Psych appointment
Ended up being a good appointment. Talked for an hour and a half and he asked a lot of questions, some of which I had difficulty explaining. He said I did have ADD pretty severe, but if they weren't treating my ADD alongside my depression then they were, of course, going to botch things up. We talked about how I had trouble making friends as a kid because between not thinking along the same lines and therefore not understanding them, I also would miss a lot of social cues, which is common for ADD. Talked a lot about my history and how things progressed, and about how I react to situations now. He insulted the doctor from Pensacola, which was great. He was -baffled- when I told him what the guy put me on and then moreso when I explained about how he raised the dose even after I was having trouble with it.
In the end, he thinks I have some form of bipolar. He gave a name, which I think was bipolar affective disorder, but I really don't remember. He explained why he thought I didn't have borderline (which, after his explanation, makes sense) and talked a bit about why he thought it was some form of bipolar. How something small can happen that most people go 'oh that sucks' and move on with life, but for me everything cascades and I can't think rationally, only about how everything is wrong and my fault, et cetera.
He said, which everyone knows, that psych drugs are a lot of a guessing game and it takes time to work things out. Since the Lamictil was working, he wanted to keep me on that and try something in addition. The first thing he listed was a blood pressure medication, which I said let's hold off on because of the whole passing out thing. The other was lithium. Lithium has been used for a -long- time (it was the most popular drug in the 60s for psych, but it's been used since at least the 1800s) and he said it should help calm me down enough that I can sleep (yeah, that's been problematic again lately. Also losing my hair, just for the record) in addition to keeping me calm.
My appointment was on Friday. Due to the truck craziness, I didn't end up picking the lithium up until Saturday. I took the pill Saturday afternoon BEFORE I read the bottle. Evidently they're serious about the 'take before bed' thing. Woo. I was so out of it. Justin made me go to bed because I was being crazy and couldn't walk straight, so I called mom, who kept trying to get me to go to sleep. After a while the worst of it wore off and I couldn't focus on anything but I talked to people on Aet or whatever and shuffled about until bed time. Then I couldn't sleep. I couldn't focus on any one thought and they were just blowing so quickly through my mind so it was like 4 am before I fell asleep.
Sunday I felt like shit all day. Sunday night I took the pill (before bed) and had the same thing - couldn't sleep. So now I'm rockin' two days in a row with no sleep. I did absolutely nothing all day but cry in sporadic intervals, even after Justin got home from work (he got off early that day). Called the doctor about it, he said that was really strange to have that reaction (ie, the opposite) for lithium, but shit happens, to go off of it and call him back in a couple of days. Still didn't get a lot of sleep that night. Yesterday was Tuesday, I wasn't crying all day but generally still felt like crap, but I was able to sleep for more than four hours last night. Still feel kinda crappy, but today is better than yesterday, so yeah, that's where I am now. He'll likely wanna put me on the blood pressure medication, but no big deal. I learned how to get around the dizzy spells before, I can do it again.
In the end, he thinks I have some form of bipolar. He gave a name, which I think was bipolar affective disorder, but I really don't remember. He explained why he thought I didn't have borderline (which, after his explanation, makes sense) and talked a bit about why he thought it was some form of bipolar. How something small can happen that most people go 'oh that sucks' and move on with life, but for me everything cascades and I can't think rationally, only about how everything is wrong and my fault, et cetera.
He said, which everyone knows, that psych drugs are a lot of a guessing game and it takes time to work things out. Since the Lamictil was working, he wanted to keep me on that and try something in addition. The first thing he listed was a blood pressure medication, which I said let's hold off on because of the whole passing out thing. The other was lithium. Lithium has been used for a -long- time (it was the most popular drug in the 60s for psych, but it's been used since at least the 1800s) and he said it should help calm me down enough that I can sleep (yeah, that's been problematic again lately. Also losing my hair, just for the record) in addition to keeping me calm.
My appointment was on Friday. Due to the truck craziness, I didn't end up picking the lithium up until Saturday. I took the pill Saturday afternoon BEFORE I read the bottle. Evidently they're serious about the 'take before bed' thing. Woo. I was so out of it. Justin made me go to bed because I was being crazy and couldn't walk straight, so I called mom, who kept trying to get me to go to sleep. After a while the worst of it wore off and I couldn't focus on anything but I talked to people on Aet or whatever and shuffled about until bed time. Then I couldn't sleep. I couldn't focus on any one thought and they were just blowing so quickly through my mind so it was like 4 am before I fell asleep.
Sunday I felt like shit all day. Sunday night I took the pill (before bed) and had the same thing - couldn't sleep. So now I'm rockin' two days in a row with no sleep. I did absolutely nothing all day but cry in sporadic intervals, even after Justin got home from work (he got off early that day). Called the doctor about it, he said that was really strange to have that reaction (ie, the opposite) for lithium, but shit happens, to go off of it and call him back in a couple of days. Still didn't get a lot of sleep that night. Yesterday was Tuesday, I wasn't crying all day but generally still felt like crap, but I was able to sleep for more than four hours last night. Still feel kinda crappy, but today is better than yesterday, so yeah, that's where I am now. He'll likely wanna put me on the blood pressure medication, but no big deal. I learned how to get around the dizzy spells before, I can do it again.