Bipolar Check-in #79

Everything’s been well with me lately. No mood shifts. If I make it the whole six weeks (March 8) between ECT treatments with no symptoms, I am going to stop ECT. The dr said I could consider it because I’ve been doing so well since December. My Therapist told me not to stop in winter because traditionally that’s when I struggle the most, but I feel March 8 is almost springtime. I do NOT want to do it anymore. I would consider going back if needed but I really want to at least take a long break. Plus I only have 2 PTO days left at work.

I’m actually home sick today from work. Yesterday I left after about an hour because I was feeling awful. Hot flashes, chills, totally exhausted. Plus I had a slight headache and my throat was sore and I have a swollen lymph node in my neck. I went to urgent care to test for all the usual culprits. No obvious Covid or strep but she sent out for a PCR Covid and strep test because, as she said, since it hadn’t been 24 hours since symptoms started I might not test positive for Covid on a rapid test yet. So I’m quarantined until the test results come back tomorrow. I feel much better today exhaustion wise so I really don’t think it’s Covid, but I do think strep is a possibility. I woke up at 5am unable to swallow without tremendous pain, and my lymph node is still swollen. I’m considering going to my real dr today if they have an appointment for another strep test. Otherwise I can’t go until Monday since it’s the weekend. At least Tylenol and Advil are making the pain tolerable.

So happy I’m going to possibly stop ECT. My memory is totally destroyed. Plus now I’m sore for the entire day after. Idk why, I’m assuming because it’s a seizure so my muscles all tense up. But usually they give you a muscle relaxer. Idk. Just excited to stop.

Is treatment/med resistant bipolar real? I've heard it twice recently but only in the media and only in the last couple weeks. So I'm not sure if its legit or another new trend.

Today has been fine. The Wellbutrin seems to be working. I'm not having any anxiety or mania. My sleep has been fine. I don't need or want anything from stores and I'm not hungry besides hungry fo normal healthy stuff. So there hasn't been much to do today. I did get a primary appointment set up and I'm trying to work out my new med. The out of state pharmacy is playing fax tag with my doctor.

But overall today has been boring but ok. The lady from my regular insurance was so stupid it was sad. She couldn't keep details right. Or names right. My mom was arguing with her for like 40 minutes. It took her over 10 minutes just to understand why we were calling. Once we called the speciailty pharmacy they understood immediatly. But idk if this woman had cognitive issues or what.

Yup it's real and I know because I have it.

My pdoc has been looking for a treatment that works for the past 7 years - since I had to stop lamictal which worked better than anything in the past 7 years.

And guess what? She's considering putting me back on lamictal because so many meds haven't worked. I still had up and down days but they were manageable.

I had an excellent night of sleep last night. Slept from midnight to 5AM. Woke up at 1AM, but got pissed and decided I wasn't getting up (even if I had to pee really bad lol). So I am HAPPY! Had a wonderful appointment with my therapist. We talked about some of my goals and one of them is to fix my shyt sleep. Hopefully last night wasn't an anomaly.

My pdoc's office called in more seroquel for me, so I have to pick that up on Monday. I guess their temporary resolution is to give me more seroquel. Whatever. I'm not complaining. The shyt feels better than a benzo. If I had to choose between diazepam and seroquel (like I had absolutely NO choice here and lets say there would be NO benzo withdrawal in this hypothetical situation) I would choose seroquel 100%. Seroquel and I are tight.

Anyway... so I'm writing my flash fiction tonight. I have an idea for one. Now that I'm over my atypical pneumonia (still don't know what the **** that means) I'm feeling creative again. I'm also self-publishing three of my novels, so I've been going through them and formatting and editing. Most excited! Going to be very cool.

Mood-wise today I feel great! I'm really looking forward to March. Going to be a great month!

I hope everyone is having a good day! And that it's nice and sunny 🌞 and warm where you live. It's colder than a pair of naked butt cheeks here and gloomy as hell.

I edited my marker swatchs so I'm getting closer to coloring again. Now I just have to print it color it and label it but it's 5 pages long. So maybe tomorrow. I hoping I'm coming out of a year+ depression. I still think my meds need to be changed and I'm scared. Victoria starts school again next week. I don't think she's ready. She refuses disability assistance. I asked her to take another month off to get disability settled but she wants money. Oh well, I'll support her best I can. It doesn't help we have to go to the food bank Monday. I used to be better at handling money. We are behind in everything. I feel like I'm just waking up. So many things I have to fix.

Very much so. I went through over 40 meds in 70some combinations before I lost track around the time I went on clozaril which actually did work for me. I was diagnosed at age 26 and finally responded well to treatment at age 40. It's real and it sucks.

my life is very stresfful right now and i dont really know how to deal with it. my pawpaw is so sick and grieving my mawmaw who has almost been gone a year. he says he just wants to die. its heatbreaking as hes struggling with earl dementia too. on top of this...my grnany who i care for will be in rehab til march 13....the day i move into my apt. so im spending the last bit at home all alone. its sad to me as i wanted to cherish our time together.

Clozaril really helped me. I just wish I could have tolerated it physically! It gave me edema, respiratory problems, and massive fluid retention. My pdoc said he'd never seen anything like it. It was terrible! I'm so happy it worked out for you.

PS: Not to mention the DROOLING. GOD! I had a drool towel at night! Lol

Had another great night of sleep, with aid of extra seroquel. 400mg to be specific (double the amount I was previously taking). I'm SO happy 😊. I guess I just needed more seroquel to knock me out. Went to bed at midnight and woke up at 5:30AM. Yay! I feel GREAT!!!! I didn't get my flash fiction written last night though, but I DID do some brainstorming, so that's good.

I don't know. I'm just happy I'm finally getting some sleep!

I'm kinda worried I destroyed my liver or kidneys taking large amounts of melatonin, advil, and dramamine and other OTC stuff for awhile. I'm starting to have issues today and I wonder if its all connected. Currently I have upper back pain and fatigue. I get cramps in my back when I take deep breaths. And I've found some blood. My anxiety and depression have been fine overall today. Besides when some Jesus freaks were at the door and stood there for about 5 minutes and then put a flyer in the door. I thought someone was trying to get in. What made me feel better was that my cat Gary didn't run away so I knew they had only opened the screen door and not the actual door to the house. If someone had actually gotten in Gary would have bolted under a bed or into a closet.

I'm still not feeling better and tylenol and zofran didnt do anything.

Mainly on Wellbutrin I just feel really bored. I feel better and I want to get out and travel or some **** but my stomach issues only allow me to watch Project Runway and I'm not intetrested in food much so even eating out isnt an option.

I'm sorry it didn't work for you too because when it works it really is a great med. I had edema and really high blood pressure on Risperdal; totally out of the blue and not common. I hated it because it worked for me but I couldn't stay on it. We even tried again and had the same result a couple years later.

The drooling....yes it's gross. It's better for me now that I'm on a lower dose. A long time ago I had a patient who was on 800 mg and she drooled constantly, day and night. I feel so bad for her after having been through night drooling. I had urinary incontinence too that seems better with the lower dose although I doubt I'll ever quit wearing a pad while on it. I've awoken to a soaked bed too many times since starting it to ever trust it.

I hope your new dose of Seroquel keeps working for you.

Yeah. I REALLY wish it would have worked out. I was so jolly on it I didn't even care about the weight gain. I used to just make fun of myself. To this day, my daughter is like, "So, momma, are you ever gonna go on that med again that made you fat and jolly?" Lol. It was SO funny. Kids have no filter, and one day she was like, "You're getting really fat, momma, no offense." Clozaril made me so fat! But, like I said, I was too jolly to really care. It was great! I was on 300mg. I'll never go on it again though.

I've never been on Risperdal before.

I had urinary incontinence when I was on a really high dose of Haldol. I was so embarrassed 😳. It got so bad my husband finally suggested I wear adult diapers to bed. I was in my thirties! Ugh. Luckily I stopped having this problem when I went off that high dose of Haldol.

Anyway, thanks. I hope my new seroquel dose keeps on working too.

I've mentioned this before but I crapped my pants in my sleep trying to taper off valium on my own. My therapist was trying so hard not to laugh when I was telling her, because its funny stuff.

But yeah after that incident I haven't messed with my valium

I had this really bad heartburn for a couple hours and I went and suddenly threw up the piece of meat I had for dinner, and a ton of bile. I took pepcid and zofran today and I haven't had coffee in a number of few days. So idk

I'm thinking about making an appointment with my GP to discuss my weight and potentially going on some sort of weight loss drug. I don't know though. I'm not quite sure if I'm fat enough. I'm in the overweight BMI category.

Had an extremely unproductive day sadly 😥. Spent the whole day high on seroquel and drowsy as ****. Got nothing done. Finally got out of my stupor at four and then video chatted with a friend until 10:30PM! I put out my meds for the week. There. I did one thing. I plan on making tomorrow productive though. No sleeping. No seroquel highs. I counted my seroquel and I'm going to run out seven days early. It's a good thing I'm getting more from the pharmacy on Monday!

I think I may have a problem. Whatever.

I'm going to call my pdoc's office again on Monday because they gave me 90 100mg tabs to last 45 days and I'm not sure what that means.

I have to call in my diazepam refill sometime this week too. I hate calling in my stupid diazepam refill. I hate diazepam. The only reason why I'm still on it is because I don't want to go through benzo withdrawal. Benzo withdrawal scares the shyt out of me! Like... explosive diarrhea everywhere.

If you're worried about your liver and kidneys you can always go to your GP. I don't know if this is being too nosey or not, but have you found blood in your shyt or urine? If it's your urine you could just have a UTI or something. If it's your shyt, I would definitely make an appointment to see your GP.

I hate Jesus freaks. One time my husband (then boyfriend) actually let them in and they stayed for THREE HOURS. I was PISSED!!!!! We were in college at the time, it was finals week, and I had shyt to do at the library! Ugh! Makes me angry to this day 😡 .

I'm happy the wellbutrin is working out for you. I hope you start seeing the weight loss benefits of it soon!

MD, Advil rarely affects the liver but can affect the kidneys: ibuprofen's effects on liver and kidneys.

i second the suggestion that you reach out to your GP for some tests and hopefully reassurance.

Not in my urine, but there was a fair amount of bright blood black there on the toilet paper yesterday. I see my primary doctor tommorow

Yeah Jesus people can be a bit odd. At a gas station in 2016 or 2017 I had 2 young well dressed women in their late 20's early 30's approach me at a gas station and give me their card. It freaked me out because before they walked over they were looking over their car at me and whispering a lot.

What about all that melatonin I've been taking? Has that finally caught up to me?

I did a quick Google search and it said melatonin doesn't negatively affect your liver or kidneys, so don't worry about that. I'd be more worried about the OTC pain relievers. I don't know about dramamine though. I'm unfamiliar with that med.