Roll Call 21

Well I'm doing much better. I'm starting the latuda again and adding buspar for anxiety. I finally slept about 6 hours, yay! Had a couple minor tweaks but not much.

I'm trusting myself to have my kindle back, but I'm gonna try and limit my time on it and definitely not go on the blogs/sites that trigger me.

Hope everyone is doing ok.

Yeah but like they don't make 7.5 abilify so I was cutting my 15mg in half as per my pdocs instructions--there are some pills you can't cut like capsules or orally disentegrating or enteric coated but most of the APs can be cut. I'm really not sure your np knows what she's talking about....I just did a google search an one person had a pharm and another a pdoc tell them to cut latuda...

Well now I'm worried, the pharmacist said that too though.

Its official! Im in cali!

Did you have some sort of weird formulation or something? I can't see anything on the company product page and all the pills look uncoated to me except maybe the green one. I mean on abilify there is actually a section that talks about not cutting the orally dissolving forms but you know if they don't actually say it in the instructions its because it is OK to cut...I imagine the company would be the best place to ask you could probably e-mail them to find out...

Yay! Congrats! Have fun, take lots of pics

No I didn't have any kind of special one. But I just did a Google search on it and I found ppl saying that their doc told them not to cut them in half.

Have fun!

I'm going to trust the psych nurses advice on this. I'm starting out on 40mgs anyway. I was cutting the 60mgs ones in half. So if what u say is true then I will be in the same place I was. Well probably not as bad but if it gets to wear I'm not sleeping I will definitely call her.

Next one to try is invega.

It sucks bc risperdal works so good for me but I'm so hungry on it.

Well I just read the entire product sheet and there was no warning about cutting them in half. Its possible that your doctor and pharmacist are not the only ones to be misinformed---they do have a lot of meds to keep straight. Still I would follow what they say but when you thought you basically quit it cold turkey well that's probably not true...

http://www.latuda.com/LatudaPrescribingInformation.pdf

Yeah it's conflicting bc I see ppl saying u can cut them and others saying u can't.

My feeling is this the company makes them so they know exactly how the pills are designed what their release mechanisms are like etc. They spent billions developing this stuff where the pharm and np spend five minutes signing their name to a script. If the company doesn't put info like that into its product sheet they will be sued where as there is no penalty for your np or pharm to suggest you should be on whole pills when its not necessary. If I were to trust anyone I'd trust the company but at the same time you're on 40mg now so problem solved I wouldn't worry about it at all right? I just didn't want you to feel like you were doing something wrong when you were cutting the pills when you're actually getting bad advice...I would however consider a different care provider. Once I got a primary care provider who wrote me a script for something available over the counter I was so embarrassed when the pharmacist directed me to aisle 6 you know...I never went back to that doc again...

Well I feel like we have established a relationship. I don't really want to get a new psych nurse. Too much hassle and I like her. Thanks for the info though.

Well I just talked to the pharmacist I like a lot and she said u CAN cut them. She researched it after I left the pharmacy yesterday.

Omg I think I'm gonna need to get a new doc...

Look its just something to consider---she's got to remember like hundreds of pills and people do make mistakes so maybe you should discuss it with her first and see what she has to say?

This is so true----I live for this kind of thing...

Yeah, it's just she also said that invega and risperdal have the same likelihood of weight gain. The pharmacist doesn't think that's true. She's gonna look into it and call me back.

Also when I left her office yesterday we decided I would start on the 40s, but now she said start at 20mg, the pharmacist said. They have to order them.

Do you have to have an np instead of a pdoc---I mean psychosis is not the easiest thing to treat and the nps don't get the same residency experience as pdocs...most of them do inpatient so they get to practice on really sick patients and its shapes their knowledge base...I mean for depression or something easy I'd totally trust an np but for psychosis or bipolar I'd go with a pdoc if possible...

I have a psychiatric nurse practitioner. My insurance won't cover psychiatrists. She's the one that said I'm schizoaffective, and I don't think that's true. I have never hallucinating before or had auditory hallucinations. I'm so confused now. When I was in the hospital I did a whole bunch of testing and was diagnosed bipolar 1 and PTSD. The pdoc I saw was excellent. Now I have had delusions before and strong paranoia at times.

Trying to walk into dentist's office...
...eek! in the lobby...

That's really weird that you're required to have an np---I'm surprised that's allowed under the new obamacare laws...are you sure that's the current policy? Maybe its something in your state...psych nps aren't really common here...

As far as your diagnosis the meds for bipolar with psychosis and sza are pretty much the same so it probably doesn't make a huge difference...I mean I know I'd rather have some sort of concrete answer myself but it doesn't seem to work that way because our consciousness doesn't easily fit textbook definitions...

I'm on Medicaid. So maybe I should look into obamacare.

Now I'm really trippin out. She told me topamax was a stimulant bc I was thinking topamax and risperdal. Anyway I looked it up and topamax seems to slow u down not speed u up... we decided against topamax bc I struggle with anxiety so bad.

Medicaid covers pdocs but not all pdocs take medicaid so you have to shop around...

Mental Health Services | Medicaid.gov

I would take this as an opportunity to get better care...

Lived! M not going to lose the tooh i was worried about...and rescheduled hat crown appt i chickened out on last month ...