200mg Lamictal (Lamotrigine)
150mg Wellbutrin (Bupropion HCL)
5mg Saphris (I guess there isn’t a generic version yet.)
15mg Deplin (folic acid?)
1gm Lovaza (omega-3 acid ethyl esters)

My pill dispencer has compartments for six different kinds of pills. I use every one. It helps me so I don’t spend so much time opening and closing my many bottles. It currently contains Deplin, Vit. D3, Calcium, Lamictal, Omega 3, and Wellbutrin. I still don’t have room for my Melatonin for when I have trouble sleeping (rarely these days) and my DMAE.

“I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier ’til this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.”

After I started taking medication for my bipolar disorder I felt “awake” for the first time since childhood.   Of course I did not realize that I was in a haze.  If one is not aware, if one is “out of it” and not living in the moment then one is only a shell occupying space. One misses out.  To be awake and alert is to be alive.  It is a gift to be able to see roses and smell the coffee and hear the birds singing.  The present is a gift.

I was reading Vanity Fair in bed when he popped in.  It was obvious that he had been crying and wanted to talk.  I invited him to come be with me.  “Why are you so sad?  Was someone unkind to you?”  Son:  “No, I don’t know why I’m sad.  I just feel like crying.”  I:  “I know how you feel.  I get sad sometimes, too.  It’s very normal to have those feelings once in a while.”  Father:  “What isn’t normal is when one stays in that state for a long time.”  I could see that my husband was having a bit of difficulty wrapping his analytical mind around the revelation, but I knew exactly how our son felt.  Father:  “Can you describe how you feel?”  After thinking a moment or two our son said, “Well, it’s kind of the feeling like when dust settles.  Stagnate, unchanging.”  (Sounds like the Waiting Place, see earlier post)

I really hope that he doesn’t take after me in the mental health department.

 I feel the best I have felt in a long, long time.  This morning I went to my yoga class despite feeling extremely lazy and not wanting to go.  But I pulled myself to the gym and as always, I am so glad I did.  Nothing beats those endorphins.

About two weeks ago I was having trouble sleeping again.  From off the top shelf of the medicine cabinet I once again recruited my old friend, Seroquel.  Typically the first two nights I start taking it again after not having taken it for some time, I can hardly open my eyes in the morning.  I am so groggy.  Once I litterally fell asleep on the sofa 30 minutes after taking it while Humberto was talking to me.  I noticed that I have trouble keeping my balance sometimes.  The worst side-effect I experience, however, is a super-dry mouth.  This can’t be good for ones teeth.  Dr. Paddison mentioned the first visit I ever had with her that she was pleased that my general doctor had good the sense to prescribe the bipolar medication as basic maintenance.  I suppose this was as opposed to nothing or just the anti-depressants.  For so long my major complaint when I would see any doctor was fatigue.  I was so tired most of the time and like clock work I would get so sleepy around 4 in the afternoon that I would have to find somewhere to sleep even if it was just for ten minutes.  Dr. Paddison, however, seemed hesitant to keep me on the Seroquel for long-term maintenance.  I discovered later that it has been linked to causing diabetes in some patients.  Great!  My own mother just two years ago developed Type II.

My theory is that one of the many reasons why 9/11 was so disturbing, was that it reminded people that we really don’t have control.

. . .You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…

…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

023

Originally uploaded by Jen Ace

No, my daughter’s blood is the one with type O+. I am actually the one who has the “A”.

Today I refuses to take my medicine. I am sick of it! My body and mind soon protested when I got a bloody nose (She inherited this tendency from me.) By noon my head started to throb and I felt dizzy. Damn! What did I really expect? I think I actually get a “D-” for the day. It stands for dummy.

Apparently there is 20 percent chance of bipolar in arts community vs. 1% usually

So often I struggle to stay awake in the afternoon (b/w 4-5) and feel fatigued in general.  I can feel so tired even if I’ve had plenty of sleep.  Typically I self-medicate the fatigue by drinking several cups of coffee and/or black tea throughout the day.  I frequently feel cold when others are comfortable.  My children know very well that I am very forgetful and take advantage of it.  I’ve had heart palpitations, an unusually high number of headaches (thus the furrow between my eyebrows), and dizziness (I thought this last one was because of my low blood pressure.)   These are some of the many symptoms of hypoglycemia.

According to http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/depression/l/blbpld2.htm

People with bipolar disorder often have abnormal thyroid gland function.  Because too much or too little thyroid hormone alone can lead to mood and energy changes, it is important that thyroid levels are carefully monitored by a physician.

People with rapid cycling tend to have co-occurring thyroid problems and may need to take thyroid pills in addition to their medications for bipolar disorder. Also, lithium treatment may cause low thyroid levels in some people, resulting in the need for thyroid supplementation.

My thyroid probably has nothing to do with it, but in any case, I’m glad that lithium didn’t work for me. I have decided to conduct my own informal and not necessarily scientific experiment to see if following some of the nutritional recommendations I got from a book I own might help me to feel less fatigued.  It can’t hurt, right?  Better check with Dr. Paddison, however, about the amino acid L-tyrosine and the recommended herbs.  They might interact with the plethora of synthetic drugs I’m consuming on a daily basis. 

Some of the things I’ll be avoiding:  Broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, kale, peaches, pears, radishes, spinach, turnips and mustard greens, fluoride toothpaste, and chlorinated tap water.  I guess I’ll just have to let the mustard plants in my garden go to seed in the meanwhile. 

Vitamin D by exposing our skin to the sun for at least 15 minutes a day.   But, I ALWAYS wear sunscreen (every day for over 20 years).  And the ultraviolet B rays, the ones that cause the deepest and worst damage to the skin is the type of sunshine needed!  2,000 IU just seems like a lot.

Vitamin D has a definitive role in the body. It’s main purpose is to regulate the normal blood levels of phosphorus and calcium.   Besides sun exposure, fish are the major food source.  One egg according to Wikipedia provides 20 IU.  The most surprising information I read was that mushrooms provide over 2700 IU per serving (approx. 3 oz or 1/2 cup) of vitamin D₂, if exposed to just 5 minutes of UV light after being harvested.  Wow!  That is one of the most interesting thing I have learned in a while.

Interestingly after five days of taking 2,000 IU my mood actually has noticeably improved.

So, Vitamin D, a steroid hormone helps regulate levels of calcium and phosphorus in the blood while lithium, the classic bipolar disorder medication, alters calcium homeostasis (see link in the right column titled Calcium Physiology).  I wonder what the connection is?

She always asks me first thing how I feel on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best.  I am at an 8 today. The only thing wrong lately is not necessarily related to my illness — I can’t decide what I want to be when I grow up and I’ve squandered too much time over the last year not being very productive. Real estate has been in an unprecedented flux over the last year, which has made me hesitant to jump at anything. I am in that dreaded “waiting space,” the worst place to be in the world. When is the market going to hit bottom? I wonder.

The reason I find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning is not because I am depressed, but because I don’t have a goal currently. I have been sleeping fine. I have felt a lot of fatigue lately. Some days I don’t seem to have enough energy to make it through the day. I need a goal.

He prescribed yet another medication (Spironolactone). I am really tired of all these pills. The medication was actually developed around the middle of the last century as a blood pressure lowering medication. In my case he prescribed it because of its anti-androgen effects. I’ll have to go in in eight weeks to have my blood drawn to make sure that my potassium level checked to make sure it isn’t too high. The medication is a diuretic. My only concern is that it might lower my already low blood pressure (85/55). Today, in fact I think I am dehydrated as it is. I have a terrible headache and feel dizzy. Note to self: Drink more water. Drink more water. Drink more water.

I didn’t make it all the way to the transit center just a few blocks away, because Humberto followed me in the car.  My plan was to take the express bus to Sea-Tac and from there catch a flight.  He talked me in to getting in the car so he could take me where ever I wanted to go.  This alone calmed me down enough to agree to stay closer to home.  But I wasn’t ready to go home just yet.  I promised him that I would come home, left my suitcase in the back of the car and asked him to drop me off at Sushi Land.  Strange request, but okay.  When the going gets tought, the tough go eat sushi.

So I sat there on the stool with my red eyes and swollen face drinking cup after cup of sencha green tea and watching the conveyer belt go round and round for a couple of hours until I was completely calm.  Then I walked home where I crawled in to my bed, back under the wing of my husband, protected from hurting myself.

The next day it was as thought nothing had happened.  By now (after 18 years together) Humberto knows me.  Like the weather in Kansas, if you don’t like it one day, just wait for the next and it will change.

Yesterday I forgot to take my Lexapro for two days in a row.  I take a very small amount, but boy did I get a reminder when my head started to spin and ache.  But I will never be able to extinguish the hope that maybe I can be “normal” on my own.  As I write this I suddenly feel very sad.  The truth is that I never will be well on my own will.