Tuesday, December 17, 2013

I'm giving up coffee

I had been drinking too much coffee lately, and my headaches are back. It is also worsening my heartburn. Today I did not have my afternoon cup of coffee- my headache was so bad I left work early, but I didn't have to reach for the Tums that I keep in a drawer in my desk at work. So I have decided, no more coffee.

Well, I'm not going cold turkey. I'm going to keep drinking just one cup until the new year- then no more. Maybe I will drink tea instead. I need my waking up ritual. My cup of coffee was always that. Tea still has a little caffeine, but not too much.

I want one less drug that I am addicted too. Caffeine. I really consider myself addicted to all of my psychiatric meds in that I would be very scared to go off any of them cold turkey. I hardly ever miss a dose, because if I miss my meds I go into withdrawal before the end of the day The joys of being on Effexor.

I think I will actually wait to talk to my psychiatrist, for once,  but I do think I do want to try going back down to 5mg of Zyprexa. I just feel too fuzzy on the higher dose. I think I was drinking more coffee in part to deal with the hunger from the increased dose, and in part because of the fuzziness.

There is the possibility that some of the fuzziness is not from the Zyprexa, it is from the lithium They were both raised around the same time. But my lithium level is low enough that I suspect the Zyprexa.

The other med change I want to make is to go from extended release to instant release lithium, for a number of reasons. And I want to ask about changing from ambien to lunesta, because Ambien no longer works unless I take a quarter of a milligram of klonopin along with it. Which I would rather not do. And I want to ask about which amphetamines are least likely to cause tachycardia, and if they are worth trying before I start spending almost as much as my rent on Provigil

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