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May. 7th, 2011 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cabbitzillaThose of you that keep up with me in real time, or via SL or FB, are aware that I've been having som pretty serious issues with my medications. I'm on three meds that're considered psychotropics (I believe that's the word for them), each with a different purpose.
Thursday I attempted to get an appointment sooner than my next scheduled visit (May 18th), and was told that there were no openings to accomodate me. Fine. I still felt I had solid control despite the depression that was ripping me down.
Yeah, not so much.
This morning took Crystal and I up to the same area that the doctor's office is in. So after the book sale, I stopped at the clinic to beg for an appointment sooner than the 18th, and got seen immediately by a very worried psychiatrist. I'd had a vague recollection that the doc I needed to talk to worked a mid-day shift on Saturdays and blessedly my memory didn't betray me. It turns out that nobody had bothered to ask him about seeing me. In 12 years I've never shown up needing an emergency appointment, so there was some small amount of shock in play there. I'm now being stepped down off the no-longer functioning Elavil, and stepped up on Paxil (Paroxetine). I see him again next Saturday afternoon, at which point we'll hopefully know what the Paxil will do to me. I was told "I will see you, even if I have to stay late". I no longer need to worry whether the psych cares, it seems.
I've never seen Doc R actually worried; for years it's simply been renewals or minor tweaks... this time it was a flat out failure of one of the psychotropics I take. I'd wondered for years how much of what I said was understood; English is obviously a second language for him. But he took one hard look at me and his English was suddenly crisp and clear. Kinda spooky; I'm not used to startling docs like that. And I'm definitely not used to a doc startling me like that.
*exhale* And now we wait and see what happens...
- Lamictal (Lamotrigine) is a stabilizer, designed to quell the sometimes violent mood swings that plague me in an unmedicated state. My mood is rock steady, which means it's doing it's job quite capably.
- Abilify (Aripiprazole) is in play as a 'social anxiety supressor', designed to lock down the panic attacks that've wreaked havoc in my life for over 30 years. There've been no signs of more than a simple OMG rush that faded immediately for over a year, which means it's doing it's job quite capably.
- Elavil (Amitriptyline) has been 'in service' the longest, an older tricyclic depression med that is a mood elevator. It -also- gets prescribed as a migraine suppressant, so it'd been doing double duty for nearly a decade. Over the last two or three months my mood has been steadily sinking and the migraines have been getting worse and more frequent until it became evident even to me that There Is A Problem Here. Stepping up the dosage had zero effect, steppind down the dosage had zero effect... it was redily apparent where the problem was.
Thursday I attempted to get an appointment sooner than my next scheduled visit (May 18th), and was told that there were no openings to accomodate me. Fine. I still felt I had solid control despite the depression that was ripping me down.
Yeah, not so much.
This morning took Crystal and I up to the same area that the doctor's office is in. So after the book sale, I stopped at the clinic to beg for an appointment sooner than the 18th, and got seen immediately by a very worried psychiatrist. I'd had a vague recollection that the doc I needed to talk to worked a mid-day shift on Saturdays and blessedly my memory didn't betray me. It turns out that nobody had bothered to ask him about seeing me. In 12 years I've never shown up needing an emergency appointment, so there was some small amount of shock in play there. I'm now being stepped down off the no-longer functioning Elavil, and stepped up on Paxil (Paroxetine). I see him again next Saturday afternoon, at which point we'll hopefully know what the Paxil will do to me. I was told "I will see you, even if I have to stay late". I no longer need to worry whether the psych cares, it seems.
I've never seen Doc R actually worried; for years it's simply been renewals or minor tweaks... this time it was a flat out failure of one of the psychotropics I take. I'd wondered for years how much of what I said was understood; English is obviously a second language for him. But he took one hard look at me and his English was suddenly crisp and clear. Kinda spooky; I'm not used to startling docs like that. And I'm definitely not used to a doc startling me like that.
*exhale* And now we wait and see what happens...
