Right now I’m taking BuSpar for anxiety, Wellbutrin for depression, lithium to augment the Wellbutrin, stabilize my mood and rehabilitate my brain, Levothyroxine to augment the Wellbutrin, Metformin to protect my brain, Chlorpheniramine Maleate to sleep (OTC) and Cetitizine Hydrochloride for allergy (OTC), as well as melatonin for sleep, fish oil and vitamin D.  I quit taking my B complex because it makes me gag for some reason.  B vitamins have always made me gag and I finally decided that was a good reason not to take them.  I go on and off 5-HTP, Acetyl L-Carniterine with Alpha Lipoic Acid and St. John’s wort, they never seem to be particularly effective.  This week I’m in the process of lowering / eliminating the Wellbutrin and the melatonin in preparation for starting the Selegiline that I ordered from Mexico. 

            Four and  1/2 years ago, after going into yet another devastating depression, I was put on Wellbutrin by the Primary Care Provider of the year. ZIP, ZOOM, ZAP!!! I was no longer depressed! I was also no longer working-I was PLAYING!! -three months and a few (about 3) thousand dollars later, I came down to a ‘reasonable’ level and for the first time I recalled every bit (I think) of my-disconcerting is a good word, dis·con·cert·ed, dis·con·cert·ing, dis·con·certs

1. To upset the self-possession of; ruffle. See Synonyms at <embarrass>.

2. To frustrate (plans, for example) by throwing into disorder; disarrange.

-behavior. Upset the self-possession of / throwing into disorder/ upset the self-possession of /throwing into disorder/ upset the self-possession of/ throwing into disorder…shit and it really scared me.  Somewhere in there, I acquired an additional diagnosis of anxiety disorder and was put on, BuSpar. It took me another few months to admit the impact of the experience to myself and tell the Primary Care Provider of the year.  I got my long overdue, nearly 3 decades long overdue, bipolar disorder diagnosis.

            It was becoming the year of disconcerting experiences.  It was not okay for me to have a bipolar disorder diagnosis to ‘be’ bipolar.  In my mind that made me like, put me in a category with – my crazy violent father, the ex-boyfriend who kept breaking into my apartment and tried to choke me and all the former psychiatric patients, I had helped restrain and shot up with Haldol or some other highly sedating med to bring them down.  It could not be, but it was.

            That’s where the Lamictal came in.  I was prescribed the Lamictal to stabilize my mood, no more scary up, no more crushing down.  Quite simply, it didn’t work-or did it?  It’s like praying, can’t tell what would’ve or would not have happened if you hadn’t done it.  However, things did not get smooth and when the Wellbutrin was discontinued, I quickly crashed into another horrible depression.  I couldn’t even call for help until I restarted the Wellbutrin for about 10 days.  I continued to have intermittent hypomanic spikes that only lasted for a few days to a week or so.  I didn’t really have time to get into tooooooo much trouble.  I got my medical records and made a chart.  I still bounced up and down-all the time.  As far up?  As far down?  Who knows?  Overall-I felt less well than I had on the original  Wellbutrin and Lamictal combo.  Adding a thyroid med didn’t seem to make any difference.  The next time I became  horribly depressed we added lithium and that didn’t seem to make much difference either-it just made me so shaky I couldn’t use my cell phone.  We got it down to the 300 mg brain preserving dose I could tolerate.

            Then the primary care provider of the year went away, just as the primary care provider of the year before her had gone away-and I got a real Doctor!  This Dr. is actually an experienced specialist, and I am privileged and grateful to have him.  Value of hope.  He had seen miraculous results with Seroquel, so I tried it.  It is the best sleep med I’ve ever experienced, but I didn’t have a sleep problem.  It also had somewhat of a mind organizing quality, not dramatic but noticeable.  Although my mind certainly could use some organizing, I’ve never thought of its lack of organization as a particularly big problem.  I just compensate by organizing my environment to make up for the deficit.  I’ve gotten by pretty well that way from a very long time.  It did not stop the depression’s and I gained 35 lbs in two months!  The next time I took a big dive we tried the new SSNI (selective serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor) Pristique.  I had some reason to be hopeful about that.  It’s an Effexor spinoff and Effexor works well for my younger brother, who has a bipolar 2 diagnosis.  It flips him out of his depression the way Wellbutrin flips me out if mine-but it doesn’t keep him from becoming hypomanic and it doesn’t keep him from eventually going back into a depression, just as I do.  Pristique didn’t appear to do anything for me but like praying…  Then I ran into a glitch at the clinic, that I won’t go into (because I could rave on and on about the deficiencies of the clinic) where I couldn’t get the Pristique and had to be out for the weekend.  I had become increasingly forgetful to a frightful degree and was developing severe word finding problems.  I had been on line trying to find the source of the problem or some type of solution, when I started coming across multiple blogs by people on Lamictal-who were having the same problem.  I trashed the Lamictal and I decided since I already had to do the Pristique withdrawal I may as well trash the Seroquel also.  So I did. This may be evidence of my deteriorated mental state or just commentary on my way of doing things. 

            That was last April and for the first time in 14 years I became very scary suicidal. Part of my brain was thinking up painless ways to kill myself that would not impact other people while the other part was saying “BAD Idea! We need more meds! Go get more meds!”  So I went and told the Dr. what I did. He wanted me to go back on the Seroquel, but I refused.  I went back on the Wellbutrin.  It allows me to function most of the time.  To be continued, in three parts, this week.