Woozy
Originally posted @ http://scruffy-duck.net
This is the top draw of my bedside cabinet.
It looks worse than it is I suppose, and I know there are a lot of people who take way more medication than me. My mother for instance, a woman who doesn’t need a medicine cabinet but a medicine wardrobe).
I have an drugs for my head, drugs for my uterus (pms pixies of doom), steroid cream (and for some reason a steroid ointment) for eczema (I don’t really have that much eczema, if I did, I’d be able to spell it without spell check) and some analgesic cream cause I have tendinitis last year (and prescription frozen peas) and tablets to sleep (the precious green strip you can see). Then there are a host of other the counter shit too, painkillers mostly.
I only take three of all that lot in my draw daily. The paroxetine, the carbamazepine and currently I need the tamazepam to get to sleep (I have inserted handy links here).
The tamazepam is new to me. I used to take zopiclone, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned numerous times before but it just doesn’t work any more. Taking it too much I supposed. I used to take a few (seven to fourteen, depending on what the doctor was feeling like) every six months. Then it became every three or four months. Then every three or four weeks. And when I was taking them I was doubling up the dose, so the doctor would give me seven tablets and that would last three days and still didn’t really work. They’re highly addictive, so the doctors keep telling me, and I’m inclined to agree, though it’s not so much the tablets themselves I’m addicted too, but the effects. I’m addicted to the ability to fall to sleep almost straight away. It’s effortless, that’s what I’m addicted too.
But alas, they don’t work, and when I asked for a higher dose, I got jellies instead.
I’m not sure if they work. I mean, I’m not up all night, but I’m not zonking out right away either, which is what I want, if I’m going to bother taking sleeping tablets at all.
I suppose, it doesn’t help that, I’ve made some other changes to my other meds. My doctors idea, not mine, I know I’m not one for playing by the rules with meds, but this was all her.
So along with the tamazepam, my carbamazepine (the mood stabiliser) has been increased and I’m back on 600mg. Doom. Well, not so much doom, there is a reason, the daily panic attacks. Every fucking day for the past two week, as well as general increased anxiety. Along with the insomnia, I can’t get up cause I’m depressed, and then, when I do go to get up I panic. Big time and sit wrapped in my duvet rocking. I know, I’m a superstar, so, back up to 600mg. Which means side effects again, and mostly I just get woozy. I guess this counts as dizziness on the list but it’s not dizziness, it’s definitely wooziness and there is a distinct difference. If I was dizzy, I’d be on my ass, but I’m just woozy. It happened the when I first started taking them, and I was taking them in the morning, so I’d turned up for work at the co-op a bit spaced out and, well, woozy.
So, I’m not being knocked out, but I am sleeping, and I’m woozy.
And then, to the paroxetine, also known as Seroxat (dun, dun, duh).
When I first started taking this, it was like a fucking god send (lots of swearing today!). I’d tried Prozac (hasn’t everyone?) and it gave me nightmares and that was it and then citalopram but that did nothing. It was like taking taking a tablet of air every day. Didn’t even get any side effects. That I remember.
The seroxat however, I really felt. Now I don’t want to get into the whole thing where I don’t know who I really am on the meds, and if it’s really me (cause that’s another 1000 odd words and I’m hungry) but there was a huge change. The panic attacks went away. Yeah, okay, the side effects were a bit shit, and back then, I didn’t know how the withdrawal was going to fuck me over, but I probably wouldn’t have cared. Because there were no panic attacks. I never left the house, I was afraid of the post office, fucked up my college course. The Gas company came around and fitted a meter, because I had been too scared to go and pay the bill for six months. But then there was seroxat and no panic.
Okay, so for some reason, they’re used for OCD too, and mine got a little worse, I didn’t get any less depressed and I sure as hell didn’t stop self harming, but hell, it didn’t matter, cause I could do all of those things, while outside the house. I got a job!
And okay, it hasn’t lasted it forever, and the panic is back, and there is the huge debate on who the real me is, and my god the withdrawal is a bitch! But those first couple of years were panic free and that meant I was able to go out and get help for the rest of the shit going on, so that I am less depressed and I don’t cut any more, or take non-fatal overdoses, or attempt suicide or drink until I suicidal and ready to cut and all that shit. Seroxat has a bad reputation, for good reason probably, but it’s not all bad.
So, back to the present and the point, instead of taking all 60mg at night, I’m taking 40mg at night and 20mg in the morning. So that some is rattling around my system all day, instead of it all being slept on. This, while it doesn’t sound like much of a change, I’m still taking the full 60mg after all, does have a bit of an effect. As mention not 100 words ago, the withdrawal of seroxat is a bitch (really, really, super evil) and one of the things, with me at least, the withdrawal does, is fuck me up at night. Nightmares, sleeping, temperature, I go a little nuts in my sleep, and while it’s not on the epic proportions of taking zero mg, I can still feel it the effect. The relief of taking that last 20mg doesn’t revile that of taking the full dose, there is a little sigh of happiness from my brain when we take it.
Yep, the withdrawal is that bad, and I am that addictive. Of course, I have an addictive personality, I get it from my dad. Or my paternal grandmother. Or maternal grandfather. Or….I’m doomed.
Anyway, the entire point of this post was that, I have new sleeping tablets that sort of work, but the effect is probably being negated by the new routine of the anti-depressants, and the mood stabilisers are making me woozy.
And all of this, has distracted me from the anxiety.
This is the top draw of my bedside cabinet.
It looks worse than it is I suppose, and I know there are a lot of people who take way more medication than me. My mother for instance, a woman who doesn’t need a medicine cabinet but a medicine wardrobe).
I have an drugs for my head, drugs for my uterus (pms pixies of doom), steroid cream (and for some reason a steroid ointment) for eczema (I don’t really have that much eczema, if I did, I’d be able to spell it without spell check) and some analgesic cream cause I have tendinitis last year (and prescription frozen peas) and tablets to sleep (the precious green strip you can see). Then there are a host of other the counter shit too, painkillers mostly.
I only take three of all that lot in my draw daily. The paroxetine, the carbamazepine and currently I need the tamazepam to get to sleep (I have inserted handy links here).
The tamazepam is new to me. I used to take zopiclone, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned numerous times before but it just doesn’t work any more. Taking it too much I supposed. I used to take a few (seven to fourteen, depending on what the doctor was feeling like) every six months. Then it became every three or four months. Then every three or four weeks. And when I was taking them I was doubling up the dose, so the doctor would give me seven tablets and that would last three days and still didn’t really work. They’re highly addictive, so the doctors keep telling me, and I’m inclined to agree, though it’s not so much the tablets themselves I’m addicted too, but the effects. I’m addicted to the ability to fall to sleep almost straight away. It’s effortless, that’s what I’m addicted too.
But alas, they don’t work, and when I asked for a higher dose, I got jellies instead.
I’m not sure if they work. I mean, I’m not up all night, but I’m not zonking out right away either, which is what I want, if I’m going to bother taking sleeping tablets at all.
I suppose, it doesn’t help that, I’ve made some other changes to my other meds. My doctors idea, not mine, I know I’m not one for playing by the rules with meds, but this was all her.
So along with the tamazepam, my carbamazepine (the mood stabiliser) has been increased and I’m back on 600mg. Doom. Well, not so much doom, there is a reason, the daily panic attacks. Every fucking day for the past two week, as well as general increased anxiety. Along with the insomnia, I can’t get up cause I’m depressed, and then, when I do go to get up I panic. Big time and sit wrapped in my duvet rocking. I know, I’m a superstar, so, back up to 600mg. Which means side effects again, and mostly I just get woozy. I guess this counts as dizziness on the list but it’s not dizziness, it’s definitely wooziness and there is a distinct difference. If I was dizzy, I’d be on my ass, but I’m just woozy. It happened the when I first started taking them, and I was taking them in the morning, so I’d turned up for work at the co-op a bit spaced out and, well, woozy.
So, I’m not being knocked out, but I am sleeping, and I’m woozy.
And then, to the paroxetine, also known as Seroxat (dun, dun, duh).
When I first started taking this, it was like a fucking god send (lots of swearing today!). I’d tried Prozac (hasn’t everyone?) and it gave me nightmares and that was it and then citalopram but that did nothing. It was like taking taking a tablet of air every day. Didn’t even get any side effects. That I remember.
The seroxat however, I really felt. Now I don’t want to get into the whole thing where I don’t know who I really am on the meds, and if it’s really me (cause that’s another 1000 odd words and I’m hungry) but there was a huge change. The panic attacks went away. Yeah, okay, the side effects were a bit shit, and back then, I didn’t know how the withdrawal was going to fuck me over, but I probably wouldn’t have cared. Because there were no panic attacks. I never left the house, I was afraid of the post office, fucked up my college course. The Gas company came around and fitted a meter, because I had been too scared to go and pay the bill for six months. But then there was seroxat and no panic.
Okay, so for some reason, they’re used for OCD too, and mine got a little worse, I didn’t get any less depressed and I sure as hell didn’t stop self harming, but hell, it didn’t matter, cause I could do all of those things, while outside the house. I got a job!
And okay, it hasn’t lasted it forever, and the panic is back, and there is the huge debate on who the real me is, and my god the withdrawal is a bitch! But those first couple of years were panic free and that meant I was able to go out and get help for the rest of the shit going on, so that I am less depressed and I don’t cut any more, or take non-fatal overdoses, or attempt suicide or drink until I suicidal and ready to cut and all that shit. Seroxat has a bad reputation, for good reason probably, but it’s not all bad.
So, back to the present and the point, instead of taking all 60mg at night, I’m taking 40mg at night and 20mg in the morning. So that some is rattling around my system all day, instead of it all being slept on. This, while it doesn’t sound like much of a change, I’m still taking the full 60mg after all, does have a bit of an effect. As mention not 100 words ago, the withdrawal of seroxat is a bitch (really, really, super evil) and one of the things, with me at least, the withdrawal does, is fuck me up at night. Nightmares, sleeping, temperature, I go a little nuts in my sleep, and while it’s not on the epic proportions of taking zero mg, I can still feel it the effect. The relief of taking that last 20mg doesn’t revile that of taking the full dose, there is a little sigh of happiness from my brain when we take it.
Yep, the withdrawal is that bad, and I am that addictive. Of course, I have an addictive personality, I get it from my dad. Or my paternal grandmother. Or maternal grandfather. Or….I’m doomed.
Anyway, the entire point of this post was that, I have new sleeping tablets that sort of work, but the effect is probably being negated by the new routine of the anti-depressants, and the mood stabilisers are making me woozy.
And all of this, has distracted me from the anxiety.