Back to the beginning?
After my psychiatrist persuaded me to take a new medication at my last appointment, I’ve had an extremely stressful week.
A New Medication Plan and a Harsh Setback
The idea was to go back to my old medication, which I’ve been taking for the past four years, at a low dose, and add a new one, also at a low dose, to get the best possible effect without any side effects. Unfortunately, this plan backfired. Even at a low dose, the new tablets caused me to fall into a coma-like sleep for 12 hours about 20 minutes after taking them every evening. I spent the remaining 12 hours of the day completely deprived and just hungry, especially for sweets. When I then developed serious stomach/intestinal problems over the weekend, I was finally done with “trying out tablets” and decided to go back to taking my old medication permanently at a low dosage. I wasn’t going to let my psychiatrist talk me out of it.
Coma-Like Sleep and Crippling Side Effects
Over the past three and a half months, I’ve tried five different antidepressants plus tranquilizers, and all of them have hereditary side effects that have been very distressing for me. There’s the side effect I get from my old medication, which I wanted to get rid of: “nothing special.” By now, I not only had no strength left, but I simply didn’t want to take it anymore. Finally, my psychiatrist even suggested trying stronger medications, which would have required an inpatient hospital stay for me to adjust. And I just wanted to have a somewhat more orderly life again.
Five Tries, Five Failures: When Enough is Enough
As luck would have it, or perhaps fate, depending on what you believe, my next appointment with my psychiatrist was canceled this Monday morning and postponed until mid-January. That was the moment for me to take my life back into my own hands.
Cancelled Appointment, Clear Decision
I did have to see a locum doctor for a formality, but even she couldn’t have dissuaded me from my plan (which she didn’t want to do anyway). In short, I’m now taking my old pills again, at a low dose, and I finally started working yesterday. It’s only for a short time, though, since I’m officially still on sick leave until tomorrow, but since it’s going so well and is doing me so much good, I’m 99.9% certain I’ll be back to normal starting Friday.
Returning to Stability and Work
Now you might think that the last few months have been pointless and that I could have done without it, but I don’t see it that way at all. During this time, I’ve learned a lot about myself and how best to deal with my illness. I’ve rediscovered myself and what’s good for me and important to me. And I now know that I still have a lot of work ahead of me, but my goal is to eventually be able to do without medication altogether.
For now, I’m working with my psychotherapist, who also really likes my plan, to cope with the low dose. And who knows, maybe sometime in the near or distant future I’ll be able to go without it.
