new letter to pdoc...
Dr. D#*#*#*#
You commented very casually when I last saw you about my taking the Topamax at bedtime being unusual because it was a stimulant. I don’t remember the rest of the conversation, but what I did was to go home that night and begin a change in my regimen.
This was not good. Within two days I fell into a depression and my sleep pattern became disrupted. Further complicating things I lost my appetite and went for a week eating only one meal a day in the evening time.
If you wonder why I end up making decisions about how to adjust my meds on my own I’d have to say it pretty much comes down to the fact that you do not return my phone calls to discuss my mood swings between my appointments with you. This is why I go from the extremes of wishing to take zero medications (where I felt really good for nearly 6 months) to this use of minimal meds now.
You keep referring to this other model patient that uses Lithium and Wellbutrin. It would be a wonderful world if all bipolars could use the same cocktail. Lithium made me sick (after using it for over 7 years – check my medical records for all the liver biopsies I’ve had). I couldn’t learn to properly regulate the use of the Wellbutrin. It was too much like a feel-good pill that I could just keep taking more of whenever I wanted to “feel good”, which I wanted to do all the time. So I always took the maximum dose. I need something that just works as a one pill fix for me, like the Cymbalta seems to be doing so now.
As I get older, and I’m talking by the week, not by the year, disappointments in friendships and attempts at making progress in establishing career footholds weaken me more noticeably. I don’t recuperate quickly, or completely.
In summary, changing my Topamax for only 3 days took me nearly two full weeks to recover from physically. The depression, well until I start to eat again regularly I don’t know when it will start to recover fully. And now there are new components of the career puzzle coming into place. The Eugene O’Neill Foundation is offering me a volunteer position that I pretty much cannot refuse. This is building a very familiar pattern of me taking on too many things that I cannot hold all together. I need you to help me keep my head together so that I won’t fall apart again. Please.
Daryl
(see daryldarko blog for more info)
You commented very casually when I last saw you about my taking the Topamax at bedtime being unusual because it was a stimulant. I don’t remember the rest of the conversation, but what I did was to go home that night and begin a change in my regimen.
This was not good. Within two days I fell into a depression and my sleep pattern became disrupted. Further complicating things I lost my appetite and went for a week eating only one meal a day in the evening time.
If you wonder why I end up making decisions about how to adjust my meds on my own I’d have to say it pretty much comes down to the fact that you do not return my phone calls to discuss my mood swings between my appointments with you. This is why I go from the extremes of wishing to take zero medications (where I felt really good for nearly 6 months) to this use of minimal meds now.
You keep referring to this other model patient that uses Lithium and Wellbutrin. It would be a wonderful world if all bipolars could use the same cocktail. Lithium made me sick (after using it for over 7 years – check my medical records for all the liver biopsies I’ve had). I couldn’t learn to properly regulate the use of the Wellbutrin. It was too much like a feel-good pill that I could just keep taking more of whenever I wanted to “feel good”, which I wanted to do all the time. So I always took the maximum dose. I need something that just works as a one pill fix for me, like the Cymbalta seems to be doing so now.
As I get older, and I’m talking by the week, not by the year, disappointments in friendships and attempts at making progress in establishing career footholds weaken me more noticeably. I don’t recuperate quickly, or completely.
In summary, changing my Topamax for only 3 days took me nearly two full weeks to recover from physically. The depression, well until I start to eat again regularly I don’t know when it will start to recover fully. And now there are new components of the career puzzle coming into place. The Eugene O’Neill Foundation is offering me a volunteer position that I pretty much cannot refuse. This is building a very familiar pattern of me taking on too many things that I cannot hold all together. I need you to help me keep my head together so that I won’t fall apart again. Please.
Daryl
(see daryldarko blog for more info)
Comments
Our meeting yesterday was more like a talk with a career counselor than a psychiatrist. He is fascinated that I am a writer and wants to know what "I" think about his opinion of movies and books he's seeing and reading... As I walk out the door he says, "So meds are working ok?" As if you'd give me a chance to complain? I swear to god I should report the man.