I saw my psychiatrist this morning. I am staying on the higher Zyprexa dose, at least for now. I will continue taking a little bit of klonopin at night instead of switching to another sleep med for now. And I will be adding synthroid- I think. I have to think about this.
My TSH is okay, but my T4 is low and my T3 is borderline low. My T4 is always low because I take cytomel, which is T3. T4 is the precursor- so if I am taking T3, my body will make less T4. I have had to explain this to psychiatrists. But this one gets it. But usually my T3 is good- this time it wasn't. I don't know what that means. Is it the lithium?
So he wants to add synthroid. But then he didn't want me to be taking more meds- so he said probably I should switch to Armour thyroid- but he couldn't figure out how to convert my cytomel dose to Armour, so he gave me a script for synthroid. I think the plan is to switch me to Armour at the next visit (when he can prep and figure it out!)
I suppose this is a good thing- and in the past I have taken synthroid prescribed by many psychiatrists with the promise that it would help my depression or stabilize my mood. I never noticed a difference until I tried cytomel, however. And that did help my depression. My current psychiatrist thinks that it might help with my weight. I do feel like my metabolism has slowed the past year- I thought it was just age. I have to cut calories lower that to what I used to in order to lose weight.
But it just feels like more meds, more pills. Even though it isn't really a bad one.
Single digits! That is all that I want with my meds. Granted, they are not all psych meds. There is my blood pressure medicine, the BC pill, and the metformin (to prevent diabetes and Zyprexa weight gain). But the rest are all psych.
I was at 11, counting the klonopin. This will put me at 12. Yikes! I better get on armour- so I can get T3/T4 in one pill and I don't have to take two separate drugs. That will get me back to 11. I used to say I only took 10 drugs- because the klonopin was only prm. But I am now taking it regularly, so I think I have to add it to my tally.
1 comment:
I think there is something that tells us that we should think how many meds we take defines how sick we are. Right now I'm on 12 meds (including 2 that are vitamins but which I take for migraine prevention and I do NOT MISS EVER and consider real meds because of this) plus I'm taking ibuproferon daily right now b/c I'm on vacation which is hard on my ankle and I have PRN Miralax that should be daily use but here it's not been easy to do that. But overall it's a small handful because it includes very low doses of topamax and gabapentin. I remember being on 33 pills per day at one point and only 2 were vitamins/supplements. However something like 7 were Lamictal because I got so sick if I tasted the adult pill that I went on the pedi-dose which still tasted horrible but could be hidden in applesauce more easily. I still made a big fuss when I got down to only needing 20 pills per day. Right now I don't actually know how many I take but the pill box doesn't seem so full. Two handfuls every night and a patch.
I hope that the psychiatrsit keeps working with you and that you keep feeling better. I understand why you want off the meds but I find it easier to just accept that I am going to need them. Hopefully not such a high dose and hopefully it will all be in one medication some day but I'm ok with taking them if I feel better. I admit that it probably helps that I've known my entire adult life that I was likely to get diabetes no matter what I did because it is so strong in my family and so severe. That makes me relax a little; if I am diabetic a little sooner than my cousins I'll know why but that's just the way it is. For me having a psychiatrist who is lenient about my changing things when I need to but who would not quietly stand by and let me cause cycling by adjusting things outside of the parameters she sets is a very helpful thing. I don't know that she would refuse to see me anymore but she would not tolerate a lot of adjustments without her knowledge and agreement.
Anyway, I hope you are feeling much better by now.
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