My therapist (Melissa) has been on vacation for the past two weeks, and normally I would just take a brief break from therapy while she's gone, but things have been so unstable for me lately that I decided to take her up on her offer to arrange for a colleague to see me once a week while she's gone ( Read more... )

So, yeah, haven't written in my journal in a while.

It's been a month of pretty intense instability. I started taking the Zoloft to help with the depression, but after 2 weeks it sent me hypomanic, so I had to taper off, which I did slowly (with input from my former psychiatrist, who I phoned to consult, since I've been doing all this medication ( Read more... )

Been depressed for about a week and a half. Still don't have a psychiatrist, despite the numerous phone calls I've made. Most are not taking new patients, some don't do medication management, and some simply don't call back at all. One guy said he was willing to squeeze me in if I couldn't find anyone else, so I went to see him after a couple weeks ( Read more... )

The Zoloft caused me a lot of intestinal distress for a while when we raised the dosage, but all the badness went away when we reduced the dose back to 25 mg. We're holding there for now. It can take 4-6 weeks for Zoloft to take effect, and I've only been taking it for about 3 weeks ( Read more... )

Depressed ( Read more... )

I'm feeling better, physically. Tests showed that my joyous adventure last week was due to a bacterial disease called campylobacter. Luckily, I did not object when my doc pressed antibiotics on me, because otherwise I would still be sick today, since it was a bacterial problem and wasn't going to go away on its own ( Read more... )

I saw the physical therapist today (and wrote a private journal entry full of technical info, but the upshot is that he's very impressed with my progress) and happened to mention that I'd been depressed lately. His response was to to point out that the cherry blossoms are blooming everywhere, and to advise me to go out for walks and look at the ( Read more... )

The Depakote seems to have stabilized my mood gradually over this past week or two (no more racing thoughts, no "feeling revved," no wanting to interrupt people when they're talking, etc.), and the nausea disappeared when I switched to the extended release formula. My increased appetite has gradually decreased over the past week or two until I'm ( Read more... )

My Meds Doc referred me to PHP today, and I expect they'll be phoning me on Tuesday to arrange an intake interview. Partial hospitalization again ... yay ( Read more... )

Coughing
I saw the pulmonologist today and was quite disappointed, as she didn't have a lot of useful stuff to offer. Her main advice was this: "Keep doing what you're doing, and eventually the coughing will stop, though it may take months." Yay? She also urged me to continue to minimize my physical activity, because anything that makes me breathe ( Read more... )