Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." Genesis 9:13

Sunday, March 02, 2014

no, no, no

So last night I cracked a Seroquel and took 1/2 of it.  The increased me from 900 mg of extended release to 900 mg of extended release plus 150 mg of immediate release.  I fell asleep quickly and while my sleep was restless I did sleep through most of the night and napped through the day.  I still was moody and very teary today but the sleep was good. 

Since the sleep wasn't perfect I increased tonight so that I had 900 mg of extended release and 300 mg of immediate (this is a HUGE overall dose and a very large dose of extended release even if I weren't doing the immediate release as well).  And that was 3 hours ago and I'm not at all sleepy.  This is not a good sign.

I was counting on this working.  I very much do not want to have to add another anti-psychotic.  I will if I have to but I hate adding unfamiliar meds and these old ones we're going to be using are unfamiliar.  I will admit my biggest concern is weight gain and while that probably shouldn't be my first concern it is.  I have been losing some weight by being careful and I really do not want to regain it, much less gain any more than that.  I'm so tired of feeling self-conscious and fat.  And my impression of these older drugs is weight gain, weight gain, weight gain.  The one I think is the first choice I don't think actually is a huge risk for weight gain but I'm not sure about that.  I also do not want to be overly sedated.  I need more than I've had lately but when a new drug is thrown in it can be hard to balance needing that drug and the side effects, particularly when they are cumulative with 4 other meds.

All I can do is hope to fall asleep soon.  If I don't I guess I call Dr. Brain tomorrow.  And that's the last thing I want. 

I am so grouchy right now....

1 comment:

Jean Grey said...

I don't think that most of the older, typical antipsychotics are that bad for weight gain compared with the atypicals. Clozaril is another story, it is pretty bad- but so is Seroquel. Just a thought- I wonder if Ensalm is the right drug for you- as it is very strongly dopaminergic, and you seem to respond to large doses of the antipsychotics which are dopamine antagonists. And to really play devil's advocate- if you are rapid cycling, should you be taking an antidepressant? But I know that I need antidepressants, so I am just tossing that out. But research does not support the use of antidepressants in bipolar.