Wow it's been over 2 months since I've written a post. I think about it all the time, but just don't have it in me to write one. It's been a really tough go over the last several months, for me in particular.
I'm not sure I mentioned, but after I spent time going to a personal trainer last year and still struggling to feel better, I realized it was time to try changing up my primary medication. I think I've spent a long time being mildly depressed with anxiety and not really realizing it because I wasn't sad. My symptoms showed up as being tired all the time, even after a lot of sleeping, and having no motivation do much of anything other than what I had to do. I had been seeing the same psychiatrist for years (on/off since 2003 whenever I lived here) and I think over time, he hasn't been a good fit for me anymore. I don't think he was really listening to me with my continued symptoms and his approach for the last 3 years was to change things around the primary medication--try adding more, add in this one, add in that one. It wasn't until I changed a lot of behavioral things last year that it dawned on me that no, I'm not doing as well as I could be and something more substantial needs to change.
I started down that path with the Dr. last year and he suggested a new primary medication, but then rather than continue with him because of my unhappiness with him over time, I decided I wanted to try a new Dr. in network with my insurance. So, with new Dr. (nurse practioner NP) we attempted to make the change to the new primary one my Dr. recommended. That started in November last year and continued up until a few weeks ago.
In summary, it was not good at all. Well, the first two weeks was actually great! I started to see I had more energy, things just felt "lighter", I was so excited because I got out the exterior Christmas lights for the bushes that I hadn't used in a few years...it was the beginning of just feeling much better. However, things took a turn when I started to decrease the primary medication (which I've taken the brand of since 2015)--no matter how fast or slow we went, I had a lot of side effects...a lot of dizziness, vertigo, headaches, flu like symptoms....so we'd make progress in decreasing, then due to feeling terrible, we'd have to increase to feel better, then try decreasing again. It took a few months and I still hadn't completely stopped. At the same time, we increased the new medication from its introductory dose and it just wasn't working i.e. wasn't picking up where the old one left off. It was very finicky in terms of you needed to take w/ food, and literally at the same time otherwise you'd start to feel sick. On top of the other symptoms it became miserable. In addition, I felt extremely irritable and out of sorts....for many weeks. Even my skin was breaking out and I got rashes, etc.. It's been awful. I'm not sure I've ever felt worse. In addition to that, a month ago my "new" NP said she's leaving the practice and I need to find a new provider. Big. Fat. Sigh.
The thing that's challenging is in network providers take months to get into. Their only advice was pick a new provider and they'll send the referral. The earliest any new provider could take me was end of March. WTF. So I've felt a little stuck, to say the least. I decided to go back up on my old primary medication and hopefully feel good enough until I can figure out my next steps. My options are to 1) just wait until new appt end of March 2) Go to an out of network provider and pay hundreds for each visit, and no one I found had an appointment until last week of March anyway or 3) go back to old Dr. and tell him we tried new rx and things aren't working.
My plan was to stay w/ option 1, but this last week has just been awful. I'm barely functioning, all I want to do is sleep, and sleeping makes me feel that much worse. I've also gained more weight considering all the inactivity and eating I've been doing. That doesn't help either because I've also been suffering from plantar's fasciitis in my left heel for over a year but over the last few months it's progressed from hurting just while walking to hurting a lot of the time. It feels like someone is stabbing you with a hot knife.
Chronic pain, extra weight, skin issues, mental health challenges....it's a lot to handle. It really is. At this point, hard to tolerate so I decided to at least check back in with my old Dr. this Friday. I could easily get an appointment and honestly, it's not even about the money because he's hundreds as well. It's at least something and maybe he'll have some suggestions on what we can do.
It's not easy to share about these issues...it feels very vulnerable. that's why I haven't written about them. I know this is an anonymous blog but I think a few people know me in IRL.
I didn't even write about the holidays, but suffice to say they were fine. My sister came down as usual. They were a bit less exciting this year as my girl is in 6th grade now and things changed for her about Santa and the holiday. She didn't even want to go get Santa pictures, so we've stopped that tradition. It was a bit crazy for me tracking gifts so I started a spreadsheet. I know I know. Our friend Amy normally comes at New years but that was a bit of an issue this year. She could have come, but she's not the best at being up front and made up a few reasons why she couldn't. It's fine. She's got a lot on her plate her sister was diagnosed with esophageal cancer late last year so she's started up with a cancer center here in town and they've traveled back and forth for treatment. She's about to have surgery next week.
Things have been absolutely crazy with the kids and their schedules...they both are in braces (my girl started phase 2 in December) so there is ortho, my girl decided to do another theater production a musical Flapper so she was in that (instead of playing basketball)--it was intense with more rehearsals, more weekends, more evenings...these last two weeks before the show it was nuts with after school until 7, the shows all weekend. On top of that my son has been playing basketball so he's got practice twice a week and games on Saturday...last week soccer started so it's overlapped with basketball and theater. I feel very much like an uber driver as I take the kids every morning, picking them up for any appointments (my girl had ortho yesterday because a lollipop broke 2 of her brackets), then picking up my girl after school every day due to theater schedule. And of course the kids are quite worn out and tired themselves so attitudes haven't been great at all.
I also had been looking at a job that was close by, I really liked my discussions w/ them...but decided to withdraw because it would entail too much travel. I just couldn't see myself being able to manage work life with the travel and decided it really does need to be the right thing for me to go back to work. It's a lot of pressure to manage a job and a household. And frankly, now is just not the time until I can start to physically and mentally feel better. I've turned my attention to some projects in the house like new windows and removing the fireplace, but even those projects take a lot of decision making and leg work....both of which I don't want to do much of right now. On hold as well.
I'm just really hopeful I can start to feel better soon....
At least something on the humorous side: last week I overheard my son talking to his fried Aarav while they were playing soccer in the cul-de-sac. He told Aarav that two girls like him. He said, "One is Tessa and she wants to marry me. She keeps saying all these love things like: Are you the climate because you are so hot". Omg. 3rd graders. To be fair, my son is handsome and will likely have girl problems. At least at this age it's just cute. Let's keep it at cute.
