Chasing the right pill combination in a psychiatric and addiction situation is a crapshoot at best. The sentence "There is no magic pill" is, sadly, true. In my case, I've been on 5 different medications in the last month. I am currently taking 4: Effexor for MDD/GAD*, Neurontin and Seroquel as mood stabilizers, and Visteral for anxiety management.
The combination is garbage. For a few days, I seemed to feel an improvement. Then, just after I left PHP, I started to feel a low but constant buzz of anxiety. So I'd take Visteral to manage it. But somehow, the mix of these 4 drugs is making me crazy. Literally. Fortunately, it's easy to adjust medications. Unfortunately, it's only easy to adjust medications when you have access to a NP or Psychiatrist. I currently have neither, since I am in the process of switching from PHP to Strong Recovery.
Recently, it's become much more than just a low buzz. I'm agitated. If I'm alone, it's manifested in reduced attention span, visible tremors in my hands, sharp and strong muscle twitches (every 30 seconds or so, if I'm sitting still, some major muscle will twitch once. It's disconcerting, to say the least.), and the need to eat. Constantly. Whether it's the drugs or the anxiety I can't stop eating.
And, come to find out, one of my medications not only causes rapid and significant weight gain as well as the need to eat constantly, but it puts the patient at more of a risk to diabetes. Hellllll-ooooo!! Am I the only one in my treatment team who's alive and awake here?! There's history of diabetes all over my family. Toss diabetes magnets at my family tree and it'll look like the ground beneath the shedding magnolia trees in the spring. Let's sum this up: I'm fat. I'm therefore at a higher risk of diabetes. My genetics put me at an even higher risk of diabetes as well as obesity. Can we please not put me on meds that increase the risk even more? Pretty please? I mean, seriously, folks. Your level of education regarding these matters far surpasses my own. I want to be a partner in my recovery, not the only active member.
So, yeah, agitation when alone.
When I'm with someone else, my agitation shows in a variety of ways. I have difficulty forming coherent sentences, and when I can form one, spit and stutter and generally have to hit the F5 key. My agitation is visible in my tremorous hands which betray me further by their inability to stop moving. I'm forever adjusting my shirt, playing with my hair, messing with my pants leg. Nausea from anxiety. Compulsively drinking water. Sometimes I dig my fingernails into my palms to either a) feel something other than anxiety, or b) distract me from it. ....Wait, what? I've been putting crescent-shaped imprints on my palms for years. Usually it's just a momentary thing to help me get my emotions under control.
So, yeah, agitation when I'm not alone.
Sleeping like crap again. I go to sleep at like 10pm, wake up repeatedly over the night- like I was before going to the hospital. Some of this may be attributed to His Majesty, of course. Wake up between 6-7 feeling groggy and w/ a headache. I spend my morning in front of the computer, go to any appointments I might have, come home and sometimes nap, wake up around 7, take meds at 8:45.
I can't get myself motivated to go to the MHI meetings and activities. I know if I just went it would be okay by the 3rd or 4th time. I'd build a support system and be able to get help from something other than the hospital. I don't know if they'd want to put me on another anti-psychotic or not. But I need mood stabilization, for sure.
drugs time. Night.
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