I called a therapist today and made an appointment for Monday. If he had not picked up the phone I don't know if I would have left a message, but fortunately he did. So I have one thing settled.
It was a really bad day. I left work early after my last patient cancelled. I actually thought about the hospital today, something I really haven't thought about in a very long time. But I don't have any faith that they could help me. There is no magic bullet.
And I have been experimenting with how I take my effexor recently. And I realize that I am probably taking too much- it is making me agitated when I take the double dose. I have been taking a lot of Zyprexa, which somehow isn't knocking me out the way it did last time I tried this. I felt like that was the only way I could stay alive and out of the hospital, take Zyprexa. But I did feel fuzzy on it.
I thought about asking my doctor for Abilify to add to my mix. At higher doses it gave me akasthesia, so I stopped it- but a low dose might work. But then I saw that my insurance required pre-authorization, and I just couldn't deal with thinking about that. I'm not going to go to the pharmacy and cry again when I can't fill my prescription. I've been there before.
I am not positive that this is true because I'm remembering many years back and into a very bad time, but Abilify gave me akathesia on a very, very tiny dose (my dr. had some suspicion that it would and so I started at I think 2.5 mg) as well as double vision that lasted 4 weeks after I stopped it and horrible balance so that I kept falling over and landed in the ER where I had to wait many hours for them to run drug tests that cost me a couple thousand dollars (because everyone bipolar is on drugs) and lithium levels that they had to send to the city via security guard. Awful. And I drove myself there despite not being able to see. Dumb.
ReplyDeleteBut I sort of have it in my head that it is risky to re-try after akathesia at any dose without risking akathesia.
But I could be wrong and also could be remembering specifc rules for me because I've had 3 bad bouts of akathesia and one bout of EPS and so I'm considered really high risk for movement disorders of any kind. I can't tell you how excited I am to probably need to add a low dose of older antipsychotic when I see my psychiatrist.....
Hope the therapist works out. Glad he answered the phone :).
JMJ