#medication venting post

[shinjishazaki]

Message on phone: "Hi Kyler, this is your psychiatrist.  I got the results back from your blood work, and thank you for doing it.  I want to go over the results with you, so give me a call back."

No.

No.

This is a lithium level draw.  I told the lab tech--who knows me by name--to use the right test tube so there's not a screwed up result from lithium levels already present in the test tube.  There is nothing to go over.  Either I'm within safe/expected levels or I'm not.  What more instruction could you give me?

What is this?  Are you trying to check up on me and making sure I'm being a good little patient and taking my medicine as prescribed?  Do you think I'd just take the increased dose for a week to get the levels for the lab and then stop taking it?  Are you actually going to try and tell me over the phone that I should adjust my meds again?  What the fuck is the point in me playing phone tag with you when all you're going to tell me is to keep taking the new dose?

God dammit, I don't need fucking guidance about this.  It's helping, I'm not dealing with increased side effects, I'm fine.  Just because I'm fighting you about the class of med I hate doesn't mean I hate lithium!  Lithium helps me!  Lithium has saved my ass far more than once!  I was only wary about increasing the dose on the lithium because I thought I was at the highest possible level!

Don't make me be the belligerent patient!  Don't act like I'm stupid enough to follow everything you tell me to do, or treat me like a child!

I fucking hate psychiatrists.

[shinjishazaki]

I wish my med doctor had actually called me back after I left a message saying I was going to quit the med completely to warn me about any side effects

because boy howdy are there side effects that I'm struggling with right now

[shinjishazaki]

I have spent most of the day semi-conscious and barely working because of the rapid-fire med changes. No phone call from my med doctor to even check up on me from me leaving a message last night. No call yet from the apartments. No real writing because I had to go across the street during my first break for a juice because I feel so awful. I would like to petition that it be Friday today so I can lie down and die.

[shinjishazaki]

thing one: fuck this new med, I'm going back to what I was on and quitting altogether.

thing two: my binder just arrived but it smells like play-doh because it's new so I need to wash it later and wear it when I'm not overheated and sweaty from restraining anger.

I just want to curl up and cry because I can't sleep off of these fucking drugs and I sure as fuck can't do any work because my head is full of fluff

oh my god just fuck needing medication in the ear

[shinjishazaki]

[shinjishazaki]

post about my medications, please disregard if that bothers you

I forgot to mention this but my therapist really helped my mood when I brought up my recent increase in disdain for taking so much medicine. She told me that I've been extremely good about being compliant with my medication regimen and not fighting with doctors, but it's understandable to be frustrated about having to take so much stuff. But she also told me that it may be possible to come off of the class of drug that I hate the most, since the problems it's used for seem to be conditional with me, and these conditions are lessened by maintaining my doses of other meds that don't bother me so much. It can't happen soon, since my med doctor is going to be changing come August and I need to make the case to the new doctor that I'm stable and safe to go off this class of drug. But there's a chance, and I'm going to cling to that and work toward it.

[shinjishazaki]

med venting post, please disregard if that bothers you

I go to bed with some trepidation.  The thing is, I've been on harder and harder doses of ambien every night for the last three or four months because of severe sleep problems, going from 5MG to 10MG and finally to the 12.5MG ER dose because I was seriously that fucked in the ear with sleep.

But I was feeling like a complete zombie and was having trouble staying awake at work.  So when I went to my med doctor on the 17th, I told her what was up and she said, "We should try to get you off the ambien, because it sounds like your sleep may have regulated and you're getting too sedated."

So where I stand is the first night of half a tab of 10MG, standard release.  I've been doing pretty well on the whole tab of 10MG, standard, for this last week getting down from the 12.5 ER.  But I am fairly certain of my having dependency issues with this drug, so I'm really nervous that I'm not going to get to sleep.  No sleep for me means a lot of bad things, and I don't want to go down that road again when I'm just starting out in my new position and I think I'm impressing my boss.

Urgh.  Gotta go to bed.  Gotta try and fucking shake this stuff.

[shinjishazaki]

The two other places I looked at also require bringing in 3X the rent per month on your paycheck.  This made me unhappy, to say the least.  I like those places.  But whatever, I guess.  I did more searching and found some other places closer to where I live now in nice, slightly cheaper neighborhoods than I was looking in.

My biggest concern for the day wound up being another medication change.  I haven't been making the biggest deal of this, but my sleep really has gone to shit.  I can't stay asleep; I wake up at 2, 3, 4 AM and I can't get back to sleep.  This is a bad thing for me.  So my med doctor gave me a script for the CR version of ambien to try and keep me out for the night.

Working at a PBM, I get incredibly nervous about being prescribed new drugs, especially one that is most typically listed on other plans as being a "step two" drug in step therapy chains.  What that boils to is that you have to have tried and failed (like I have with standard ambien) before you try a step two (often more expensive) drug--and a lot of times you have to submit prior authorization paperwork to provide clinical evidence to the insurance company to prove this is the drug you must have over step one.

Given that I am starting to feel like crying when it comes to even discussing sleep because it sucks so much for me right now, I was disinclined to want to think about either having to deal with waiting on a PA or paying what was sure to be a much higher amount of money than the four bucks and change that I usually pay for the regular ambien.  I gave my pharmacy the prescription with a great deal of hesitance and walked around the store for fifteen minutes praying that there'd be no problems in getting it.  I nearly cried (see a pattern with me today?) when there wasn't any trouble.

I don't know.  I am worthless today because I have been awake for nearly eleven hours now and it's not even 1PM.  I just want to go to bed and stay asleep for the rest of the day and night, but I was warned by my pharmacist that this would be a bad thing and to just tough it out until a regular bedtime.

I am not having a good day.  I will stop making posts about it now.