Bipolar Check-in #82

@Rosi700

Yeah. You wanna be careful with benzos! Don't take more than you're prescribed! It's awful when you run out early. Benzo withdrawal is no joke.

I know @raspberrytorte! I have experienced THAT and it cannot be described how awful that was. I thought my last hour was come!

That is why I have portioned it out for the next days. I am also scared about what this is!

I have to figure out what this is, in what situations I do it and how I can avoid doing it. Usually I have developed a talent for making plans, and that is generally of good help, but THIS is something else!

Hope I will be able to get the needed control and develop relevant tools for how to stop it in the future.

@Rosi700
Benzo withdrawal is definitely the pits. My pdoc finally took me off clonazepam after I had been taking it over a decade b/c he feared it was making me too forgetful (and I think he was right). I had been on clonazepam 4 mg for quite awhile. It took me over a year of tapering to get off the clonazepam.

You might ask your pdoc if you can try some non-benzos for panic/anxiety so you can stick with your prescribed benzo dose. They definitely do not work as well as benzos but they help some. I found taking low dose Seroquel (25 mg) as a prn helped me quite a bit. It can cause drowisness for some but it didn't for me (possibly b/c I'd been taking 300 mg Seroquel at night for quite awhile). There is buspirone too which I never had an issue with drowsiness though the jury is out on how much it's helped me . Also propranolol which I believe is a beta blocker that cannot be taken if you have heart or blood presssure issues but can be used as a prn; it's use for anxiety is off label I think. Also hydroxyzine which is an anti-histamine; can cause some drowsiness though but my pdoc has prescribed it both to take regularly and as a prn.

I certainly slept good. I slept straight through the night then I took a nap this morning around 9:30am and didn’t wake up till about 20 minutes ago around 12:10pm. I try not to take long naps like that during the day but sometimes I need to.

I’m gonna be facilitating more of the groups and activities in my apartment building this month.

Idk what I’m doing today. Definitely practicing violin. I think that’s about it. Other than that I’m gonna read a lot. I might clean some too. I don’t have the energy for the treadmill today

I had an ok trip. My medical issue is still a problem so I'll have to go to the doctors tommorow and probably get a mini procedure. I went out to dinner last night for the first since Febuarary. It was nice. I was with my aunt and uncle and my mom and brother. I normally back out of plans but my anxiety has been ok lately and I felt like I was able to do it. We had a table in a corner and it wasn't crowded.

Today my mom and I went shopping. I finally found Land O Lakes maple butter and pumpkin pie butter. I'm a bit cranky because I'm nervous about tommorow. I've had this happen before and it was not fun. But I'm handling it well for the most part. My paranoia was fine today.

I slept really strangely, very unsettled. It was 8.5 hours though which is a huge improvement from a few months ago.

Just got back from the gym - lots of sweating and effort. I had to sit in my car in the parking lot at the gym for a half hour afterwards to settle down so I could drive home.

I'm still feeling low, but I managed to take a shower. I hadn't showered in a number of days.

I'm trying to brush my teeth but I find it difficult to do. When I really push myself, I can do it and am satisfied that I did brush, but getting that push is really difficult.

I'm working on the mindfulness for my anxiety. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It's good to make a little progress after having bad anxiety for such a long time.

My pdoc says it's likely that therapy will make the biggest difference for my anxiety and that the meds will eventually no longer be necessary. The depression is another story though, but who knows, maybe it'll improve as I get better at reducing my anxiety.

I'm on 2 antidepressants at the moment and my pdoc says that is remarkable because they're not pushing me into hypomania. Shows how heavy the depression really is.

just did a therapy session with a cleint here a the unit and also a grouP!

Saw Pdoc this morning. She took me off risperdal and put me on a low dose of Vraylar. Let’s hope it knocks out the hypomania and doesn’t give me the liver side effects. I am very tired after my flu shot yesterday . Going to take a nap.

Oh, drama! When to my daughter’s so we could continue Starger Things, but their credit card was hacked and $5000 taken out for gas, and another $5000 waiting for approval when they canceled the card. Their Netflix was on auto payment so that was canceled. So we went shopping. Got up to the counter and my pocket was empty! My wallet! I thought maybe it came out in the bathroom? I went to the bathroom way in the back. Followed my trail out of the bathroom,.. no wallet. She canceled the sale. And I went to my car I was trying to get my phone out of my other pocket when I pulled out my wallet! What? I never put my wallet in my left pocket. Crisis averted. But oh man I was sooo worried for a bit.

Then I get home and find out my credit card has been upgraded by the bank. I gonna lose my pretty personalize card but I’ll get more rewards and it’s good in other countries! So good news I guess.

Tonight is poker night, I should make a killing.

I hope it helps you. It seemed to improve my motivation quite a lot but I had pretty bad water retention in my feet & ankles, so I had to stop it.

@Nammu
I really panic and get upset when I can't find or lose my purse, my wallet, my credit or debit card, driver's license, cell phone, car keys. I have lost and/or missplaced each more times than I can count. I'm so glad you found your wallet! Sorry about your daughter's credit card fraud. That's no fun either. It seems I have that happen every year or two.

Thank you for your concern! I am on a low doze of diazepam. This is because I wasn't able to quit completely.


I think that some years ago, there was prescribed too much of low-doze diazepam without thinking on the long term consequences for the patients.

I need to stay on that low doze, because that is where my GP and I found it necessary to stop. The problem now is that I sometimes use more than I am allowed. It can be when I am very depressed or other .... Diazepam helps for tense muscles.

It is not in my interest to use too much. It only happens ... I intend to work with that, to find another way to react when I feel the urge.

This evening I have been able to declutter my living room and fill the dishwasher. I feel better! . I haven't had time to do housework because my time was bound up in a course I take for the time being. I have studied and studied and studied. The study period will not last long now, so my chances to do ordinary housework will improve. One doesn't feel well when one has to live in clutter and it is not good to feel overwhelmed!

Thanks again for caring!

Glad you found your wallet, @Nammu!

Yeah I had a similar reaction to vraylar except that the swelling included my knees and hands. It took weeks for the swelling to come down after I stopped it due to vraylar's long half life.

Acetic acid! That’s one of the ingredients in the mint sauce and it can cause mouth burning if ingested! It’s still also in household cleaners! Wtf?? Somebody just at told me that is another name for vinegar??

acetic acid is vinegar!

I’m allergic to vinegar??

Please
Spam me
With clazoril experiences….

I can tell you all about it. I've been on it 8 years. What do you want to know? Are you considering going on it?

side effects? cost? pros and cons?

i need med adjustment i think. still manicy accoridng to my psyd. my dr mentiond it if risprdal didnt cut it. im on 6mg of that a day and HAVE to take zyprexa to sleep

Incredibly effective...if you have a pdoc, lab (frequent bloodwork required), and pharmacy who can all work with each other to actually get you your prescription when you need it which for me never happened, and I kept getting fed up with driving all over the place and making at least 3 calls to the pharmacy and lab for each pick up. Oh, and around here very few pharmacies actually stock it.

Side effects were similar to Zyprexa. Sleep and eat.

Would take temporarily again (don't like blood work and don't like sleeping and eating) if the system weren't so hard to navigate.

Pretty cheap if I remember correctly.

I gave my dog her monthly meds with peanut butter and she liked it. I took her out and enjoyed the outdoors and chatted with my one close neighbor who i rarely see. I didn't have much energy and got out all the things to make my protein shake... then put them back. It was a lousy day, with thoughts of the past bothering me, and concluding that it's just all been a mess and i'll be happy when it's over.

@Nammu:

Glad you found your wallet and that your credit card got upgraded.

@Blue_Bird:

Glad you got some long hours of sleep. Sounds like you needed them.

''

I refuse to gain weight. i jsut lost 50lbs!

Pros and cons: works great. Seems to work effectively for a long time without losing effectiveness. It has made my life much, much better. Has side effects that are a pain but fewer overall than other meds.

Cons: labs (especially the first year, it gets easy after that) and getting communication between the pharmacy and doctor's office to go smoothly, see side effects. See side effects.

Cost: The first few years I paid $43/month. I changed policies and now pay nothing. It is a little hard to find a Med D plan that covers it. The last few years I've only had one choice. It's an expensive option but in turn I get all my generics free.



Side effects....not too many but what it has are annoying. Weight gain I'm afraid. I went on metformin and that helped reduce it but I did gain about 30 lbs which I've managed to lose with strict calorie tracking over the last year. Nighttime drooling happens for some people; for me it only happens when I am really tired now. I wear incontinence pads at night because I sometimes sleep too deeply and wake up wetting the bed (this happens rarely but enough to make pads worth it). I am tired on it but it does not put me to sleep. I'm on gabapentin and Seroquel for that. I think most people find it sedating enough without the extra meds.

I'm trying to be honest and not scary. I hope I succeeded. If you have more questions please ask. For me the good totally outweighs the bad!