Is the trazodone replacing another med. or added to your current meds? Do you suffer from depression? That seems to be what it’s prescribed for.
Glittermom, I was having lots of anxiety and restlessness at night. I called it the stir crazies. My doctor said Trazodone also helped with anxiety and could help me with rest so we tried it. It just makes me really sleepy at the moment. It was added to my current meds. I take it about an hour before I am ready to go to sleep.
Dad came and walked with me this afternoon. We are going to try and walk everyday he doesn’t work weather permitting. We talked a long time about my early years as we strode through my neighborhood.
“We should have sent you to a school for the musically gifted,” he told me.
I agreed. I just never fit into that classic mold of a student unlike my brother and sister who excelled in the classroom. I struggled to make C’s and B’s and was socially inept when it came to my fellow students and classmates. I could play a mean piano, though.
“I worried you were autistic at first,” my father added. “I had no idea you were schizophrenic and there weren’t any real drugs to treat you as well back then.”
“Ah, when you mother started taking Zyprexa then the pieces to the puzzle started to fall together,” he continued. “She was a different person within two weeks of taking that drug. We knew then it was schizophrenia that afflicted you.”
Dad drove over here for years to give me my medications knowing that was the only way I would have a normal life. I wouldn’t take them on my own volition fearing they were trying to drug me into submission and controlling me which is common with noncompliant schizophrenics. Dad always thought he could control my drinking with those pills, but he couldn’t. That had to be my choice.
I feel “dirty” when I write about my bad times with my mental illness – like I have something contagious and should be avoided. The stigma is palpable. I am shy as to what to write today feeling like a child whose peers are laughing at him. I feel like a fool and feel embarrassed as well. At least, these “episodes” happen more and more infrequently. You never know what kind of curve ball life can throw at you at times. I can’t get out of my head that I wrote Tracy got scared. I don’t want the most important person in my life scared of me.
I just have arrived home from my father’s house. Thankfully, he wasn’t drinking tonight. We sat and listened to NPR while we drank sodas. We talked about what happened some.
“An episode like that would put you in the hospital for a week in the old days,” my father told me. “You get better and better at recognizing the signs and getting help. You also didn’t panic and do something stupid.”
He told me I handled the whole situation with grace and aplomb. That made me feel a lot better about myself this evening. I also told Tracy that we needed to set up a contingency plan for when that happens again like a big, whopping 4 or 5 mg dose of Risperdal in the morning and in the evening. I told her I would call my doctor tomorrow and get the ball rolling.
Not quite! This old dog is not down for the count just yet! My loved ones really rallied around me today. Dad just called this afternoon and asked how I was feeling. It’s not like him to call from work so it was very, very special for him to do so.
“I was just so worried about you this morning. You were like a zombie!” he exclaimed. “I was afraid you shouldn't be driving. I kept waiting for a call you had been in a car wreck.”
“I took a long four hour nap when I got home and I woke up a brand new man,” I replied to him. “My medications kicked in while I was asleep.”
Soon, my girl with the curls and the curves walked in the front door.
“You’re like a completely different person today,” Tracy said relieved when she got home from work earlier.
“We need to get you extra medications to take the day before your injection,” she also said to me and I agreed.
I told her we would talk to my psychiatrist soon.
I was mentally perky and very socially amicable this afternoon. I had also straightened up the house and had us some supper on the stove. Tracy hugged me a long time and told me she doesn’t like to see me hurting or in distress. It melted my heart and I hugged her ever tighter.
I struggled yesterday all day with my mental illness. My injection was due in the morning and had petered out leaving me without that constant flow of medications into my bloodstream. I couldn’t concentrate on anything my mind was racing so fast. I went to open the front door and Tracy asked me where I was going late yesterday afternoon.
“I am going for a long walk to clear my head,” I told her with a grimace.
Tracy woke me up this early morning before heading to work.
“Remember your injection is this morning,” she told me worriedly.
She had never seen me get in such a state and it scared and worried her.
I got up and got ready to go. I was in a daze on the drive to the pharmacy to pick up my injection. To make matters worse, my father didn’t have my injection ready to go when I arrived. I had to wait about 15 minutes. I finally grabbed my injection and headed to Kamath Medical.
“You’re awful quiet this morning,” my nurse, Rebecca, remarked upon me.
On an interesting weather note, we had a freak sleet storm last night. My car was just covered with ice pellets this morning and I worried about slick roads.
I took my last dosage of medications yesterday evening. My med-pack was empty. Dad was supposed to have brought a new med-pack home from the pharmacy yesterday.
“I forgot to bring home your med-pack,” my father said sheepishly over the phone this morning.
“You, of all people, should be able to remember my medications you are so keen on them,” I told my father.
“I will get them to you this afternoon,” he told me.
“Call the pharmacy and tell them I am on my way to pick them up,” I told my father.
The thought of going that long after my prescribed time sent feelings of anxiety reeling within me. I took a shower and headed to the pharmacy a little before lunch. I came home and took my nine noon pills as soon as I walked into the door of my house. I know it is psychosomatic, but I immediately felt better – my anxiety melting away.
Eureka! I just figured out what was a very major problem last week. I just couldn’t put 2 and 2 together. I bought 5 gallons of Milo’s no calorie tea grocery shopping last Tuesday. Well, I unwittingly drank the delicious tea like it was going out of style – often having a big glass before I would retire to the bed. Kroger’s house brand diet tea is noncaffeinated so I just assumed Milo’s tea was too. Milo’s says nothing about the caffeine content on the carton. Boy, was I wrong. I just got on their website and an 8oz serving of no calorie tea has 40mg of caffeine. No wonder I couldn’t sleep and was having anxiety and panic attacks. I was imbibing massive amounts of caffeine. Needless to say, I will be drinking cold bottles of water in the upcoming week. Let’s see if that makes a difference.
Maggie had been bugging me all day about something to eat other than dogfood. I got her some .59 cent packs of corned beef and roast beef tonight as a snack. I gave her one immediately after putting my groceries away and the whimpering and whining stopped. Yeah, Maggie plays me like a card, but she can sound so pitiful – as if she is starving to death. I noticed she had a full bowl of dogfood, though. Sucker!
“You okay, Chuck?” dad asked as we walked across Kroger’s parking lot with our carts.
I had been quiet all night and dad said I looked pale as a ghost.
“I feel as if I am going to jump out of my skin,” I told my father as we began to load up our groceries. “Just be glad you don’t have a mental illness. Getting out tonight was tough on me for some reason.”
“In a few short hours, you will be taking your main medications again. Get a good night’s sleep and you will feel better in the morning,” he told me without much more consolation. “Come over at eleven and drink you an ice cold diet Coke. That’ll make you feel better.”
It is just one of those things I go through from time to time. I will feel better, like my father said, after a good night’s sleep. When I arrived home, I took my nightly dosages of Klonopin and Coreg and now feel much better as I write this – the anxiety abating some.
On the food front, I got all kinds of things to make delicious sandwiches from and spent only $62 dollars. I got some fresh baked dark Jewish rye from the deli that just looks delectable and smells heavenly. I also got all kinds of thin shaved meats. I splurged and bought a bottle of Grey Poupon spicy mustard as well. I love how it opens the sinuses when you eat it if you spread it on liberally. The last thing on my list was cheese and I stocked up on a mötley crüe from muenster to pepper jack.
My father really was orchestral in getting all this done. To him goes the glory. I just called him and thanked him for all his efforts today and the previous days beforehand.
Last night, I arrived home from grocery shopping to find Charlie parked out in front of my house. He has a key and had let himself inside. He was busy cleaning house – vacuuming the rug in my computer room. He stopped and helped me unload my groceries as my father then arrived.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Charlie inquisitively as he was then cleaning my bathroom sink. “I know you didn’t just come to clean.”
I was very glad to see him and so was the Magster. Thrilled would be a better term for the Magster.
“I am going to cut your hair again so you look good for the doctor,” Charlie said.
This was no doubt my father’s machinations. Old Fuss and Feathers parked himself on the couch with Maggie as Forensic Files droned on while Charlie cut and washed my hair. He gave me quite a nice haircut I might add. Old Fuss and Feathers said I looked like a new man. The deep shampoo and scalp massage was luxurious.
They soon left and Maggie and I settled down for the night. In the morning was my doctor’s appointment and I was as ready as I ever was going to be. Dad picked me up at 9:20am the next day and we headed down the interstate for a 10am appointment.
“I’m increasing your Risperdal 1 and half milligrams,” the doctor told me when I described the problems I had earlier in the week. “I will see you back in two weeks and let’s see how you are doing.”
So that makes 3 milligrams a day I am taking now on top of the 50mg I am getting with my long lasting injection every two weeks. My math is terrible, but I think that works out to be over 6mg a day. I thanked the doctor and dad and I left feeling something positive happened. Dad was worried he was going to take me off Risperdal and put me on another antipsychotic and all the teething pains that would result. Much of psychiatry is trial and error. In the beginning of my mental problems, I probably went through six drugs before they found one that worked.
Now, it was time for my and Maggie’s treat. We stopped at Hardee’s for sausage biscuits and steak biscuits. The biscuits are really stupendous at Hardee’s. Dad and I parked and ate our biscuits and I saved one for Maggie who relished it once I arrived home. It was still good and warm. She really was one happy dog. She hadn’t had a steak biscuit from Hardee’s in six months and neither had I.
I just had a extremely massive panic attack and it was dispelled by the simple words, “We don’t have to go tonight.” Old Fuss and Feathers was really nice tonight and told me just to calm down and relax. The whole thing seemed insurmountable. I needed gas for my car, groceries for my pantry, and some nice clothes to wear to the doctor on Friday. On shaky ground I am. Old Fuss and Feathers insists on going so late so he won’t get “caught” by someone he knows.
“We will just go sometime during the day tomorrow,” my father told me. “You just calm down and get to feeling better.”
I thanked him profusely for being so nice about the affair. Usually he would try and manhandle me through the process of going to these stores. It was almost like someone gave me a couple of valium when he told me we didn’t have to go tonight. It immediately defused that ticking timebomb that can be my addled brain.
Tracy broke up with her long-term boyfriend yesterday. She didn’t seem like herself all morning – her usual chipper self. He had been meeting women on Match.com behind her back. I tried to console her the best I could.
“Time heals wounds,” I told her. “I know this very well. Maybe it’s the ethos’s way of getting you a better boyfriend.”
“We fought all the time at the end anyway,” Tracy told me. “We were always at odds with each other. It still hurts so damn badly, though.”
Last night was my last dosage of medications out of my current med-pack. It slipped up on me before I could tell my father. Dad had another med-pack at his house, but it only had a noon and night dosage left.
“I’ll put the pills in the chair outside the door,” my father said early this morning when I called him. “I'll get one of the pharmacy techs to make you another med-pack and you can pick it up this afternoon.”
Knowing my father, there was fifty/fifty chance he would forget to put out my medications before he left for work. I drove over to his house with my fingers crossed this morning. There they were in a Ziploc bag sitting on a chair on the porch much to my delight. He also remembered my 28 day dose pack of heartburn medications I had asked for the day before. Thank goodness! I’ve become so accustomed to taking my medications around noon, that I wouldn’t know what to do without them. The withdrawal is quite palpable. It was one of my father’s moments of shine. I called him when I got home and told him he was awesome for remembering – my fears assuaged.
This afternoon, I drove down to the pharmacy and they had my new med-pack ready. I took the opportunity to get me a few ice cold diet Cokes as well. A very nice treat!
With the rigors of last night behind me, I've had the best time riding my Huffy cruiser bike up and down the street today despite the summer heat. I was very wobbly at first, but my equilibrium is adjusting. It has been ten or more years since I spent any amount of time on a bicycle.
This evening, after it cools down some, I am going to be bolder and head for parts unknown – other avenues in the neighborhood. Yes, riding a real bike is much different than riding an exercise bicycle. The hills kill you with that one speed bike, though. I need the “granny gear” of a road bike or mountain bike for that. The only true thing I need badly is a helmet. I couldn’t get up the gumption to visit Walmart and buy one today even though I passed it driving to the pharmacy this afternoon.
“What do you want for your supper tonight, Chuck?” my father asked over the phone this evening.
“Is it okay if a get Little Caesar's pizza tonight?” I replied and asked. “I am getting tired of chicken pot pies.”
“Sure,” dad said. “Do you want to get an extra pizza for Maggie?”
“That would be nice,” I replied kind of astonished, knowing I would be eating most of it probably for breakfast.
“Charlie and I are heading out about 7:45 so we will probably see you around 8:30 depending on how backed up KFC’s drive-thru is. Horsefly has to have his chicken fingers. That’s the whole reason we do this.”
My arch-nemesis mental illness was acting up today. That’s just how the ball bounces sometimes. I woke up with a buzzy and fuzzy feeling in my head and it went downhill from there. Paranoia has been today’s theme. I couldn’t get it together enough to even shower and shave today. I’ve spent most of today sitting in front of a computer listening to music which soothes and calms me.
We signed in and had to fill out countless medical forms and the receptionist needed my ID and insurance information and cards. Just then, Dr. Edwards, my former psychiatrist, walked by with a cup of delicious smelling coffee in his hands.
“Dr. Edwards!” I exclaimed. “Are you still my psychiatrist?”
“Y’all are next after one more appointment,” he told me.
I was elated and let it be known. He smiled and probably thought, “Yes, this one needs to be medicated”. My father was thrilled as well and shook his fists in the air in a celebratory fashion.
He refilled my prescriptions and we don’t have to come back for 6 months.
Dad and I moseyed on over to Hardee’s and got two steak biscuits and one sausage biscuit – always a pleasure on such trips to the doctor.
