I ran out of one of my bipolar medications…

August 13, 20196 Comments

I ran out of one of my bipolar medications, and not in a “I wasn’t paying attention” sort of way, but in a “my doctor was on vacation, I switched pharmacies, and spent hours on the phone only to finally get my medication after four days of not taking it” sort of way.

After two days of not having it I noticed something, a hint of self loathing, then the next day a large drop of despair. A taste of where I would be without my medication. I don’t understand why, I’m at a really really good place in my life. Things are going great. If I would have guessed I would have thought that if I stopped all my medications I’d be manic, but I was faced with something else, clearly, after my little medical mishap. I’d be depressed right now.

I don’t know if that was what startled me most over these bits of mood turbulence that came from only four days without just one of my many medications, was it that I would be depressed now without them, surrounded by all the current joy I have, or was it the fact that this is all it took for me to feel those ends fraying, me losing control over my emotions?

The reality of bipolar isn’t an easy one, even for someone like me who isn’t a control freak. I’m not in control of my own emotions; perhaps I’m painting with too wide a brush. I am in control when I’m also in control of taking my medications.

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Stop Googling your new medications.

January 24, 2019Leave a comment

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I’ve heard a surprising number of people tell me they are really worried about their medications side effects, so they read them all before deciding whether or not to go on them. I get the idea, it’s important to be informed, but it can be a dangerous habit to get into. Let me explain:

I understand the dangers of bad side effects, one medication we tried for my bipolar disorder made me suicidal, another one that is perfectly safe for 99.99% of adults caused an abnormal cluster of cells in my brain after I had been on it for a number of years (they went away when I went off the medication). So, I get it, medications can do some terrible things to your body, but a lot of us need medicine, whether for our mental health or for our physical health. That medicine is essential to keeping you alive or living a life worth living. It’s scary to look at all the terrible things that could happen, but it’s also scary to think of all the things that would happen without it.

The thing is side effects aren’t always the norm. Everyone has medications effect them differently. I know people who are on the pill that made me suicidal and it was the one that cured their depression. It’s really a toss up whether or not you’ll have a good or bad reaction, but one thing is for sure, you’ll never know till you try.

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Fake medicine, real medicine, and their role in Lyme disease.

September 28, 20185 Comments

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There is a growing group of naturopaths claiming to cure everything with natural approaches and homeopathic medicine. A lot of us with chronic illnesses end up falling into their hands when traditional medicines turns their nose at us and tell us we aren’t sick, when we clearly are and have been deteriorating quickly. They like to tell us it’s in our mind or they misdiagnose us since our diseases doesn’t have accurate tests and in the case of Lyme, those tests more often than not throws false negatives.

Those of us suffering with Lyme’s become desperate and frantic trying to find someone to help us, so we go outside of traditional medicine. Is that the right place to find help? We can only hope so, because they seem to be the only people willing to try.

I got pushed out of traditional medicine with a harsh kick. Nobody would help me, so we tried a homeopathic doctor. I was skeptical throughout the process. Some of the things she talks about were proven false. She mentioned being about to help my bipolar through diet, and that she could heal me from it, never mind that its a genetic mood disorder. The wifi isn’t really changing how your body reacts to things and the idea of crystals helping anything comes from old school witchcraft and have no base in science. I was on guard the entire four months I was there, even more so seeing as she was selling herbs and supplements out of her practice. Which is highly unethical and she would have lost her license for doing that if she was in traditional medicine. Everything was expensive. I didn’t notice a difference in how I felt after a lot of treatments.

But- some of the things she suggested have been studied, some of them did make a difference in the way I felt. Some of her concepts weren’t so far off the track I needed to be on. I needed to be helping my body detox, but it wasn’t through green juice and mystery homeopathic drops, it was through sweating and Epson salt baths, ways people have been healing themselves for centuries. I did need to be on some supplements, but ones that list every single ingredient that came from an independent source. There are a lot of supplements derived from foods that help boost your immune system, support your liver, and even have antibacterial qualities. I needed probiotics to keep my gut from being destroyed by treatments. I needed to cut sugar to help with the inflammation, but I didn’t need to clean my diet of every food I’ve ever loved.

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