Tuesday, January 17, 2006

wear and tear

as many of you know (or maybe not) i (and my family) have been under tremendous stress these past few years...and it seems that things just keep getting worse for us. my own life, here in massachusetts, i suppose is going well, kind of slow, but well, for the most part. but the horrors that my family is having to deal with right now is almost unbearable.
so, this brings me to my health problems. so many, i can not keep up with my doctors appointments. i've seen cardioligists, neurologists, behavoural therapists, psychiatrists, and my own primary care doctor so many times that i thought i might send her a christmas card and invite her over for dinner. i've had so much blood work done, an mri, an ekg, an ecg, and so on. next week, i go into the malden hospital for a 'sleep study'. you go in at 830pm, they hook you up to multiple machines to measure multiple things, and expect you to somehow 'sleep' for them to study how well you sleep (or how well you sleep in a hospital with machines hooked up to you). my doctors (plural) all have a suspician that i'm suffering from accumulative stress disorder and panic disorder and a touch of depression to spice the pot. my one psychiatrist actually told me that i had a "melange" of psychiatric problems (a little ocd, a little add, a little panic disorder, a little anxiety disorder, a little manic depressive...sort of a 'melting pot of crazy' if you will).
so, as all good doctors do, they've perscribed me various medications to help me with my "issues"...prozac, being the drug of choice for me now.
the prozac causes it's own problems, and i'm not so sure i'll be on it much longer. i seem to have started having involuntary muscle spasms, as if i'm being shocked with an electric pulse. these spasms, which occur mostly as night, when i'm trying to relax, cause me to take more of the "as needed" xannex that they gave me. and as many of you may know, xannex is good good stuff. now i'm wondering how long i have to be on prozac before i get addicted to xannex, and how long i have to keep going to the doctor before they figure out what the hell is wrong with me.
ahh...a drug companie's dream patient.

"my analyst told me, that i was right out of my head,
she said i'd need treatment, but i'm not that easily led,
she said, i was the type that was most inclined,
when out of my head, to be out of my mind,
and she said i was nuts, that i'm crazy,
but i'm not" -joni

3 comments:

jewlover2 said...

Oh dear. Speaking from very personal experience (not myself but a very dear counterpart), get off da drugs! Drugs present such a variety of problems and xannex is actually probably already an addiction if it's taken on a regular basis. Doctors DO NOT know the long term effects of many of the drugs they prescribe, only what they've heard from the supplier. Paxil, the pharmaceutical antichrist, had a SLEW of side affects doctors knew nothing about and Glaxo Smith Klein is undergoing a heavy lawsuit as a result (people were literally killing each other!). In our experience, the best possible help for accute anxiety problems are: Vitamin B6, exercise, and knowledge. You may have had someone tell you this already but it hits very close to home so I had to say something.

Feel free to ignore...it's ultimately your decision, of course.

aprildawn said...

yes, i'm researching all of my options right now. excersize seems to work the best. i resisted meds for a long time, and i hate being on them...but i was having extreme uncontrollable physical symptoms, that i didn't really realize that stress was causing (and i'm still not sure)...thanks for the advice, i'll look into the vit.b6.
cheers.

Stephie said...

"they said as a child i appeared a little bit wild with all my crazy ideas....but i knew i was a genius." hang in there.