Pdoc appointments

Anyone have absolutely no clue what to say/what is relevant in an appointment? I don't want to make med adjustments that do nothing or make things worse just because I suck at knowing anything beyond (behind?) the present moment.

I.e. right now I have an appointment in a few days and I'm not sure if I'm too tired to function after doing practically anything because it's fall or because of depakote or because of ritalin or because of what I'm eating or because I just had a birth control switch (and have been bleeding a lot), or because of nightmares or because almost 30 years of being physically hard on my body has caught up to me or because I'm getting depressed. It'd be cool to know if I need a med increase/decrease/change or to eat more banana oatmeal or stop expecting myself to be awake all day and give up all hope that one day I'll get above treeline again or find a job I enjoy and can perform well in or whatever requires you to not just be awake but doing stuff for more than a few hours.

And what's with the "how would you say your mood has been?" question? I don't know, man, you tell me. I haven't had to confine myself to under a bed to avoid violence, and I haven't tried to off myself, but at the same time lunch with a friend can in itself go from "we're awesome people going to awesome places" to freaking out and apologizing for my existence to "I love you!" to a panic attack when we leave because of course that was the last time I'll ever see them again. Normal lunch, yeah, but this shyt is why it's so taxing to be social despite how much I want to spend time with people.

I guess a question that comes to mind is: how do you know if you're just tired and things are getting harder because of that or depressed?

Ugh. I don't know. I have the same problem. I don't know WHAT I'm going to bring up at my psychiatrist appointment anymore. Tmi, but had a particularly intense spicy encounter this afternoon and had one of the best org*sms of my life (probably because I haven't gotten off in like three months!), so now I don't know if I should switch ADs or not or if it was just a fluke or what is going on! And up until the past few days I've been an anxious mess, but since I stopped taking Claritin on the daily I haven't been anxious, so I probably don't have to bring that up. And I was having paranoia.... but haven't recently. I was depressed, but now I'm not so much anymore, just all emotional and **** 😢 , so I don't know what I'm going to say!

I totally get where you're coming from.

That's the point I'm trying to make, in a long, rambling way!

I know this is off the main topic of this post, but raspberry, claritin increases my anxiety too, you're definitely not alone in that.

Really? I'm SO happy I'm not alone! I couldn't figure out where all that extra anxiety was coming from because my meds haven't changed at all and then I had a light bulb moment and thought maybe it was the Claritin because benadryl makes me anxious too!

I'm just staying away from ALL OTC allergy meds!!!

That's why I see a therapist. She's there to remind me how things went since the last time I saw pdoc. They share notes.

This may be way out in left field, but I have seen a couple of documentaries on suboxone/subutex/buprenorphine that have absolutely changed people's lives. It can be used for those who abuse opioids or alcohol or both. It removes cravings, calms everything down and allows those who are on it to lead normal lives.

It is a form of opioid, but outlooks from the government and medical establishment are changing to prescribing Buprenorphine, often in the form of a patch for those who have trouble getting or staying clean. They are often on it for a year or two while they get settled into a drug and alcohol free life, and when they titrate off, the desire to use is gone, as their lives have improved so much.

I realize you may or may not be a candidate, but if you interested watch a couple of documentaries on youtube or read some articles on the internet to see if this would be something that may be of help to you. It may be the key to preventing relapses for you.

If it looks like this could be of help to you, bring it up with your pdoc. Hard to tell if he will be up to date on recent attitude changes on this drug.