Seroquel Sleepiness: The Hangover Effect Of Certain Drugs

I am no longer on olanzapine, I was eating far too much and gaining too much weight. I mentioned this to my psych and he changed me to quetiapine, which is less weight gaining, apparently.

However, I am suffering from a severe hangover effect and daytime sleepiness because of it and have no idea how I am meant to function on it given that I can barely stay awake. I see him tomorrow so can mention it then.

Rang the crisis team as arranged last night and they had no clue of Friday’s events meaning that I had to go through it all again and still they didn’t quite grasp it. Allison clearly hadn’t put it onto the system. However, the woman was perfectly pleasant even if all she suggested was to take a diazepam to calm down and keep myself in the company of people. It worked though as I still, despite all the urges, self-harmed.

I see my psych tomorrow, as an emergency appointment after Friday. I’m quite scared about seeing him as I feel embarrassed about the whole thing now and feel as if it was a waste of everyone’s time. I also see my GP but I saw him whilst I was still in a state on Friday evening so am less worried about that.

The rational part of me knows I did the right thing by heading to A&E but then the emotional part of me feels stupid and an attention seeker and a waste of time.

Sometimes I just have no clue what to think.

Ruth

Bipolar Vs. Borderline Personality Disorder: How Having Bipolar Gets You More Support

I freaked yesterday. I was out and about, hobbling around in plaster, with one crutch as I am stubborn and I freaked out in M&S. I had a massive panic attack and felt as if the world was closing in on me. I also had a bad urge to self-harm so when the panic wore off I went and bought blades and stuff.

I then realised that this wasn’t the way forwards so I rang Allison who was out and couldn’t talk to me for 2 hours. I then went into some kind of zoned out state and came round at the reception of the Priory. Here I managed to get 5 minutes with the assistant psychologist who told me to go to A&E.

Now I have never been to A&E without having done anything and asking to speak with the Deliberate Self Harm Team whilst not having self-harmed was very strange. Luckily the triage nurse was one that has seen and treated me regularly so that was OK. The DSH Team turned up within half an hour of me arriving. When I mentioned that they had arrived quickly they told me that it was because I was bipolar and had just had a recent hospital stay.

The DSH Team were pretty helpful, they sat and talked with me, got my psychiatrists appointment moved forward to Monday and seeing Allison to Tuesday. They also got me a GPs appointment that afternoon. We went through all the questions and they ascertained I wasn’t suicidal but needed somewhere safe to sit and to calm down. In the end I sat in the relatives’ room for a few hours having been given 5mg of diazepam by a charge nurse.

Eventually my Mum came and picked me up as I had given the DSH Team permission to ring her and we went home. The plan of action is that I ring the Crisis Team if I feel I need help or turn up at the Priory or A&E if I feel unsafe. My Mum has been given a small amount of diazepam for if I need it and I see my GP again on Monday as wel as the psych to review things.

My Mum was extremely supportive and in her words “proud of me” because I had taken a wise step in not self-harming but seeking preventative support instead. I still feel awful today but the urges have subsided somewhat.

It just shows me how having a personality disorder doesn’t get you much help as you are deemed to be seeking attention, and yet the same behaviour with a mental illness gets you help, support and treatment straight away. It isn’t fair at all.

Ruth

Crises Caused By Crisis Team: How Psychiatric Services Can Be Unsympathetic

I got myslef in a bit of a state last night. I had been in a binge-purge cycle all day. It went like this, eat bowl of cereal for breakfast, throw it up, eat lunch, throw it up, eat entire tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, throw it up, take meds, eat chocolate, throw it and the meds up.

At about 10pm I rang the crisis team to explain to them how helpless I felt with food and how I wanted to self-harm to punish myself. They told me to have a bath and relax. I have a plaster cast on my leg so a bath isn’t possible. The psychiatric nurse offered to come out and see me but as I am pretending to cope to my parents I denied the offer.

About half an hour later two nurses from the crisis team knocked at the door and my Mum answered it. Apparently they were so concerned about me they ignored my request and came out to see me to conduct an emergency assessment. Their conclusion? I am in a depressive phase and the eating disorder rearing it’s ugly head is due to weight gain caused by side effects of medication. Geniuses!

My Mum then asked me what was going on and I was perfectly honest with her. She then got miffed that I didn’t talk to her and was convinced it was because I didn’t trust or love her. It’s Mother’s Day today and she’s still in a bad mood about it all. I have to thank the crisis team for wrecked the tiny bit of trust my Mum had in me. It was only made worse by me putting the pyjamas on that my Mum had found me unconscious, cynosed and with a ligature round my head in. She got really upset by it, but they’re one of my favourite pairs of PJs so I’m not throwing them out.

So far today I have had 3 glasses of water and an apple. I’m cooking lunch so that’ll be a perfect excuse not to eat too much.

Ruth

The Drugs Do Work: How Side Effects Can Affect Your Quality Of Life

The olanzapine is working, in fact it is working well. I have been sleeping without nightmares or flashbacks. I have stopped seeing my dead cat wander around the house. I haven’t felt creepy crawlies climb over my skin. In fact it is what psychiatrists would call “a good result”.

However, olanzapine comes with a side effect that affects 90% of people who take it; weight gain. Since going into the Priory I have gained a stone and a half. Most people say I look better for gaining the weight, but being typically female and with an eating disorder, I hate it. I wish I was in the 10% who didn’t get weight gain, but I’m not.

I have reverted back to the tricks I used to use when I was totally entranced in being thin. Drinking lots of water, sucking ice cubes, throwing food up once eaten (I have to eat at home) and many other things. I have been looking at thinspiration pictures but instead of inspiring me, that have made me feel fat and worthless.

I want to take an overdose of the evil stuff just to sleep and forget my thoughts. I don’t want to die, in fact I told a friend this morning that I wanted to live and this is true. I want to fight this bloody illness and be stable, I want to fight the cancer and be in remission and I want to see 2010; at least I do at present. I can feel myself slipping into a depressive phase and I need to stop it. I see my therapist on Monday and then my psychiatrist and CPN on Thursday. I have radiotherapy inbetween the two.

I still don’t agree with Dr Mc that I am juggling too many plates, I agree with a friend who said the plates I am juggling are bloody large but few in number (I have adapted what he said but that was the general idea). I tried to explain how things were to my Mum earlier. We sat down and had a bit of a talk about the last few months. She wondered out loud if there was anything she could have done that would have made a difference and I came up with what I thought was a good analogy.

I told her having bipolar was like having a switch in your brain, and that switch was flicked to depression, just when my switch was flicked in late November the lightbulb blew and so I was in the dark.

I’m quite impressed by that, for me at least. Anyway I think the air between us is a little better after talking to each other. All I have to do now is talk to Dr Mc about the olanzapine and weight gain. I think that one could be difficult as he doesn’t seem to accept weight gain is depressing. When I had a female psych she understood that being a certain weight was paramount to my mental stability but a man seems to think as long as the drugs are working then that is fine.

Ruth

Trying To Prove An Unsuccessful Point: Goading My Psych Into A Fight

Saw my psychiatrist today. He said he cares about me and is worried about me.

I asked him why, and he said because he has spent 3 months investing time, effort and energy into getting me well for discharge and looking after me as an outpatient. Apparently he is worried because of all the ‘plates I am juggling’ at the moment.

I said I didn’t think psychiatrists were meant to care about their patients. He said that was a myth and all psychiatrists care about the wellbeing of their patients. I, quite callously, asked that if I killed myself would it hurt him or would he just concentrate on the rest of his patients. He said he would care and reminded me of the incident in hospital where I used the TV aerial cable as an unsuccessful ligature and when I poured boiling water over both my arms on Christmas Day. He said that if he hadn’t cared then he wouldn’t have come in at 3am to speak to me about the ligature incident or on Christmas Day.

I think I may have just found a gem in the psychiatric world.

My meds have now changed again (for my record):

• Duloxetine 60mg/day
• Lamotrigine 400mg/day
• Aripiprazole 15mg/day
• Olanzapine 10mg/day
• Trazodone 300mg/day
• Diazepam 5mg/prn

Plus there’s all the other meds I am on for pain control and to attempt to stop the cancer spreading anymore.

Ruth

Astonished, Amazed, Outstanding: Is It Positive or Negative?

The thought process for this post started when the lovely Seaneen posted a comment stating “lady, you astonish me” on a couple of posts ago.
Since then a lot of people have said either that I amaze and astonish them for being able to deal with the primary and secondary cancers as well as coming to terms with being bipolar. The thing is I’m not really coping with it, in fact I’m not really coping with anything anymore. I’ve just finished one cycle of chemo and a session of radiotherapy. I cried throughout both of them.

Another comment read that surely because I’ve attempted suicide so often then dying from cancer should be a relief to me. The thing is feeling suicidal and acting on those plans from your mental turmoil is a very different from living a life that may be cut short at 23 or 24.

Dr Mc is worried about me. We have been exchanging emails all week and yesterday he decided to prescribe olanzapine alongside all my other meds. Frankly I don’t care about the weight gain at the moment, I’ve got bigger fish to fry. Well, I say that but of cause I am terrified but am trying to push it to the back of my mind whilst I process the cancer issue in my very small brain.

I am going to see a good friend of mine tomorrow and have coffee and lunch. This is the first time my parents have let me out of the house on my own (except for when I sneaked out when I was manic and crashed my car) since the middle of December when I was admitted. At first my Mum wasn’t going to let me go as one of the suicide attempts happened when I said I was visiting a friend and I ended up at Beachy Head.

I have a morbid fascination with Beachy Head. I love the views out to the Channel and the wind that blows all the cobwebs away, but also there is that deadly feel to it. The people who have had the courage to jump – who have died or been paralysed or who have survived without a scratch. Then there are the people like me who have stood on the edge edging closer and closer to falling off or waiting for the cliff to collapse beneath out feet and then get manhandled off by the police or chaplaincy team to end up either sectioned and taken to A&E/a police cell and/or taken to a psych unit or those who are assessed and deemed mentally fit. Then there are those who arrive at the scene and drive off again not sure why they are there and if they really do feel suicidal. It is one of the most beautiful places I know tinged with the undertones of tiredness, sadness, desperation and mourning.

As for the title, I am not sure if being called all those things is good. Is it because I am coping? Is it because people want me to feel better? Or is it because I have the reverse Midas touch.
Answers on a postcard or in the comments as usual.

Ruth

What Goes Up Must Come Up: How My World Has Been Torn Apart

Firstly the title of the post relates to my mood, after an episode of mania I have fallen with a bang back into a depression. However, this hasn’t happened because of some chemical in my brain or because I stopped taking my meds for a bit. It has happened because of circumstances and 3 words my consultant said to me earlier this week.

Those three words were “it has spread”, of course this relates to the cancer. I have gone from being in remission and the future looking rosy to the cancer metastasising into my lungs. Lung cancer has one of the lowest survival rates, after breast cancer, of all the cancers. As my friend put it, “chemo will basically just be extending your life” and “it’s a good job you’ve given up smoking”. This friend has a black sense of humour at times. I hope that more chemo will achieve more than postponing the inevitable but deep down in my heart of hearts I think I already know the outcome.

The lungs is one of the first places bone cancers spreads to. I have been lucky for it not to have spread before. Doctors have been keeping an eye on me but I went to the GP with a nasty cough which I thought was just a chest infection as I have had a cold and he sent me for an immediate chest x-ray at the Chelsea & Westminster. From there they rang my consultant and he saw me that afternoon.

I start more chemo on Wednesday and radiotherapy for my leg. They may be able to conduct radiotherapy on my right lung (the cancer is only a stage 1) and there is always the possibility of surgery down the line.

Whilst the rug has been pulled under my feet I have rung the crisis team until I can get hold of Allison tomorrow. They have been helpful and caring to say the least. Someone came out to see me yesterday as I couldn’t stop crying down the phone and was in absolute hysterics. I see Dr Mc (my psych) and my GP again tomorrow and then Allison and my therapist on Tuesday. I am glad the mental health support is there because the way I feel rght now I could cheerfully do what the cancer might do right now.

My sister has flown over from Gibraltar to be with me and I am to be admitted to a world class hospital, the Royal Marsden, everyone is caring and supportive.

But for now my world is still shattered.

Ruth

Victim, Sufferer, Survivor, Genius: The Worries of Mania

First of all an apology for not updating earlier. What with being in hospital for 8 weeks and then cancer op I have sort of hidden myself away and become a recluse. I have also been living downstairs where the WiFi access is shit.

Anyway, I’ve been in hospital again. Friday and Saturday night for being manic. My Mum rang my psych on Thursday after I had applied for another debit and credit card, spent £250 on clothes (it was in Selfridges) and crashed my car after my reckless driving. My psych saw me on Friday and admitted me.

Since Friday I have had my anti-depressant level cut as it was recently raised, and they think might have been the trigger. I have had the anti-psychotic increased after seeing my dead cat walk around for most of the week and I am on haliperidol to try and quieten me down.

Being back in hospital was odd. I saw people who were still there. I saw the people who had been in years and ones who had been in months and then new people. I felt a fraud as if I didn’t deserve to be in there despite the fact I was flying around the ceiling and bouncing off the walls. I had to be sedated on Friday night as at 5am I was still awake. Last night I spent the entire night awake, talking to one of the HCAs who was lovely when I was in. In some ways I wanted to be back in there all nicely cocooned and protected from the outside world, not having to face up to what damage I have caused, but then I knew that was wishful thinking.

Thanks to the full blown mania and psychotic symptoms I have now been elevated to Bipolar I. I’m not happy about this as hypomania was bad enough but if they’re going to hospitalise for both mania and depression, I don’t know how I’ll get anything done. I see Allison, my CPN on Tuesday. Although I was in a private hospital (The Priory) I still kept in touch with the CMHT at my psychiatrist’s request. Indeed the weekend after I was discharged the crisis team rang to check how I was. I think they are feeling guilty after I told the duty CPN I saw in December that I was suicidal and what my plan was and she just said I didn’t mean it and she’d see me tomorrow. 5 hours later I was unconscious and in A&E because I’d put the plan into place. What I didn’t realise what the nurse I was speaking to was the one who told me I wasn’t unwell after my first 2 suicide attempts. I didn’t put Catherine on the end of the phone and Catherine at the end of the dining room table together fast enough.

I have the beginnings of a cold which means I probably won’t be able to start the final chemo regime on Thursday, but then my consultant did mention something about 2 sessions of radiography which is less painful and has fewer side effects, apparently. I don’t know but I’ll be glad when I’m out of plaster and in remission and all this head and body is sorted.

Ruth