June 20, 1999 - One Month After Diagnosis
The meds have been changed again. My psychiatrist ("pdoc" is the term I have learned from Kim) said it was quite obvious Seroquel was too strong for me. But he had prescribed the lowest dosage available, and the pill was too small to be split in half, so we just ditched the Seroquel and went back to Zyprexa.
So now my pill regimen (including the cholesterol medicine just added Friday) goes like this:
First thing when I get up: Wellbutrin SR 150 mg
Breakfast: Depakote 250 mg; multi-vitamin; Vitamins A, B complex, C, and E; 1 coated aspirin; 1 fish oil pill (this one is horse-sized).
Lunch: Depakote 250 mg and supposedly Wellbutrin SR 150 mg, but I keep forgetting the Wellbutrin for some reason
Dinner: Depakote 250 mg
Bedtime: Zyprexa 2.5 mg and Lipitor 10 mg
The first night I went back to Zyprexa from Seroquel was awful - I got about 4 1/2 hours sleep by giving in and taking an antihistamine to help. The next night was better; now, after about ten days, I am sleeping "normally" again (that is, about the way I was sleeping before all this started, when I was taking 50 mg Trazodone at bedtime).
I feel a lot better since ditching Seroquel - it just wasn't right for me! But (maybe because I keep forgetting the second Wellbutrin) I still feel emotionally precarious. Something can come up and with no warning at all I feel myself on the verge of tears. So far nothing has been serious enough to bring the tears out (except the voice of a boy soprano, which would have done it anyway); yet these sudden "mini-lows" are not usual for me. I don't know what to think!
I have continued my daily walks, and been even more careful about my diet, and finally - finally! - my weight has gone down a few pounds.
The more I talk to other people who suffer from Bipolar Disorder, the more I find contrasts between my condition and theirs, and so I wonder if I am correctly diagnosed; but the more I learn about the disorder, the more I can see how my history does fit the parameters. The one thing I don't know about yet is that I can never remember a single time when mania or hypomania was not triggered by an outside event or circumstance. (Of course, I could be forgetting.) Depression, whether moderate or severe, was my natural habitat. I lived in a bowl; sometimes I was able to crawl halfway up the sides and rest there for awhile before slipping back to the bottom; sometimes (rarely) something external lifted me out of the bowl altogether for a time before dropping me back in again. My new pdoc has told me that in the beginning, episodes are triggered, not autonomous, but it seems in my case any mania I have experienced has continued to be triggered - and only triggered - all these years.
I know what I want. I want the self-confidence and freedom that Prozac gave me when I was first taking it. I want the creative spark and concentration I had during my deeply depressed teens and early twenties - without the misery that went along with them!
Next: Mood Swings - and Swings - and Swings
