Illness Update

It's been a month since I've posted in this journal. Mostly because things have been going okay for once. I feel stable for the first time in years thanks to the Vraylar I take. Once it was increased to 3mg/day, it boosted my mood enough that I no longer feel depressed all of the time, and on the occasion I do feel depressed, I bounce back rather quickly.

The biggest concern I have is still this nearly-uncontrolled anxiety. It's overwhelming some days. I take three different medications to try and control it. One I take twice a day, then I take an Ativan to relax in the evening (although we're talking about getting rid of that because of side effects of prolonged use), and I take another right before bed to help me sleep. Despite all of that, I still have sometime debilitating anxiety. I feel nervous all day long, have intrusive thoughts, and can't sit still. I feel constantly tense and need to move around. It sucks. And it affects my sleep even with the different medications I take to sleep.

Last night (as the previous two nights), I was woken around 2:30am by my cat and couldn't fall back asleep all morning. I fell asleep around 11pm and was wide awake at 2:30am. It sucked because I have to be up at 7am to make sure my kids get on the bus and then I babysit my grandson three days a week. He's almost three and a handful.

My provider prescribed another pill to hopefully help with my sleep issues. I forget the name of it, but it's a mood stabilizer that also helps with anxiety and sleep. I was okay with adding another pill if it meant I got a full night's sleep and maybe controlled my anxiety better, but then I got the prescription filled and there were four printed sheets of warnings about side effects. I scanned through them, my anxiety going up with each new possible side effect.

I know all of my medications come with potentially horrible side effects. I take them anyway because the good outways the bad, but some of these warnings on this new med gave me serious pause. The one that really caught my eye was a raised risk of high blood sugar leading to diabetes, especially in people that are at high risk for diabetes to begin with. Well, guess who is obese and had a father with diabetes, making me at high risk for the disease. That freaked me out. On top of that, there's a chance of increased weight gain with the med.

I've spent the last couple of months watching my portions and controlling my appetite to lose some weight because I don't want to end up with diabetes. I put on a lot of weight after I got chronic fatigue. At one point, I was up to 283lbs. Since then I've lost a lot of weight simply by cutting back on my portions. I'm down to 267.8lbs this morning which is still much higher than my lowest point since having kids.

I don't need another med that is going to possibly make me gain weight. All of these side effects are making me super nervous about starting it. I talked to my husband, and he agreed, it doesn't seem worth the risk. Now I feel bad because my daughter paid $10 to pick up the prescription for me, and I don't want to take it. I'm going to contact my provider and talk to her about it because I really am not comfortable taking this medication. I'd rather go without sleep or try gabapentin again to help me sleep.

Anyway, despite the sleep issues and continued anxiety, I think overall, I've been doing pretty good. The anxiety is mostly controlled with the meds and distracting myself, and I've gotten better at dealing with the constant fatigue and being easy on myself. Some days I even have some energy to do stuff like take my grandson for a short walk yesterday.

My next appointment is in three weeks which could be a problem because I'll be watching my grandson at the time of the appointment. I'm not sure my younger daughter will be home from school in time to take him for the time of the appointment. Not sure how I'm going to juggle things, but I guess I'll figure it out or will have to reschedule.