Tag: mental health

Amitriptyline – That’s a No Go From Me

Bones

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I’ve been on 10mg Amitriptyline every evening (along with 20mg fluoxetine every morning), and it has finally settled in enough for me to say, no, this is not working.

It’s one of the more difficult things to do, stop and admit to yourself that this medication that should be helping you (and oh god don’t you wish it was) actually isn’t.  I mean, it sort of is, and sort of isn’t, but the positives are outweighed by the negatives.  Then you have to go back to your doctor and say ‘this isn’t working’ and they pry for reasons why and sometimes it’s hard to put the reasons into words.

Fortunately for me, it wasn’t.  My negative side effects included, but were not limited to:

  • Tachycardia Monday (I wish it was on Tuesday because that would have sounded cooler) – where my heart rate was consistently 100-130bpm for the majority of the morning, every Monday.
  • Consistently higher heart rates across all activities.
  • Intention tremors when I’m tired.
  • Increased anxiety and depression.
  • Increased headaches and visual disturbances.

So I told my doctor and he suggested we halve my dose (I’m already on the lowest dose tablet) and re-visit in a few weeks when he’s had an opportunity to read up on what else might treat fibromyalgia.  I’m pushing fairly hard to try a different medication.

I’ve been on 5mg Amitriptyline for the last week and the change is huge.  I feel excited about things again, I’m happier, more relaxed, and generally more positive.  I don’t have tremors anymore, woohoo!  Everything’s coming up Milhouse!

Except with the lower dose of medication that was managing my pain, I’m now in more pain, which I’m not quite so keen on.  My arms, which haven’t ambiently ached (for no reason) since starting on amitrip are flaring up again.  Usually the aches are confined to my hips, thighs, and lower back.  I’m having random spots on my skin where touch there is excruciating – something as simple as a cable brushing against my arm feels like a fire brand.  Sometimes where I like to sit the sleeves of my cardigan is overly sensitive.  I haven’t been able to wear my watch because it’s been too painful.

You win some, you lose some.  At this point I’d rather this level of pain than trembling so hard I can’t even do up a button.  When I see my doctor next I’ll be pushing for a new script to try, and for a referral to the frightfully expensive (private) pain management specialist he mentioned.  It’s time to get this ball rolling faster!

PTSD Flashbacks

Bones

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Today I had a PTSD flashback.  It was the worst PTSD flashback probably since the instance in the hotel lobby.

I smelled cinnamon and nutmeg.  It’s Christmas time, so someone was probably feeling particularly festive.  Or maybe the cafe downstairs was making a lot of things involving cinnamon and nutmeg.  I love cinnamon and nutmeg, I love the smell, I love how festive it feels.

It’s also the smell of chai lattes, as a colleague commented.  And that was the trigger.

My gut dropped and I went numb, my mind had a few seconds of racing then just disconnected.  I kept my breathing even and my face blank – I was at work, no one could know what was going on (this is part of my self preservation mechanism).  I messaged a friend to get it out and then kept on working while everything inside of me screamed.

Fortunately an urgent piece of work came up which allowed me to scoot my wheely chair across the room and then back to my desk, and with (very forced) cheerfulness, I continued with my day.

I’m still shaken.  All through the rest of the afternoon I was shaken and very very carefully maintaining my facade of general competence and cheeriness.  I probably will be for a while.  I had a few things to do this evening and I made the executive decision to ask someone else to cover me (as I cover for her when she needs it) so now I can spend some time properly relaxing.

When a big shock like this happens, it’s very important to implement greater than normal self care measures.  So that’s what I’m doing.

The Reality of Fibromyalgia

Bones

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I’ve had a fairly packed few weeks, and I’m looking at a full schedule until … probably mid February.  My anxiety is considerably higher than normal, as there’s a lot to get done over the next few weeks.  I’m physically doing considerably more and resting less.  This has a lot of consequences for me.

First being that my fibro is flaring up.  Which, yeah, go figure.  It means random parts of my body hurt.  On Friday, the middle knuckle on my right hand hurt.  Yesterday, an old injury on my left foot started hurting (and still does).  Bits of my leg hurt, and then stop hurting at random.  My knees ache more, my right elbow started hurting … you get the picture.

Today I experienced a new symptom.  I had a shower, which was all well and good.  I was drying myself off when I felt pain running down my left arm.  I quickly turned my arm over.  It was a water droplet running down my arm.

I felt some not inconsiderable pain from a water droplet.

I briefly panicked and then bottled it up.  I didn’t have the time to panic about it, so I didn’t.  It’s only now, in the later hours, that I’m sitting down to process this new facet.

Pain from a water droplet.

I’m used to abnormal pain after an injury, or additional pain after physical exertion, but this is new.  This is normal sensory input being processed as pain.  This is something I cannot excuse away as ‘a bit rough’ or ‘a bit sharp’, it’s a water droplet.

Realistically I’ve experienced this before.  Sometimes when my amazing human rubs my head or my arm, it hurts.  I’ve had days where pillows hurt to lie on.  But I have always rationalised them away – my amazing human was being unintentionally rough, or his nails were too long, and I just had a really bad headache so I was sensitive.

This is the first experience I can’t rationalise away.  This is clear proof that I have an issue with sensory input, where either my nerves are sending the wrong signals, or my brain is interpreting the signals wrong.

Today it really hit me.  I’m still not sure what to do with this information.  I’m probably going to bury it for a while and bring it out to examine at inopportune times (such as during an exam, or when I’m trying to read).  But for now, honestly?  I’m scared.  This is scary.  And I really don’t like it.

Take Your Meds

Bones

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I’ve had a couple of seriously stupid days.  I’m laughing about it, because nothing bad really happened, but it could have.

I have alarms I’ve set on my phone with comical noises as a reminder to take my fluoxetine in the morning, and my amitriptyline in the evening.  I would forget my own head if it wasn’t screwed on, so this is a sensible precaution.

Except when it goes off and I don’t immediately take my medication, and then I forget about it.  Like I did yesterday morning.  And yesterday evening.  And this morning.

It was only when I was lying in bed wondering why I was in so much pain and also not trembling that I realised whoops, I hadn’t taken my amitrip the night before!  It wasn’t until 9.30am that I realised I’d forgotten to take my fluoxetine that morning, and it was through a process of thinking ‘now these symptoms are a bit severe for missing one dose, I don’t usually feel this bad when I wake up late’ that I realised I’d also forgotten my fluoxetine the morning before.

The good thing is I can now say with certainty that the amitriptyline really helps.  The bad thing is I now know that I ignore my alarm!  So, on the suggestion of a friend, I got the app called ‘Medisafe’.  This post isn’t sponsored in any way, shape, or form, I just genuinely think it’s a neat app.  You plug in the medication, you select the dosage, and then you select the external presentation of your particular medication (because they vary considerably).  You tell it when you take it, how many you take, and what you take it for, and it then proceeds to piss you right off when you need to take it.  You have to go in and say you took it (which I will only ever do once I’ve actually taken my medication), so hopefully I won’t have any really daft days like the last couple.

Like I say, I’m laughing and making light out of it, but if I hadn’t run home at morning tea and taken my fluoxetine, it probably would have been a different story.  Moral of the story:  take your meds!

I Am Allowed To Be Burnt Out

Bones

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I am allowed to be burnt out.

For me, this is a radical idea.  The admitting and acceptance of the state of being burnt out, and actually giving myself permission to be burnt out.  To be honest, I think I’ve been burnt out for years, and it finally caught up with me last year.

I am autistic.  From a very early age I was conditioned against expressing that and pressured into appearing neurotypical.  I have, up until this year, put on a facade of a successful, bubbly, vivacious and sociable business woman.  Mostly this appearance was abused into me by It, but it was also expected of me from all of my previous roles.

I have overworked and over performed in every single role I have undertaken.  I would typically arrive at 8am and leave anywhere between 6 and 8pm, having worked through all of my breaks and most of my lunch, always at break-neck speed, because there was so much work to do.  I worked myself ragged, and I went back in and did it all again the next day, because that’s just what you do.  I’ve done this in every role until I moved to my current city, so that’s a good decade or so.

Throughout most of that decade, I was also with It.  The narcissist.  The ending came about because It was becoming desperate, and eventually manipulated Itself into the position of ‘either you come with me or I go alone’.  I was in a position where I was actively pursuing the career I wanted, and I wasn’t prepared to jeopardize the career I had been working for years to be able to pursue, and I was angry that he would ask that of me while putting his own career first (always first).  So I said no.

Then I went straight back to work the next day.  And continued working, and overworking, and not thinking about anything, and putting on the facade of being a lively, successful young businesswoman.

It’s all caught up with me and there is no escaping the exhaustion that I have denied for so long.  I ignored my body at every turn.  When it screamed ‘rest’ I said ‘harden up’ and went to work.  When it said ‘no more, go home’ I said ‘nope, we’ve still got to finish this document pack’ and kept going.  And when I say I worked fast, I mean I worked bloody fast.  I put out more work in one day than most would in three.  My brain was constantly on the go planning my next move, identifying the path to take to complete the required tasks in the shortest amount of time, and in the right priority order.

Oh, and through most of that I was working a second job on weekends and doing one paper a semester at university.

So yeah, I’m allowed to be burnt out now.  I sound defensive, and that’s because I am, because I expect to be told ‘no, you’re not allowed to be burnt out, harden up and keep on going’, because that’s what I’ve basically been told my entire life in various ways.  Stiff upper lip.  Carry on.  That kind of claptrap.  Telling myself I’m allowed to be burnt out is one thing, but taking a stand and saying ‘I AM ALLOWED TO BE BURNT OUT’ to the world is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Because despite the abuse I’ve been through, despite feeling as though I’m brittle and nothing but bone and sinew, despite almost falling asleep at work on numerous occasions because I am so exhausted, I … I gaslight myself.  It’s so ingrained in me, I gaslight myself.  It has been reinforced so thoroughly in my life that I am not important, what I feel is not important, what I want to do is not important, what I don’t want to do is not important, that I can’t possibly imagine that what I’ve been through is … something.  That it’s actually not good, that I’ve been impacted by it and that feeling is valid and true and reasonable.

It’s a horrific mindset, but I’m battling it.  Slowly but surely.  Because I deserve to not be burnt out.