Freedom?

I have gotten off topiramate and alprazolam.  The main changes involve eating and pain.  Both have increased.  When I started the topiramate, I quit eating.  It changed my brain, my thinking, so that I no longer used food to relieve stress, to relax, for anything other than nourishment.  For the first time in my life, I realized the relationship that skinny people have with food.  Food was a necessity, not a drug.  I ate healthier because I was uninterested in food except as a means to keep me alive.  When the last of the topiramate left my system, my brain seemed to rebound.  I became obsessed with food.  I could no longer tell whether or not I was hungry.  It was strange.  I wanted to eat all the time, especially carbs.  Things have gotten a little better.  I can at least tell when I am hungry and I am less obsessed with sweets, but food is a struggle.  I want something to munch on all the time.  

When it was time to stop the alprazolam, I was scared.  That is addictive.  I was worried about physical side effects.  I expected to have a hard time getting to sleep at night.  I was surprised.  It hasn't been that hard.  My sleeping pattern hasn't changed much.  I used to be asleep within 30 minutes of taking my medication at night.  Now I fall asleep later and wake up earlier but not significantly.  Not like I expected. 

One side effect from all of this (besides weight gain from eating) has been pain.  My pain levels have increased.  My back has been tighter, more painful, threatening to spasm, for weeks.  Exercise doesn't seem to help.  In fact, tension throughout my body has increased.  All of my muscles are tight no matter how much stretching I do.  I am gritting and grinding my teeth all of the time.  Even my lungs feel tight.  I have been wheezing with asthma for a couple of weeks.  Is that the weather, allergies, or going off the medication?  Who knows. 

The big question for me is whether or not I am making my husband miserable.  I don't know.  Other people say I seem more alive.  I asked him if I was more hostile.  He wouldn't answer.  That tells me that I probably am.  If he thinks I won't like the answer, he avoids the question.  You know. 

"Do I look fat in this?"

"This chicken is delicious."

Avoidance.  Change of subject. 

Anyway, I am off the worst of the medication.  The big question now is, do I quit the anti-depressant?  I haven't decided yet.  I have until next week to make up my mind.  I am thinking I will give it a try.  If anyone is reading this, let me know what you think.  Should I get off Pristiq?  Thanks. 

Slow and Steady

Changing the dosage of topiramate from 200 mg down to 150 mg has been easy.  I've had no side effects so far this week.  When I changed the dosage 100 mg, I could feel that.  I got headaches.  This has been an easy week.  Of course, it helps having no responsibility this week.  My husband is out of town and I am enjoying the solitude. 

I spoke to a neighbor who is beginning to have menopausal issues.  Her hormones are giving her grief.  She is hot all the time and she has no patience, especially with her husband.  I told her the heat problem would pass in a few years but the patience issue was probably here to stay.  It seems as women lose estrogen, their husbands lose testosterone and turn into wimps.  We get tired of living with someone who is weak and wants us to take care of him.  Grow a pair.  Quit being such a wuss. 

I need to go meditate.  That seems to motivate me.  It helps me find my purpose and keeps me from ramming people with my cart at the grocery store.  OHM.  OHM. 

Doctor's Visit

"Surprise, surprise, surprise," as Gomer from Mayberry would say.  I was worried about my visit to the doctor.  I expected a fight.  Luckily, I have a new nurse who is indifferent.  She agreed to help me get off the medication and she didn't tell the doctor so there was no fight.  I told her if she wanted to cover her A_ _ she should tell him but if she wanted to avoid a fight, keep it to herself.  She chose to keep it to herself.

I don't understand how a nurse can write prescriptions without the doctor signing off on them.  She said he printed pads with their names on them so they could sign the prescriptions on their own.  Does that mean all I would have to do is get pads printed with whatever name I wanted?  Could I fake a DEA number?  Who checks that?  How long could you go with a fake pad and write prescriptions before someone figured out they were fake?  I wonder.  Anyway, back to me. 

The nurse and I agreed to continue decreasing the dosage on topiramate until I am completely off it.  Now my dosage is 150 mg a day.  I have been stepping down every two weeks but I think by stepping down in smaller increments, i.e. 50 mg., I can take a step every week.  We will see how the side effects are.  I will try to post more often.

The Beginning

This is the chronicle of my journey to drug-free living.  I have not gone through re-hab.  I haven't been on 'Intervention'.  I don't sneak around doing meth.  The drugs that I am trying to get off are those being pushed on me by my doctor. 

For fifteen years I have been on anti-depressants.  It started simple.

"Here, take this Paxil.  It'll make you feel gooood." 

Gradually they stepped me up to harder and harder drugs.  Cymbalta.  Wellbutrin.  They decided I was anxious and not sleeping enough so they added Xanax to the mix. 

I kept getting more and more depressed.  After all, I was sick.  I now needed counseling once a week.  The depression kept returning so they kept changing medication.  Every time they did, I would get suicidal. That fed their need to push more drugs.   

After years of this, they decided I was bi-polar II which meant I needed mood stabilizers.  The combination of mood stabilizers, anti-depressants, and anti anxiety meds begin to cause side effects.  Blood work started coming back showing kidney stress.  We had to change medication again to relieve stress on my kidneys.  Again, the medicine changes made me suicidal. 

During this time, I had very expensive medical insurance that barely covered most of this.  As a result, I have accrued over $100,000.00 in credit card debt that has mostly gone toward drugs during the last ten years.  In fact, I spend so much money at the pharmacy, that I get a Christmas card from them every year and they are a large, national store. 

I've tried for several years to get my doctor to help me lighten up on the medication.  I wanted to at least get off the Xanax.  He refused to even talk about it.  No more.  

This is my line in the sand.  I have reached my limit.  I can no longer afford to pay for this medicine.  I don't care if going off it pushes me over the limit because I don't want to continue living like this.  I going off the medicine with or without my doctor's help.  In fact, I have already started.

I was taking two 100mg tablets of topiramate.  Two weeks ago I started breaking them in half.  I know this is okay because when I started taking them, I broke them in half to ease onto them.  So, I took 150mg for 2 weeks.  This week I am down to taking one 100mg tablet.  So far so good.  I did get a headache and light-headed week two but I was okay by the end of the week. 

I am supposed to go to the doctor on Friday, June 24.  This will probably end in a fight.  I hope he works with me but if he won't, then I will take my file and go to my PCP and get her to help me.  I am coming off these drugs.  Even if I end up depressed, at least I will know that it is me and not some creature manufactured by the drug companies. 

Even the act of writing this is more me than I have been in five years.  I used to read and write every day.  In the last five years, the medicine has taken over.  I no longer read.  I haven't even journaled in years, much less written a book.  I hope documenting this will help me get back to who I used to be.  At least I feel like I am taking control back from the pharmaceutical companies.  We'll see what happens. 

Stay tuned.