Bipolar Check-in #79

Surprisingly good! Happily good! I'm sitting next to her in her hospital bed and she's been lucid. I've had full conversations, and while her brain is still a little frazzled (understandable given what happened), the fact we've been talking is amazing!

What happened is still up in the air. No sign of stroke or brain trauma which is excellent news! Infection is still the likely cause, but where the infection is coming from is eluding the doctors. All the likely culprits are fine, so they're having to look further afield. I'm very curious myself as to what happened.

My mom is snoozing away right now, which is excellent in and of itself, so I'm probably gonna head home and get some sleep myself. My dad's planning on coming back in at first light, so she'll have someone there when she wakes up.

As for me:

Great news, @Aurelius710!

I'm so glad your mother has improved. Hopefully the doctors find the source of the problem soon.

The ENT doctor pulled out this giant piece of earwax. It hurt like hell. It was really impacted in there.

She wants to do this this test where I have to be off all my sedating meds for 72 hours. Which means I can't take any valium for 3 days. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to do the test because of that specefic reason.

I threw up some Mountain Dew this morning. I haven't actually eaten in about 20 hours. I got some drink from the coffee shop after my appointment but I'm not 100% sure its gonna stay down. The ENT said throwing up brown isnt normal but that shes an ENT and its in not her area. She said to call my doctor.

At least she got a giant chunk of stuff out of my ear.

I'm kind of just like. Maybe I should just call my doctor now? The second valium didn't help. So its not really anxiety.

I called my GI doctor 2 hours ago and told the receptionist my symptoms. She asked a few more and said she'd relay the message to the doctor.

They are just leaving me hanging and I don't feel good.

At least I'm losing weight now between all this puking and not eating much. I lost 3.2 pounds. I ate like 1220 calories today. Puked up my second soda around 5AM
Trying really hard to hold things in right now.

And there went dinner.

Edit: Now I'm just puking up water. Can't keep anything down. I'm thirsty as **** and probably dehydrated at this point.

@Mountaindewed

I hope you get in touch with somebody. I was told to go to the ER in 1999 when I couldn’t even keep water down BUT I was 5 months pregnant at the time too. I still think you should talk with a doctor though.

@JaneOnceMore the probiotic our dog takes is Purina ProPlan Calming Care He loves it. He even waited to eat today until I put it on his food at lunch time .

N3 took me out for b bim bop today for an early birthday lunch. Tomorrow is my birthday.

I’m feeling like a stuffed sausage today. Can tell I’ve gained ten pounds since six months ago. Not good.

I get a free birthday drink at Starbucks. You can get anything you want!

I’m going out to lunch with my mom tomorrow and then on Friday I’m getting my hair cut. It’s about six inches below my shoulders and I want it shoulder length.

(Nice. I complain that I’m fat then talk about going to restaurants! D’oh!).

I took over 2 hours to drink a can of sprite. I thought I was gonna be fine. I can't stop puking now.

You really need to go to the ER. You’re right: you’re likely dehydrated.

Victoria took us to a Brazilian steakhouse. Everything was great. I'm going to need dentures soon I'm not happy at all about that. My insurance doesn't pay for them so I have to save up 5k. No clue how we're going to do that while drowning in bills. H wants me to ask my parents but that's a lot of money but I'm down to chewing on one side in the back.like I said not happy.

I slept all night then I was able to keep down half a bottle of water and about 12oz of a Mountain Dew. But I think thats enough for right now.

I kept the water and Mountain Dew down. I ate half a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast at 7. I got some Gatorade and a Powerade and I drank the Powerade at 9. At 11 I ate a bowl of ramen without the broth.

So far everything has been ok but I don't think I'm going to push it much more with food. I've taken Tylenol and Pepcid and Zofran to avoid an incident like last night. I just feel kinda blah right now I guess.

I'm sort of feeling things coming on. I took more tylenol. But I've kept down water and food all day so I'm not dehydrated

cliffnotes version of the below post: a neurologist I saw today wrote in his notes that my symptoms are probably all in my head. That's what I get for tracking symptoms. I wonder if he'd think this if I didn't have this stupid bipolar diagnosis.



After waiting 3 months, I finally saw a neurologist today (my primary care doc wonders if I have POTS). I went online to read his appointment notes. He asked me what meds I'm on, but not what they are for. He wrote that I "apparently" have bipolar disorder. No matter what meds I'm on, how about ask me!? He ordered an autonomic test, but I have a feeling he thinks it's useless. His notes said that, if the test results are fine, a somatic symptoms disorder should be considered and my psych should do some neuropsych testing.

Thanks for ordering a test even though you think it's all in my head doc. Like, what's the point. Why make me wait up to two weeks for someone to even call me to schedule the test, then wait forever to be able to get the test (and probably have to take off work for it), if you don't think it's needed. And, don't assume my psychiatrist (well, he assumed I have a pdoc without asking too) hasn't done any testing. My pdoc did a neuropsych test during my consult appointment a little over two years ago and ran bloodwork to see if my meds might be causing issues.

My biggest fear in all of this has been that I'm sick enough for symptoms to affect my daily life, but not sick enough to get a formal diagnosis. If tests keep coming back fine, I'm worried my PCP isn't going to take me seriously about different illnesses either.

I'm praying to God that something shows up on the dizziness test I am getting done on Monday (if I can handle not taking my psych meds tomorrow-Sunday) so doctors don't think I'm completely nuts.

It sucks that there is so much stigma about mental health, even in the medical world.

I have to get the same dizzy test done too in May and I'm thinking I just won't be able to do go off my valium for 3 days. I'm thinking of just not doing it because I'm worried about my mental health.

I went out to lunch with my mom today for my birthday. It was good- mini burgers and onion rings with ranch. And bonus- a free cheesecake slice that we also shared. I’m home and feel like taking a short nap on the couch.

Oh man am I ever tired. I slept just 5 hours last night. My usual before the med changes was 9-10 hours.

I'm on day 8 of Vraylar. No changes or side effects yet. They say it can take weeks for side effects to show up.

I dropped off my car for service. I was in an accident, not my fault, last month and they are fixing something they didn't get right the first time. I'm ok, but the car is not.

My “short nap” turned into 3 hours! Where did the time go?

I hope your car gets fixed well soon. I hope you don’t get side effects from Vraylar, too. Get better sleep tonight.

Meds are good but started a new diet pill called GOLO and it really lowers my blood sugar and makes me really sleepy. I'm probably going to stop taking it. CPAP is working great but was really depressed today. This back and forth with my husband has finally come to an end because I've changed my number. It's been painful but had to be done.

It was a clear night tonight, so I took some photos of the night sky.

Below is a galaxy called the Black Eye Galaxy because it looks like someone has a black eye. It is 17 million light years from us and it was first discovered in March, 1779, that's 245 years ago this month. Pretty amazing!

The image is a little grainy because I just edited it on my phone, but it gives you an idea about how the galaxy looks, maybe try to zoom in on it. Enjoy!

@Mountaindewed it's such a hard choice to have to make-figure out what's going on with ones physical health or don't rock the boat with ones mental health. If you decide not to get the test done, I hope your doctor is understanding!

@Scooter9 that picture is amazing! How were you able to capture it? Do you have a telescope that somehow allows you to take pictures on your phone of what you can see using the telescope?

I wonder if I was going through a dramamine withdrawel. I did just stop it cold turkey. I read you can throw up and stuff from going off it suddenly. I ran out and just forgot about it. I am also wearing my glasses today which I think is the main issue. I did feel a lot better once I put them on.

I'm not a Beyonce fan but I did check out the new album when it dropped at midnight to see what the big deal was going to be.

Remember its Good Friday so it gets dark and then light again at 3PM. So they say.

Hi @June08, glad you like the pic!

Yes I have a telescope that I can use with my phone. I actually have a couple of telescopes that work with my phone. It's an obsessive hobby

I'm so tired of feeling shhtty. Easy solution: take Wellbutrin and get hypomanic. I get beautiful euphoric hypomanias. Downside: spend $8,000 on shoes and act like an idiot.

@Scooter9 - I've got to get me one of those telescope camera things, I would be there all night with the sky!! I love everything astronomy, and everything Star Trek too for that matter, (except the newer ones, blah).

In a really good mood. Got dressed up and actually wore makeup into work today. I really needed to get out of the house and feel better about myself. I should dress up more and do nice things, I think it's really important for stable mental health. Thinking about my husband a lot, well ex - I know he's thinking of me too, I can feel it. I know it was abrupt to change my phone number, but I think the damage has been done and I needed to move on.

Pretty good mood wise, no manic or depressed feelings to report.