Bipolar Check-in #86

Ugh. Sick again. Daughter sick. Husband still sick. We're so healthy in this household! We went for a walk at the park today and a bit into it, my husband said to my daughter, "Momma is taking a walk with us!" The ferrous sulfate really has me feeling much better. 😊 I was actually able to go on a whole walk with my husband and daughter without needing to turn around right away! For the first time in a loooooooong time. Years now.

Got my septum ring changed the other day. She had to use tools and shyt to get my original ring out. It hurt my sensitive nose. 🥺 Needless to say I'm not putting that ring in again! I don't even know HOW. I don't have tools!

Set a dinner date with my parents. Don't really want to see them, but I have to see them at least SOMETIMES, and again I'm doing it in a neutral location, so my mom can't go too much off the deep end, and she has to be at least SOMEWHAT respectful since we're paying. I just hope they don't bring up anything political because they voted for Trump, and I'm having EXTREME difficulty right now talking to people who voted for him.

First day back at work today. IT WAS OKAY. NO kids misbehaving. Only taught one lesson though. Year 7s who are new to high school. So they were probably feeling a bit intimidated. Small fish in a big pond.

I’ve been sleeping terribly. Waking up every hour. It’s so frustrating. Ughhhh.

So angry, I hate people. They're angry they didn't know he was with us for a couple of months. Dude call. Inquire. I can't help that we were and will never be too busy for these kids. **** you! You had to find out through a cop. Not my problem. Not my problem you don't know their daily struggles. I talk to them DAILY even if it's just I love you. I was there for them when you couldn't be be thankful they have someone. I hate people.

Good morning, I'm tired as hell from the thorazine increase. I have art group at the mental health clinic today so I'm going to that later

I need some caffeine

I'm doing pretty good today. I fell asleep around 8 pretty much right away. I kept waking up coughing though and my stomach was acting up. So I was eating rice crackers in my sleep which helped my stomach a lot. I ate 7 of them. I woke up at 6:30 feeling fine just a bit tired. I got a peanut butter bowl from Tropical Smoothie for breakfast. I ate some of it and that was ok since it was just yogurt, peanut butter, bananas, and granola. All of that is fine. I skipped the almonds and chia seeds. But yeah, I'm doing good today. I just know I do have to be really strict.

Ooh, darling, when you're near me
And you tenderly call my name
I know that
(My emotions)
Are something I just can't tame
I've just got to have you, baby
.
I feel the Earth
move
under my feet

Maybe my big emotions caused the quake instead of my cat's derrière (I wasn't with that guy I swear!)

My doc said I was hypomanic (not manic!) and my decision to go skiing was hypomanic. She didn't want me to go! I went anyways. It was meh. I did get back to handling hard pack blues as well as I did last time I went skiing (they didn't have any blacks/double blacks open although I was tempted to grab a headlamp and duck a rope for one that looked as steep as the one I crashed on years ago just half the length). Last time I went skiing meaning the time I tried after the crash (I had the crash, sat out the rest of the season and the next, and went back to a much smaller local place). But yeah, there weren't a lot of trails open. They had one trail that wasn't lit up but not blocked off so that was fun to find out why there were no tracks there (hard to make tracks on hard pack anyways I guess).

I told my pdoc about stopping the Depakote and a bunch of other stuff. She really wants me on a mood stabilizer and something for sleep (I've slept maybe 9 hours over the past three nights/four days) so I started oxcarbazepine this morning and try out clonidine tonight. I get confused when I get elevated/psychotic with how I should be treating stimulants because my mild hypomania basically looks like happy, confident, not wanting to sleep ADHD and I can easily write off it as a good day. I haven't really been too keen on sleeping since it's nightmare season apparently either, so it's also easy to say "of course I don't want to sleep" because of that. I think my PTSD really flares up December to March. She did say my anxiety with lines and thing with touching corners sounds pretty OCD-ish too.

I'm going to watch after I post this what I believe is the last episode of Kaos on Netflix. It's a cool series based on the Greek mythological gods. Also we got snow last night!

Hope the oxcarbazepine helps Muddy, I take 1500mg of it, been on it many years and it helps a lot. It’s been much better than depakote for me personally. Depakote didn’t really help and lithium put me in the ICU with toxicity and kidney failure and seizures. I’ve had good luck with oxcarbazepine though.

Thanks @Blue_Bird. I only took I think 150mg this morning and take 450mg tonight I believe I'm starting off at.
---
Has anyone here ever tried carbamazepine/Tegretol? It's basically old school hardcore oxcarbazepine. It's on my allergy list, but I'm not sure it should be. She brought it up first yesterday. I don't know if it's worth a retry if the Trileptal doesn't work out.

The story:
I was on just an antipsychotic, but still psychotic, and carbamazepine was added. I then blacked out for three days and woke up in the ER covered in bruises (still don't know what happened). My theory is the antipsychotic was kind of effective but because Tegretol lowers the blood levels of APs it sent me into such a bad state I completely dissociated during that time before it could even have any therapeutic value. They stopped it and reintroduced it while inpatient and I had an insanely itchy foot (I don't really remember it too well, and I was super med resistant at the time so it might have been "it's December and I'm in a dry-*** hospital, of course I'm gonna be itchy," situation that I blamed on the med so I wouldn't have to take it because I did that a lot in my first few years of treatment).

Physical therapy for my back went great! Feels so good! Got new exercises to do at home.

Just home for half hour before I drive to talk therapy. Then I'm meeting with the dietician for a bit in the same office.

Going out to dinner with N2 and her boyfriend tonight for Mexican food this evening. I don't see them unless it's a special occasion so we decided to have dinner

Heading to art group soon

About to see Pdoc. Worried

Been up since 3:30am. Couldn’t sleep.

Hope work is as good today as it was yesterday.

Have lots of planning documents I’m wading through. Teaching 2 classes. Might get an extra.

My son is doing so well on Ritalin. He’s got 2 awards from the holiday program. Something that he never happened before. They’re noticing a difference. His emotional regulation is a lot better!

muddy, I'm on oxycarbazepine too, 600 mg twice daily so 1200 mg total. I never updated it in my meds list, maybe I ran out of room in the signature or something. My neurologist put me on it for peripheral neuropathy. I don't think it made much difference for the neuropathy but my pdoc was all for me staying on it said it would help me with the bipolar (though I didn't quite get his logic as to how it's supposed to help).

It's an anticonvulsant (same class as Depakote, Tegretol, Lamictal, gabapentin, etc.) so I guess the logic is that "it's like the others, so it should be a mood stabilizer." But you don't really hear of other anticonvulsants like Keppra or Briviact ever being used for bipolar. I'm not super well read on anti-epileptic meds though, so I guess some just do well with bipolar and some don't. I tried zonegran once and I haven't heard of anyone else trying it. I couldn't stay on it more than three days though because it reduced my appetite way too much and I was so manic I really needed something heavily sedating that worked ASAP anyways.

I'm doing well today. I had a good night's sleep, woke to my cat Pecan lying next to me with her head on my ribs, purring which made it hard to get out of bed! I did pilates and held a few planks then read & used the SAD lamp. I wasn't very hungry this morning, couldn't even finish my coffee but finally managed breakfast. Drawing was fun; I put the pictures in the Creative Corner Forum. After lunch, I ordered groceries online (meaning I had to meal plan too) and refilled meds & vitamins for both H & myself. I started making banana bread, but I didn't realize one of my daughter's live lessons is currently in session (she goes to online school), and I have to wait until it finishes at two because I need to use the stand mixer, and that is pretty loud.

Below is my colored imaged of the Carolina wren; I am pleased with how it came out.

Thought I had therapy today but my therapist said I never scheduled it so I’ll call her later. So instead I went to the nutrition class. Main topic was protein and we got a list of protein-rich foods. There are so many from seafood to hummus to tofu to nuts to beans….

Had a good time at art group. I made this out of clippings I cut out of various magazines

It says “Then and Now the inspired mind helps you stay strong, feeling good, comfort and joy ignited something a little bit braver now, courage to live your best life “

I see my kidney doctor tommorow and I'm just overeacting most likely but I have a high and a low blood level and I've had this obnoxious dry throat for awhile and I looked up the blood levels and they both came up with this one thing called Addisons Disease which can be caused by my weekly shots I've been on for almost 5 years, and the first early sign is a dry throat. Today I drank 2 large Diet Cokes from Mcdonalds. Then I finished my brothers. All of which is weird for me. But yeah maybe its just some metformin side effect or some shyt.

But the diet cokes were all ok on my stomach.

I’ve been having a tough time with sleep. I don’t fall asleep until 4-5 in the morning then get up around 10 after 4-5 hours of broken dream littered sleep. I ran out of melatonin a few weeks ago and at first I thought no big deal. But then about a week ago it got bad. Have melatonin now but expect it will take a while to build up in my system. It’s not a med it’s a hormone that takes awhile to build up in your body.

I don’t know to be concerned or not but when I’ve run out of my otc drugs lately I just do without them. I ran out of my iron pills and then when I went to give blood my iron was iffy. They retook it and I passed and was allowed to donate. I’ve quit 3 meds so far, really I quit 5 but restarted the iron and then when melatonin. I’m just so sick of taking meds.

Still waiting to go out to dinner…..

Hey guys!

I really feel your pain about sleep. My sleeping is SO bad, and then I just cannot for the life of me get up and function. It's caused me to miss church two weeks in a row, but also just stopped me from living my life. I know its the Invega, I just know it is. @Nammu I am sorry it's been a pain with all these pills, trust me I feel your pain! I have literally 10 pill bottles lined up on my vanity that I dread looking at every day.

I have some good news though; I got a job interview next Thursday and I'm already nervous about because of my incarceration. I will just put my best foot forward, it's all I can do.

Had a really good day today though, it was 70 degrees here! Went out did some shopping and then treated myself to dinner. : )

Oh, and also took this really cool video of my globe and pretty snowman - I love having these on my entertainment center. Oh, and plenty of squirrels!!

Wild rice is not ok!! What the effing hell. My stomach started to feel weird and then yeah... and I looked it up and wild rice is hard to digest. No wonder people weigh 120 pounds with this thing. They can't friggin eat anything.

my pdoc decreased my celexa and increased my risperdal. now i take i three times a day.

I found this darkly humorous!