Hot, Hot, Hot

September 30, 1999 - 19 Weeks After Diagnosis

I had a session with Dr. Meyer on September 14, a Tuesday. He said I appeared to him to be overmedicated (again), so he took me off Depakote completely and said to try to get by on one Zyprexa at night instead of two. This left me taking 300 mg of Wellbutrin first thing in the morning, and then, at bedtime, 50 mg Zoloft, 20 mg Zocor (prescribed by my physician for high cholesterol) and 2.5 mg Zyprexa. (Zoloft, Zocor and Zyprexa - hmm, seems to me my doctors are trying to make sure I get my Z's at night!)

Except for my psychiatry session, I spent all of that Tuesday packing for my trip. My strategy for packing is: sit at the computer and play several games of solitaire, or read several chapters of a book, then get up and put a couple of things in the suitcase, then before panic sets in, go back to the computer or the book. It does take all day but it winds up not being physically or emotionally exhausting. (And I forgot to pack only one thing - Dramamine - which fortunately my girlfriend and traveling companion did remember.)

My sleep schedule had steadied down to sleeping from 1:30 to about 10:30 a.m., but that was not going to work for my trip, a tour of public and private New England gardens. I was up at 6:00 on Wednesday morning to be able to leave the house at 7:45. My friend and I were in Boston by 12:30 (Eastern time), hooked up with our tour group, and were in the motor coach heading for New Hampshire by 2:00. After spending a luscious evening at a superb public garden, we were in bed at about 10:00 pm.

I took just the one tablet of Zyprexa. I couldn't sleep.

There was a fan blowing over me from the window, and a ceiling fan revolving gently, and the room was pleasantly cool ... and I lay there sweating. At about 11:30 I took a second Zyprexa. But all night, or so it seemed, I dozed and woke, dozed and woke, perspiring.

Sweating IS a side effect of Zoloft (Sertraline). Both sweating and hot flashes (which I have also been experiencing) are possible side effects of Wellbutrin (Bupropion Hydrochloride). I remained overly warm through the entire trip, sometimes wearing a t-shirt when many of the others were in sweaters or light jackets.

We came home on Sunday, September 19th - and I slept most of the time for the next three days. I'm not kidding: I think I got up for two hours in the morning, went back to sleep until early afternoon, got up for another couple of hours to have lunch, then slept again almost until dinnertime ... and was still in bed by 10:00 pm. I did cut the Zyprexa dose back down to a single pill, and gradually have returned to a more normal sleeping pattern.

The profuse perspiration problem, though, has continued. Picture this: I sit at my computer in a t-shirt and shorts, with the window open and a fan blowing toward me (it is in the low 60s outside). My mother's computer is behind me, so we sit back-to-back, and she is wearing a jacket with a hood on because the fan is blowing such cold air on the back of her neck!

Obviously this is not a comfortable situation.

Today I took this new problem back to Dr. Meyer. He concurs that the combination of Wellbutrin and Zoloft is the likely culprit. We discussed taking me off all my current meds and having me take just some Trazodone at bedtime (because of the sleep disorder). This would give us, over time, a "baseline" reading of how my psyche behaved when minimally medicated. But because the About.com convention starts a week from today, I felt this wasn't the time to make more major changes in my meds. So all we are doing for now is cutting back the dose of Wellbutrin, to ease the overheating problem.

So the process of seeking the right meds continues. Week after week. After week.

Next: Diagnosis in Doubt