Bipolar Check-in #83

Every morning I make a chai latte from a mix. Usually I use soy milk, but they were out so I got oat milk this time. Was bored and googling soy vs oat milk and my usual milk is best but man the oak milk is good. Does have more fiber. But still both are a lot of carbs. Really need to up protein first thing in the morning. No idea how though as I don’t like eating on waking. Thinking of giving up my chai, but what to replace it with, that’s just as easy? I drink it cold, so it’s just a matter of pouring in in a glass. Any ideas?

Not sure if you like cottage cheese or if you avoid dairy products altogether, but it is very easy and high in protein. I usually have it with diced peaches. If you eat 1/2 a cup, it's roughly 25% of the daily value of protein; 1 cup is 50% your daily value.

Oooo I love cottage cheese, I just don’t think to buy it. That would be very edible in the morning. I could switch to tea bag chai for my drink. Just make it the night before and put it in the fridge for cold morning drink. Thanks, this is doable!

Ugh. SO sexually frustrated, but I just have to remember the alternative, which is crying all the time and bawling on the kitchen floor at 12:30 in the morning, and it's not like it's still not enjoyable. It's quite enjoyable. I just never get any relief! Fck man. I wish sertraline didn't have this unfortunate side effect!

Man, 300mg of seroquel kicked my *** last night. I slept from 11PM to 6:30AM, only waking up once in the middle of the night to pee. It's amazing. I haven't slept so long in forever. Feels good. Of course now I'm behind in showering and writing in my journal, and I have to get the ezine up today because I won't have time tomorrow because it's Halloween. Only slightly panicking. It's a full *** issue. It's going to take forever to put up! Just waiting for my husband to get done on our dinosaur mac computer so I can work on it, since I can't from my laptop unfortunately.

I'm just curious. I don't know if this is a bad idea or not, but if I started a weight loss journey thread would that be too triggering for people? I'm on a weight loss journey right now, and I know a lot of us have gained weight from psych meds. I thought we could motivate each other and stuff.

I feel decent today. My cough and post nasal drip are still pretty bad. I finally took some Dayquil because of all the coughing. My meds aren't ready yet. I slept good and my moods and anxiety are ok. I've been avoiding the news. I did a lot of organzing and putting stuff in the fridge. I see my therapist tommorow.

I think it’s fine as long as you don’t use numbers, like calorie and pounds, keep it general. I lost weight, I substituted this for that and such things. I’d like that too as I want to change to healthy eating. And that seems to mean eating breakfast. Ugh. But I’m gonna try blueberries idea.

It looks like the family member we have been caring for during the past almost 7 years is dying. It's not unexpected, since this family member is 90, but it is still difficult.

She has been declining very slowly but things got faster today. She could pass very soon.

Just trying to be there for my family.

Bipolar-wise, I am sleeping just 3 hours a night. It's happening because of a slight increase in Rexulti. No other symptoms, other than being very tired all of the time.

I'm not a huge morning eater either, but I typically make a smoothie with something like (chocolate) hummus or a nut butter. I usually throw in yogurt and soy milk in there too with all the other stuff (greens, fruits, a handful of oats, whatever spices might go with it).

I think there already is (or something similar to it) in the health&exercise forums, but if you wanted to make one bipolar specific since the meds almost always make that harder, I think that'd be fine. I'd probably be triggered by it, personally, but it's easy enough to put a thread on ignore.

It doesn't really feel ED-related though. I get I mentioned the thoughts were getting worse, but I'm not actively putting in effort to lose, at least not like that. No purging, eating at every meal every day, normal activity levels. Maybe I'm oblivious to my eating habits or my liver's worse or the BC switch is doing something.

Dentist appointment went well they re-cemented the crown that came off. The dentist was really nice. He was telling me about partials and implants cause I’m missing two teeth. He said both those are options, which no one ever mentioned to me before. So he said to ask my dentist at my cleaning in December about getting a partial. Idk if I’ll get implants. Maybe someday I can afford it. But I can at least get the partial even if my insurance ends up not covering that’s something I could realistically pay for. Anyway, that’s exciting. I’m gonna start saving money in the meantime in case my insurance doesn’t cover it. But we’ll see. I have my cleaning set up for December 13th.

The antibioitc has a major interaction with my Geodon according to the drug interaction site. I don't get why the doctor or pharamacy didn't tell me this? But the steroid is pretty ok with all my meds. So I'm going to take that and just deal with the side effects. Its only for 5 days. I just really need to get rid of this thing. Its causing a lot of anxiety every time I do that wheezing cough.

I’m keen on a weight loss thread

Not sure what antibiotic they prescribed, but given you're talking Geodon I'm wondering if what they're worried about is a heart rhythm thing. I'd stay away until you get that cleared up with the pharmacist (not the doc as pharms specialize in meds and interactions rather than docs that just know how to use them and the basics of their commonly prescribed meds).

I see my t later on today. Nervous because I haven’t really been writing in my book. It wasn’t the focus of our last session anyway so…..

It’s Halloween 🎃. My son doesn’t want to go to school. He says he’s afraid someone will hurt him. Mind you 2 minutes ago he was saying he wants to go trick or treating now he doesn’t want to go to school. I said I’ll take him trick or treating at 4:30 because I have a telephone appointment at 4:30 (my son’s key worker).

I started dissociating earlier on my walk home from the dentist. I somehow managed to pull myself out of it after about an hour. I drank a cold glass of water and that helped. I forget what it is but something about the polyvagal nerve or something, cold is helpful for relaxing. And I ate some apple cinnamon oatmeal. Now I’m just relaxing. Tomorrow is Halloween! One of my all time favorite holidays! Yay!! Gonna watch horror movies all of tonight and tomorrow.

My p nurse practitioner is out of the office till Monday! I was supposed to tell her how the gabapentin is going but she’s not even around! I had to tell my case manager. Meh! I’m still waking up in the middle of the night but just not for as long. Took a 3-hour nap today. Don’t feel as depressed. Went to the grocery store and got food. I was low. Got an email from my email pen pal. He included a recent photo of himself! That made me so happy to see him.

I’m going to find out tomorrow how the anemia is going and how badly damaged my liver and kidneys are from some of these meds. Particularly Lithium. I haven’t really told my family because I want to address this on my own terms. It was bad two years ago when I was fighting so hard against severe anemia and acute erosive gastritis. Check into the hospital. No thank you. Dialysis. No thank you. Not up for debate. I’m in good hands doctor wise.

I’m also having four places of skin cancer removed in the morning. Finally, one of my doctors is kind enough to inject a steroid in the joint of my elbow for tennis elbow tomorrow. I like to gather my necessary doctor’s appointments and stuff them into a few days. 2 today. 3 tomorrow. 2 Friday.

Getting excited for the Thanksgiving.

I hope everyone has a peaceful evening

So I did a thing. also got the flu shot and COVID shot. My new pdoc called and set up an appointment for December. Then the psychosis clinic set up an appointment the 11th.

My anxiety is still actually pretty low today. I haven't been watching much news lately. I've been rewatching season 3 of a reality TV show that came out in 2009. I got all my sparkling water in the fridge. I had about 10 cases. I took the first dose of the steroid a few hours ago. I'm not having any sides effect so far. Overall things are going good. Idk if I should be more worried then I am.

I just had one of my weird wheezing coughing fits and it made me pretty dizzy. I was sitting up in bed. Kinda freaky because I can feel stuff in my lungs. I am coughing up some stuff now though which is good.

today i have been a lot calmer but anxious still. klonopin really helped me sleep last night which i needed. considering taking another. got a lot done. tried on my halloween costume. my fat self makes a pretty cuddly looking squirrel.made a big pan of brownies for work pot luck tomorrow. theme is Boo at the Zoo. my t wrote me a letter for disability accomodatiosn for school. im gonna see hm again next week. election day to be exact. ill be a nervous wreck. i cant even watch or read the news. so much about the world state freaks me out.

Last week I said on here that my pdoc was easy to get in touch with, that as soon as I sent her a patient portal message about my levels and mixed episode I'd hear back. Which I almost always do. But every so often we don't connect and this is one of them. I'm surprised because my therapist was going to reach out to her too because he was concerned about the mixed symptoms and my anxiety score was worse than a few weeks ago. They have some agreement that he contacts her when he starts to be concerned to prevent things from getting really bad before I am expressing that things are really bad. But it's been 2 days and I seriously doubt I'll hear from her now.

I do have an appointment Monday. Which may be why I've not heard from her. I hate having to feel bad with no med changes at all until then but I have a feeling that's the way it is going to be. I keep wondering if I should at least reach out and ask if she wants me to come up to see her in person but I don't really feel like 5 hours of driving and I'm definitely going to see her in person in a month. So I don't know. I have to decide tomorrow.

I did manage to load and run the dishwasher last night which is huge. I'm still hoping to throw a load of clothes in the washer tonight but I'm learning to not make plans but do what I can in the moment. Tomorrow I do absolutely have to get my labs done for my clozaril. My order expires after tomorrow and I need to have my pdoc send in a new one when I talk to her Monday.


I just wish there were a way to feel less antsy and simultaneously tired. I'll be so glad to get meds changed, even though I know my clozaril will have to come down instead of going up like is needed. Something else will have to go up I guess. I wish I'd heard from her. But it's only 5 days.