bipolar disorder where Provigil caused a switch to mania. I was trialed on Provigil three times. The first time, the doctor gave me free samples. It worked, as was intended, within about five days, but then the samples (and IOP) ended. Not too long after, a hospital doctor put me on it again. Shortly after, I started to get manic, so was taken off. Then not too long after, my own private psychiatrist put me on it, reluctantly. I hadn't told him what had happened previously. It was a hassle med because it required prior authorizations.

The third time I was put on it, I got manic again. Unfortunately, the mania really escalated during a trip to Maine. My behavior became out of control. I remember people on a boat making remarks about it, as did people at the hotel. It was November. The hotel had a pool. I remember having insomnia where I got zero sleep, and started having visual hallucinations and delusions. I got up at about 6 am and went to the hotel's outdoor swimming pool and started to swim. Yes, 6 am in November in Maine! Hubby yelled at me to get out. Others noticed, so hours later a big sign went up at the pool and a chain was put up. Hubby threatened to take me to the hospital there. Maine is a little hike from New Jersey. The vacation was cut short because of my mania.

Hubby forced me to stop the Provigil and called my psychiatrist, who told me to get off of it immediately. Hubby urged me to call the pharmacy to cancel refills. My mania did quickly ease after stopping Provigil, as you referenced. That's a bit different than other manias, I've had. However, as my mood leveled, I missed the high. I started to abuse Provigil for a bit. This was not the only time I've taken a stimulant against medical advice. There was a time in the past that I abused pseudophedrine (Sudafed) for the same reason. My regular pharmacist started refusing to sell it to me (it requires purchase at the pharmacy desk, with a license presented). For a bit, I went to other pharmacies where they didn't know me, to get it.

Thanks Yeah I don't get the hoarding either Unfortunately they don't seem to limit how much people can buy because I see people with cart fulls of just TP and paper towels checking out, I only got one because that's what I could afford with the money I had on me but yeah.. I think they really should put at least some sort of limit on it, most stores seem to be

Yeah cake is the breakfast of champions

I hope your stomach calms soon, bluebicycle. I can't know why you're nauseous, but I can say that the rare times I've missed medications, I have had similar physical reactions. Often I also have a major headache, especially when I've missed evening medications. Feel better!

We'lll take a look at those. Thanks!

Oh, good. As long as it's not Nuvigil. Stay away from that one. It made me soooooo sleepy. Lots of other people, too. Nuvigil works the opposite of how it is supposed to, but companies get desperate when they lose their patents. I am quite certain they lied to to get it FDA=approved. Maybe I am wrong, but I doubt it.


Hope it works great for you!!!!

What?!?!?! Big pharma lies? I can't believe you'd say such a thing.

Hoo boy the weather is weird. Yesterday it was in the 60's and tons of people were out walking. Today it's an icy mix that I thought was snow until I went out to get the mail. Cold! On the noon news it said 32!! Very slippery out there. The paper was only 6 pages long.

Just finished my therapy appt 1 hour ago. It went well. We discussed that I'm (apparently) still having symptoms.

Pdoc did not return my call. Guess I will have to call again... except today is Friday and idk how the heck to contact him over the weekend. The "after hours emergency services" never think anything is urgent. It's always "call back during normal business hours."

He does not check his own voicemail, and since his stupid assistant only works from 10am-2pm on M-F, I'm SOL.

Hopefully this weekend will be okay for me, but I'm not too optimistic.

blue. Maybe there will be a miracle, I hope so.

Hope you feel better bluebicycle!

Hi BirdDancer! While I get why her just unsubscribing would be ideal, I don't really see anything awkward about manually removing her. It's not like she'd get a notification of it or anything, right? Besides, the feature is there for you. If you're not comfortable with a reader --any reader, for any reason -- then you are only protecting yourself. You shouldn't have to be uncomfortable! I think that any therapist worth their salt would say the same (not that I'm a therapist, lol, but it seems to be a matter of personal boundary setting).

Lol! So true!

Good to know! So far so good with this one. We haven't fallen asleep against our will at all today or yesterday... We had been falling asleep at IOP, just head against the wall, sleeping kind of thing. Not the past two days...

Thanks, Innerzone! Maybe I will go ahead and remove her email from my follower list. Maybe I'll wait a day or two to be sure she's sort of forgotten about me.

Yesterday it was 63 and sunny. This morning, I had to scrape my car! (Granted at 4:30 a.m.) And now its almost four and its 65 and sunny. The flowers are up around here and the bushes have bloomed too. It seems a little early for both- usually its like this a month from now.

N3 worked from 5-2 today. That's good because tomorrow he probably will be let go early. You never know though- I thought he'd be out early today from going in so early. After I picked him up we went for a walk in my mom's neighborhood. It's 65 but walking it was too hot with a sweatshirt on. I'm trying to think of what to eat for dinner. Chicken is not thawed. Darn it! But if I have enough spaghetti sauce we could have pasta.

I weighed myself today and I am almost forty pounds down from my highest. (Give or take 3.) Now if I could just lose the last 40 it would be great!

It's snowing now! The outside ground is white! Looks like November out there not April

Crazy. But we could have that same weather here. You just never know. You know what they say about Michigan weather- if you don't like it, wait 5 minutes...

Late start here today, but I hope you call the aftre-hours people, blue!!!!

Awesome. It has been a miracle drug for me. But don't take more than the prescribed amount--like BirdDancer correctly points out, it's just not good. I was in a very high Provigil dose at one time because my brain was so sick. Then, when I started to get better, that same dose was just too much. It totally over-activated me. Tweaking, basically, for me, anyhow. Not like Adderall at all--there is no euphoria from Provigil, at least for me. So, taking too much really is the worst of all worlds, even if you don't get mania.

Just a tip from someone who has been on it for a very long time.

Thanks everyone. I'm feeling a little better after doing some distractions.

It's a waste of time. I need a new prescription to replace Rexulti. The last time I said that one of my meds conked out on me and I was feeling heavily depressed, they said that I needed to call during normal business hours to set up an appointment with my provider. They said it's against their office policy to allow providers to prescribe medications outside of business hours.

Also once knocked some meds into the toilet in my bathroom on a Friday night at like 8pm and they said to call back during normal business hours because of the whole "not allowing providers to prescribe medications outside of business hours" thing.

Back in 2018, I said that I was calling because my pdoc didn't call me back and that I needed an urgent response. Then they said, "It is up to your provider to decide when they will return their calls. This line is for urgent matters." Then I repeated that it WAS urgent. Then the idiot on the phone said, "Ok, but if you left a message, then your doctor will get back to you when they have time." I fought with the moron for literally like 3 minutes before hanging up on him.

Ok, I can't really elaborate on this, but I think I have to report my first therapist to my therapy office. She had left the office about 4 years ago, but is apparently making a return to the office as of mid April. She did A LOT of bad things and I never reported her because she left and I thought, "good f***ing riddance, you dumb b****." I briefly told my current therapist about her when we started therapy in 2017... and my therapist gave me a WTF look. But I think she would probably encourage me to report her if I told her EVERYTHING this lady did (which includes her accusing me of lying about symptoms to my pdoc, saying I am manipulative, saying that a PhD psychologist doesn't know what she's doing (even though she herself is only a MS social worker), etc.).

Really frustrating, but I think I have to do it for the sake of everyone else who has to deal with her horrible treatment of people.

@bluebicycle I'd report her too. It sounds like its only a matter of time before she is treating you the exact same way.

Thanks again for the suggestions folks! I'll see what I can do. Unfortunately I asked about the stimulus package and hubby says that's peanuts to what he's lost. (Apparently he took a pay cut too in addition to losing the bonus and raise.) But again, at least he has a job right now! Ugh!

Earlier this morning I managed to walk over the hill to the beach. It is only a 10 minute return walk but with my Fibromyalgia/CFS being bad it made me a little dizzy. Still, it was great to see the ocean again. I also managed to clean my bathroom. More needs doing around my flat but that's it for today exercise wise. I have to pace myself or I will get sicker. Anxiety down and sleeping better. Yey! I have managed to reduce clonazepam and seroquel doses too. Hopefully things are on the up for me health wise.

My home state (Australia) has shut its borders to all other states, and internationally as well. Our state is fairing well so far in comparison to other states and countries. Even so we are in a type of lockdown. As we have a major port in the Southern Hemisphere cruise ships have been our main problem. Why people still chose to go on a cruise a month ago is beyond me but now they are filling our hospitals. It is a horrible situation for everyone. We can't turn back ships in distress. We must help. The problem is we are an isolated state (in usual times) with limited hospital space. Thankfully there is minimal community transmission so far so the hospitals are coping.

Yesterday the leader of our state got a huge case of the giggles during a press conference. He was asked if a person was still allowed to go for a jog and eat a kebab. I think he pictured the person doing both at the same time and couldn't help but burst into laughter before saying it is not against the law as long as social distancing is in place. Anyway, it was funny to watch and great to see the Premier laugh for a change. Poor guy must be so stressed. He also wrote an official order allowing the Easter Bunny to cross our border. lol. I think he is doing a great job.

Anyway, I digress. Weird times to live in indeed.