Another "Ask Me Anything" Thread. I am HIGHER THAN AN EFFING KITE. This could really be fun!

[Denninmi]

Seriously, let's have fun with this. I need a diversion after the week and especially the day I had yesterday. It was fucking brutal. One of the hardest things I've faced in a long time.

To put it in context, I am a 47 year old man who has never had a SIP of alcohol or any kind of illicit or recreational drugs beyond caffeine.

And right now, I am on some serious, serious drugs. ALL legal and prescribed and closely monitored by my EIGHT, count 'em, effing EIGHT doctors I am seeing right now. My backpack I keep the prescription bottles in and carry with me in the day rattles like a maraca. How effed up is that? Eight doctors. If you think that is effed up, you should see the medical bills and blue cross statements that are rolling in!

So, yeah, I'm really high. Mood stabilizer, major tranquilizer, anti-depressant, plus a bunch of regular stuff like blood pressure meds. Kinda giddy, kinda like everything I see and encounter is either hilarious or just plain effing awesome. Got all wet this morning in the freezing cold rain on my bike, and thought it was effing awesome! This is WEIRD. And, my inhibitions are REALLY down. Big time!

So, ASK ME ANYTHING!

[ohiosmith]

1. Why is it that my left sock always goes missing? I have a drawer full of right socks with no mates!

[Denninmi]

4. Because the Sock Gnomes all have two left feet.

Put some rat traps near your dresser and laundry area baited with left socks. Problem solved. Be sure to check frequently before the corpses get stinky.

[ohiosmith]

7. Are gnomes edible? I hate for anything to go to waste

[Denninmi]

9. Of course. Almost all protein sources are edible.

It's all in the preparation techniques and the seasoning. I'd just consult a good wild game cookbook. Do whatever they tell you to do for rabbit and you'll be just fine.

[ohiosmith]

12. Great! I'm thinking a nice Guinness and gnome stew with root vegetables.

[Denninmi]

14. If it turns out well, send me the recipe.

And, might I suggest, a bay leaf and a couple of juniper berries (available at larger stores in the spice section). Adds a very nice flavor to game.

[ohiosmith]

24. Perfect!

[Denninmi]

5. Sorry, I guess you shouldn't.

You can always put me on ignore.

I find a lot of support here from most people, and it helps.

[Denninmi]

16. Because maybe it's the human thing to do.

I didn't ask for this. It's real, it's genetically based, it causes physical changes to brain structures which are visible on MRI or CAT Scan, it can be treated effectively with various classes of drug.

[Aristus]

25. For shame, taterguy!

For shame...

[Major Nikon]

37. Check out my sig line

[valerief]

3. When the elves snatch you into their magicland, would you rather they show you

pretty colors or pretty words?

[Denninmi]

6. Colors. Colors are awesome.

Yup, gotta go with colors.

[valerief]

8. And yet, you reacted to words and with words. Why is that?

[Denninmi]

10. colors are hard to post on DU.

Whoops, maybe not.

[valerief]

11. I'm partial to 3a, 8a, and 1g on that chart. Do you have any favorites? nt

[Denninmi]

13. Yup, anything from G1 through G9.

Green is my favorite color.

[valerief]

17. Is the color of your favorite pill green? nt

[Denninmi]

20. NONE are green. I wish they were.

I've got white, yellow, kind of a pink red. Most of them are white, which frankly is kind of boring.

What surprises me are how physically small some of them are -- tiny.

I guess I could always buy some spearmint Tic Tacs and pretend.

[valerief]

22. There's always food dye (if your pharmacist approves of dying your pills).

Green is a nice color, but orange is better. Even Rmoney likes orange. Have you seen his face?

[MuseRider]

15. Not to be a downer, far be it for me to stop a good high

but (nurse here and I HAVE to ask) do all your 8 doctors know about each other?

I have seen too many people get really royally fucked up with their meds and their disease by doctors sending them to other doctors to others etc. until nobody really knows about the other. Meds can really get messed up and then you will really get messed up. I HAD to ask, sorry, it is my nature.

Otherwise, have fun as long as they are making you feel good. Once they don't be really careful OK?

No more brutal days for a while OK? That sucks.

Downer over!

[Denninmi]

18. Oh, god yes. I have lists for everything. And every time I see a new one, the meds go on the list

the contact info goes on the list, etc.

I am trying to get all of these people to coordinate, which sometimes if frustrating. But in the end is working out well.

I just found out there is such a thing as a "coordinated care facilitator". Someone who does this all for you. They are RN's as well. Alas, it's a private company and the cost is beyond me by quite a bit, but the concept is good.

I wouldn't say I'm having fun with this, it's just very different and very very strange.

No more brutal days, I'm really trying.

Not a downer, REALLY appreciate it! Thank you so much.

[MuseRider]

26. Here is what you can do.

I am assuming you have one primary? Just be certain everything from every doctor runs through the primary. You will have to be sure it all gets to him/her because there are so many fuck ups these days in medicine that I trust no one to really take care of me but me.

That should take care of all of it with no additional cost, just a little time. You could even go as far as occasionally calling the nurse working with your primary to be sure any change got to them. It sounds like you are certainly organized enough so just add that little call just to be sure.

I know it is not "fun" but you sounded as if you were looking to at least get some entertainment from it so I say go for it. Being ill is never fun but if you get a drug at makes you feel "giddy" or high now and again enjoy those moments. Far better than the brutal days you have in between.

I think a coordinated care facilitator is a fantastic thing but right now you don't sound as if you need that. If you do I would try to figure a way to work it in. Sadly medical care is not what it used to be. Offices are far too busy as far as I am concerned and little things like communication between doctors get forgotten. While you are this organized and feeling a little better I would call your primary and tell them you are concerned about it and will be calling them so they don't just think you are a pain, another problem in these way too busy offices. Make good friends with the nurse, seriously.

I don't think this is over the line here as far as medical help but if it is I guess it will be taken down. Just stay on top of it. Keep lists, as silly as it sounds when you have to take a bunch of stuff it is the only way to go. When I was a student we talked about all this stuff and that was many many years ago.

I lived next door to a darling old man before I even started nursing school. He was so sweet but pretty old and infirm. I would see him every day and I started to notice he was getting really odd. I went over to visit him one evening to see if I could do anything and saw a living room full of pill bottles. I asked him about them and he told me, he had about 10 different doctors for about 10 different things. One a cardiologist because he had had several heart attacks. I asked him to do just what I have said here and once he did he found out that many of them had no idea about the others and he was taking things that would raise his low blood pressure that was directly in response to a drug meant to lower his blood pressure etc. No one of his docs had any idea. He got better really fast after they figured it all out.

Take care and enjoy a good day

[Denninmi]

30. Thanks again.

Yes, actually, I have been exchanging all of these notes with the various doctors, but they're all new to me in the last month except my PCP who I have seen on and off for about 10 years. I will definitely send her the big "summary" on a regular basis.

Honestly, I have cried enough to last me a decade in the past 2 months, and I have had some good laughs, too, because humor is very important and helps me to get through. Honestly, despite the periods of intense anguish, I have had about as good a time with a mental breakdown as is possible. Sounds weird, but I mean it, my sense of humor is still there, in fact, the meds and the diminished inhibitions make a lot of things seem really, really funny.

And, also, I always remembered a line from M*A*S*H from the time I was about 6 or 7 years old. Hawkeye Pierce was trying to explain why he was such a cut-up in such a serious place and time. He said "You can choose to laugh, or you can choose to cry. I choose to laugh." And that is my choice to the best of my ability, too. I've cried enough.

[undeterred]

19. Can I shave my legs with one of those?

[Denninmi]

21. One of what?

Sorry, not following.

If it's any consolation, I haven't shaved my face in 3 weeks, and I really like the beard.

[undeterred]

23. Nothing to follow...

You said "ask me anything".

Actually I must have asked that question in another post because it autofilled when I typed a "c".

Beards are nice, especially if you live in a place where it gets cold in the winter.

[Denninmi]

28. Well then, yes, by all means shave your legs with it.

It will turn out better than if you used 3 Gillette Venus razors.

[HopeHoops]

27. Shit. You sound like me. I wear a dog collar with a pill case when I go out.

My service dog has a harness (matching) that has a similarly stocked pill case. I don't take the original bottles because if I lose them I'm fucked. I also have to take a daily injection for my osteoporosis. It's a tiny needle and I barely feel it. It's also a fucking expensive drug, although technically it is a synthetic protein which is why it can't be ingested orally. As for the pills, I figure if a cop questions me I'll just tell him what each one is. I can produce the prescription bottles if necessary.

I've also got one of those 4x7 container "geezer box" things. Beware the mood stabilizer!!! I was on Lamotrigine (Lamictal) for a while to counter the anti-depressant. Despite being fucking expensive, I had to keep upping the dosage and it was doing more harm than good. I finally quit it cold turkey, went through hell for a week, and found that the anti-depressant alone was just fine.

On the plus side, because of my chronic pain I get to take oxycodone and Larazapam (together works best). They're a little weird at first, but they do work. I wouldn't consider either to be a "recreational" drug (although both apparently are), but they do the trick.

And yeah, I know about those medical bills and insurance statements - none of them cross-reference well (if at all) and the collection notices are even worse - "Pay $xxx.xx just because." I ignore those and just pay off the bills directly to the medical billing department in question. Fuck collection agents - they're parasites. I won't let them earn a penny off of me.

As for the tranquilizer, it's probably a benzodiazapine or similar and they not only have a half-life but you WILL build up a tolerance to them. I take my opiates and bennies sparingly to avoid that situation. They work better at lower doses (get a REALLY good pill cutter). If you take them regularly, they'll still work the same, but your brain won't register that they're working. Both are highly addictive - think The Beatles, "Mama's Little Helper" - "Doctor please! Some more of these! Outside the door, she took four more."

Good luck.

[Denninmi]

29. Actually Lamotrigine is one of mine. I'm in the dose titration phase where it goes up gradually.

Fortunately it is dirt cheap for me at Costco, because I have no prescription coverage. There is a tremendous range in prices between pharmacies. Michigan has a good law that requires retail pharmacies to quote you a price over the phone, which helps. When I got my first script for it, the price for 30 25 mg pills ranged from $95 at Wal-Greens to $9.94 at Costco. I already knew from past experience Costco would be the cheapest, but I still called a few just to verify.

The thing that scared me about the lamictal was the fact that the psych. printed out and made me sign an informed consent waiver before giving me the script, while telling me about the 1 in 1000 chance it could give me a possibly fatal reaction called Stevens Johnson syndrome. And I got back to work later and was kind of telling in slight detail my coworker and boss about the waiver without revealing too much, and I just said "God, what the fuck are they giving me if it's so dangerous 1 in 1,000 patients may die?"

The tranq is Seroquel, also generic thank god, a months worth cost me $11.72. It's one of the "major tranquilizers" and it's not a benzo. Frankly, for me, it's a rhino pill, it drops me like a dart gun drops a charging rhino or tiger, and that's at what I was told was the "bunny slope" of doses, 25 mg. But it's giving me 7 to 8 hours of sleep, a vast improvement over the 0, 1, or 2 hours I have gotten most nights since June. 2 ambien pills did NOT make me sleep, at all, so I'm grateful for this even though I feel hung over in the mornings.

Thanks, HopeHoops, it means a lot to me.

[HopeHoops]

38. Yeah, I had to do the "Stevens Johnson" thing too. And 25 mg is pretty light. I got up to 200.

I took Seroquel for a while, but Celexa works better for me. Seroquel is more of an anti-psychosis/bipolar thing and it made me constipated as hell. Celexa is an SSRI which is what I really need. I'm on a reduced dosage of it now and it still works. Still, beware of the Lamotrigine. It isn't the skin rash you need to worry about. It doesn't just "stabilize" your moods, it makes you complacent and unresponsive. I wish I'd never taken it. With 25mg, you probably don't need to worry yet, but mark my words you'll be asking for a higher dosage before long. Even the 200mg I was taking at the end wasn't considered a high dosage - just a more expensive one. It's like heroin for the drug company. You have to slowly work into using it and are SUPPOSED to slowly back off of it. I didn't. I just stopped cold and the week that followed was sheer hell. I'll never touch that shit again. Then again, I quit smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day cold turkey in '85 and THAT was sheer hell too.

On the dog collar (mine and hers), I've not only got the pill cases but also dog tags (literally - PetSmart dog tags, double-sided) listing things like ICE (in case of emergency) numbers, my medical conditions, preferred hospital, and one that just says "NO FENTANYL" - that shit fucks me up. I put them on the end of a key clip (same as a dog leash clip) so the EMTs could easily take them off of either of us. Both also have a tag that says my dog comes with me even in the ambulance. One more seizure and I'm probably dead.

[Denninmi]

39. Well, I'll just have to see.

I'm not afraid of the lamictal, a lot of people at the program are on it, and pretty much everyone says it helps to it works really well for them. I'm stepping up to 100 on Wednesday, ultimately could be 200 or more, we'll see.

I understand that many people take quite a bit of trial and error to get it right, and that even then it may change.

So, I'm just taking it step by step. We'll see. I do need to become functional at work ASAP, so I hope this one works and I don't have to change.

[HopeHoops]

40. I wish you luck. Different drugs work in different ways on different people.

[PassingFair]

31. What is wrong with you?

What kind of diagnosis have you been given?

[Denninmi]

32. Bipolar II.

Not what I expected. I knew I was severely depressed and had serious anxiety with the panic attacks.

But I didn't expect that one. Took the wind out of my sails in a big way, but also made a lot of things in my life suddenly "make sense".

[PassingFair]

42. I hope you get the drug thing sorted out.

It's clear that you've been going through hell lately.

[Denninmi]

43. You know, yes, but also no when I look at others in similar situations.

Honestly, something you need to know about me. I am nothing more, in a lot of ways, than a spoiled rich kid whining because he didn't get what he wanted. Yes, this has been one hell of a bad experience for me, but I have had a pretty "soft landing" compared to many. I am in this program with people who are on their 6th, 7th, 8th suicide attempt. People who have spent WEEKS in the locked ward. People who have fought this for years and years and are empty shells of their former selves. People who need the "anti-suicide talk" on a daily basis from the MSW/therapist. People who have had life threatening drug reactions. People who can't say why they are even there, because they just want to end it all, and their families or legal guardians put them there. People who have been in jail because of the things they have done while out of their minds.

And I whine because I am going through this. Yes, its hard. It will be a tremendous financial blow. I may or may not have my current job, it's really up in the air. I don't know what my future holds. But, I will NEVER be in those positions. I feel very, very badly for them, but I am a fighter and a survivor and despite how messed up I may seem right now, I have done nothing but be proactive and fight this to the best of my ability since this started earlier in the summer.

And I'm going to win this war. Because defeat is not an option for me.

[PassingFair]

50. I never thought you sounded whiny. Not at all.

Seems like you are flying sometimes.
Now I know why.

You sound strong and astute.

I know you will come out alive and aware.

[DemKittyNC]

33. I get

very seriously depressed as well. I don't get to see doctors about it so I just try to work it out myself because I have to not by choice

My question however is this: Why is it when I get depressed, my depression makes me depressed?

[Denninmi]

34. Because it becomes a self-reinforcing feedback loop.

This was just explained to me Friday morning in the psych education part of my day hospital program. It has to do with the way the brain makes, uses, and recycles neurotransmitters seratonin, norephinephrine, and dopamine. The less it can use, the less it makes is my take on it, although I am very foggy and not sure that's right. But it is something along those lines.

You might want to consider what they are teaching me, which is called cognitive behavior therapy. In other words, retraining your mind to avoid the dark thoughts that cause and go with depression, and concentrating on the brighter side of life. If you don't have access to medical care (damn this country and its lack of concern for the average person!) there are many self help books, websites, and even free or cheap software to help with this. It sounds like a really worthwhile system, I have been working on "getting it" and have talked myself out of worse feelings a couple of times now by doing this.

[DemKittyNC]

35. Wow,

thank you for your input. It is greatly appreciated. I work 24 hours a week part time as a waitress and I am finishing my last year of High School at the same time. I couldn't afford medical help to save my life - literally. So I deal with my depression on my own the best I can. I will try to take your advice. Thank you again!

For being HIGH that was rather informative

[Denninmi]

36. You're welcome.

Not so high right now. I wasn't able to take the tranq tonight (ok, it was "as needed" and I am kind of afraid because it is addictive, so I did without tonight since tomorrow is Sunday and I can rest all day if need be).

And I don't take anything else "fun" until morning.

How about through your school district? Do they have any kind of health services. And if not, you could try your county or state health or mental health depts. I can't believe there wouldn't be some kind of professional services available to you at low cost. But I know its hard out there with this economy.

And, if you go to college after you complete high school, college health services are usually very, very inexpensive.

Please DON'T let depression consume you, it's hard to deal with but can be done.

I have seen a number of people come and go through my hospital program in the 9 days I was there. And some of their stories are very, very sad. I don't want anyone else to go through what they went through. My life and past few months are truly the "bunny slope" of mental illness compared to what others go through, I know I bitch and moan a lot, but truly I had about as soft of a landing as I could have had. And one thing about treating mental health issues -- the EARLIER you can get a grip on it, the better.

Best of luck to you.

[DemKittyNC]

44. Thank you again :)

I am glad to see you being careful with all that medication. I am scared to death about taking medications I won't even take an aspirin for a fever. I guess I'm just weird. lol

We have a councilor at school but she is so quick to jump on things and it is like she is always looking for anything to be linked back to parental abuse or something. She definitely has an agenda all her own and cares nothing other than fulfilling that agenda it seems so she is not much help at all. (Example: ME: I feel depressed almost all of the time. COUNCILOR: Do your parent's hit you? ME: No COUNCILOR: Do they touch you sweetie? ME: um, NO. COUNCILOR: Oh that is good. Now why don't you go on back to class.........) grr!

What has helped the best is just posting on here basically, it has been wonderful to be able to talk with and be in agreement with so many people where I do not feel like a freak anymore or at least while I am here that is. If that makes sense at all, I have a hard time wording things sometimes... lol

Anyway, thank you for your input... grr, I made a funny thread serious... SORRY

[Denninmi]

45. Um, nothing to be sorry for. This thread turned pretty serious a long time before you got here.

There are a lot of online support groups. Some are general MI issues, others are condition specific.

One good one is depressionforums.org You might want to check it out. A lot of non-judgmental support from people who have "been there."

Also DU has a mental health support group under the health section. Kinda slow, we could use some more input. I've monopolized it for 2 months now, so fresh faces are very welcomed.

[Denninmi]

41. And I'm not quite as wild as yesterday.

Didn't take the seroquel. Doc told me I could take "as needed". And, well, I didn't get a lot of sleep, ok hardly any, but I'm concerned because that one is so addicting. The official plan was just 30 25mg doses to help me get into a better sleep pattern. I don't want to be on stuff like that long-term, too weird. I'll make sure I take like 5 doses in a row, then skip one.

[benld74]

46. WHAT is the airspeed velocity of an unladen European Swallow?

[Denninmi]

48. Um, something to do with Monty Python.

Sorry, that's all I know. Never a really big fan, I've seen little bits of it but not much.

However, I will say that the barn swallows (same as the European Swallow I believe) have been clocked going over 40 mph.

Pretty cool.

[kalli007]

47. Are strawberry fields really

Forever?

[Denninmi]

49. No, sorry, they actually rotate them out on about a 5 year cycle in this region.

That avoids buildup of pathogens in the soil such as verticillium wilt and leaf spot, leaf scorch, and leaf blight.

I think they do it differently in warm climates like Florida and California.

[SteveG]

51. this is what you get

for going to a Paul Ryan event.

[Denninmi]

52. Ah, but I could have, the one here in Oakland Co. Michigan was close by.

But, I sensed the evil malevolent presence of teabaggers before they ever came near, and, well ...

...stayed the hell away. As did almost everyone, attendance was not very good, a few thousand I heard.

Romney/Ryan is toast. Nothing to fear there.