Rerun:Some Early Thoughts on Anatomy of an Epidemic

It's come to my attention that a lot of controversy has been generated lately by certain bloggers over Robert Whitaker's book Anatomy of an Epidemic. Let me put it this way. In my life time, I will rank it as one of the best non  fiction books I have ever read, the other one being "And the Band Played On". I hope Mr. Whitaker's book does for the mental health movement what Shilt's book was able to accomplish for the gay movement. Here is my review of Whitaker's book. If you haven't bought any holiday presents, I would consider purchasing this one as a gift.

Robert Whitaker's latest book "Anatomy of an Epidemic" came out last month. I had been listening to it on tape (Audible) since I have problems reading print at the moment. Yesterday, the blessed package came from Amazon. His new book, and the reissue of "Mad in America". 

I made myself a sandwich, poured a glass of ice tea from the fridge, and sat down, to read it again. And from the minute I started, I realized one thing. The publisher made a huge mistake. The book should come with Kleenex. 

Like the spoken edition- which is  the same book - it's the type of non fiction book that will make you cry. Weep, copiously. And after your tear ducts are dry, I felt like I was watching one of my all time favorite movies- "Network", living the "Mad as hell" scene. I would have indeed gone to the window and shouted, but my downstairs neighbor is 88 and deaf, and ... what good is shouting "I'm mad as hell" if no one can hear you? 

I'm too numb right now, and it's 5 am in the morning to sit down and write a review worthy of the New York Times Book Review. Let's just say this. 

In the book he interviews many, many people, especially in the last page. I am fortunate thanks to Facebook, to have emailed  some of them and they inspire me.  

And I think about the ones in the book as true cases, especially the children, who were also hurt and maimed. Including the one I love the most- ME. In the fact that we were not killed outright but, as a friend said in a phone call, - "our brains were raped".

I don't know who is pro-Big Pharma or against it, and frankly it isn't salient here. What I want everyone who sees this is to arm themselves with knowledge, every time they get a script from the doctor. The doctor can be your GP, Gynecologist, Dentist, or Shrink. You get a script, ask what this is. What are the side effects. Please ask. Go home and look up the drug on the Internet. Knowledge is important. Don't be a sheeple. This can save your life. 

 I was brought up by a father who worked for Big Pharma, and believed in Whitaker's "Magic Bullets". You take the script from the doctor, and take it. No questions asked. Doctors are just a fraction below G-d. If you don't question , you really are taking Blue and Red Pills. Within ten miles from where I grew up, and about 3 miles from where I am now, is a town called "Milltown". My mother always beamed with pride as she reminded her girls in the back seat of the car this town we were driving through was named after a wonderful drug from the 50s. (Whitaker describes the town and the drug in detail in the book as well). 

I had only one doctor who, upon giving me a script for Lamictal back in 2001, told me about the rash. If I get any kind of rash, call him immediately. If I cannot reach him, go to the emergency room. No other doctor, from childhood on, ever did this. 

The first drug I ever had a problem with was Prozac, which I started in 87, about 12 months after I was diagnosed. Prozac was was the wonder drug of that age- on the cover of Newsweek and The New York Magazine at the same time.  The side effects were awful.  I couldn't sleep, I had nightmares. Then the fevers, ringing in my ears, and the sensation my skin was moulting and I couldn't stop scratching. My whole personality changed, I went from being a mild Casper Milquetoast type person to someone looking for a girl fight. Then I was told to quit the drug cold turkey, and fortunately, for me, I was put on both Zoloft, and later, Paxil, and fortunately, no side effects. Not like the Prozac. 

It wasn't until I was reading this book I saw i was not alone with side effects from Prozac that I experienced. And when I told the doctor how I was feeling on it, he told me to keep staying on it, and ride it out. Two psychiatrists later, I was finally moved off Prozac to something else. 

And now I sit, 2 years ago almost dying from Haldol, where every muscle in my body fell asleep and I had to re-learn how to do everything. Walk, talk,eat, even go to the bathroom. Yet in the book, over and over again- Haldol- muscle fatigue. I was as bad a case from this as possible, the worst would have been dying. I survived. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. To this day I am haunted by something a nurse told me when my muscles started to wake, that my screams from the pain were exactly like the ones from burn victims. 

Three years ago, one P-doc put me on Remeron. After about two weeks on that I got so suicidal I checked myself into the hospital, because I reckoned, I would rather be shot up with Thorazine and be alive and get off this drug then stay home and I know I would suicide. While I was detoxing off Remeron, the same pdoc wanted to put me into Trenton Psychiatric Hospital due to the side effects I was experiencing with the meds. I fired him, and left the hospital against doctors orders. Alive. If I was put in Trenton Psych, I fear I would still be there, like a scene from "Cuckoo's nest" 

And being on lithium, since 87- with small respites on Depakote and Lamictal- well, I just wrote about loosing my hair. I am constantly sick to my stomach, and can only eat bland food. Anything spicy- no. Nexium has become a magic pill for me to be able to eat anything.  But the worst- is knowing that sometime between now and September I have to go for another bone marrow biopsy, and it's just a matter of time before I have leukemia unless by some miracle my white blood count should stop duplicating and go DOWN. Which it hasn't since 2003, it's been going up in some kind of Mathusian equation I haven't been able to crack.

I said this book belongs on every one's bookshelf. It does.This book deserves to be on the Times Top Ten list. But no matter your stance- pro pharma, anti pharma know this.  But please, question the doctor for everything. Don't be blind trust, there are good ones and bad ones out there- but you are the most important person in the world, and you must know every option out there, and question. Likewise, there are good drugs out there- Penicillin, for example has saved lives. But question. Question everything. Question authority like you haven't done since you are 18-19.  The life you save will be your own, your husbands, child's or parents. You owe them and yourself the chance to live long and prosper. 

. 

Some Early Thoughts on Anatomy of an Epidemic

Robert Whitaker's latest book "Anatomy of an Epidemic" came out last month. I had been listening to it on tape (Audible) since I have problems reading print at the moment. Yesterday, the blessed package came from Amazon. His new book, and the reissue of "Mad in America". 

I made myself a sandwich, poured a glass of ice tea from the fridge, and sat down, to read it again. And from the minute I started, I realized one thing. The publisher made a huge mistake. The book should come with Kleenex. 

Like the spoken edition- which is  the same book - it's the type of non fiction book that will make you cry. Weep, copiously. And after your tear ducts are dry, I felt like I was watching one of my all time favorite movies- "Network", living the "Mad as hell" scene. I would have indeed gone to the window and shouted, but my downstairs neighbor is 88 and deaf, and ... what good is shouting "I'm mad as hell" if no one can hear you? 

I'm too numb right now, and it's 5 am in the morning to sit down and write a review worthy of the New York Times Book Review. Let's just say this. 

In the book he interviews many, many people, especially in the last page. I am fortunate thanks to Facebook, to have emailed  some of them and they inspire me.  

And I think about the ones in the book as true cases, especially the children, who were also hurt and maimed. Including the one I love the most- ME. In the fact that we were not killed outright but, as a friend said in a phone call, - "our brains were raped".

I don't know who is pro-Big Pharma or against it, and frankly it isn't salient here. What I want everyone who sees this is to arm themselves with knowledge, every time they get a script from the doctor. The doctor can be your GP, Gynecologist, Dentist, or Shrink. You get a script, ask what this is. What are the side effects. Please ask. Go home and look up the drug on the Internet. Knowledge is important. Don't be a sheeple. This can save your life. 

 I was brought up by a father who worked for Big Pharma, and believed in Whitaker's "Magic Bullets". You take the script from the doctor, and take it. No questions asked. Doctors are just a fraction below G-d. If you don't question , you really are taking Blue and Red Pills. Within ten miles from where I grew up, and about 3 miles from where I am now, is a town called "Milltown". My mother always beamed with pride as she reminded her girls in the back seat of the car this town we were driving through was named after a wonderful drug from the 50s. (Whitaker describes the town and the drug in detail in the book as well). 

I had only one doctor who, upon giving me a script for Lamictal back in 2001, told me about the rash. If I get any kind of rash, call him immediately. If I cannot reach him, go to the emergency room. No other doctor, from childhood on, ever did this. 

The first drug I ever had a problem with was Prozac, which I started in 87, about 12 months after I was diagnosed. Prozac was was the wonder drug of that age- on the cover of Newsweek and The New York Magazine at the same time.  The side effects were awful.  I couldn't sleep, I had nightmares. Then the fevers, ringing in my ears, and the sensation my skin was moulting and I couldn't stop scratching. My whole personality changed, I went from being a mild Casper Milquetoast type person to someone looking for a girl fight. Then I was told to quit the drug cold turkey, and fortunately, for me, I was put on both Zoloft, and later, Paxil, and fortunately, no side effects. Not like the Prozac. 

It wasn't until I was reading this book I saw i was not alone with side effects from Prozac that I experienced. And when I told the doctor how I was feeling on it, he told me to keep staying on it, and ride it out. Two psychiatrists later, I was finally moved off Prozac to something else. 

And now I sit, 2 years ago almost dying from Haldol, where every muscle in my body fell asleep and I had to re-learn how to do everything. Walk, talk,eat, even go to the bathroom. Yet in the book, over and over again- Haldol- muscle fatigue. I was as bad a case from this as possible, the worst would have been dying. I survived. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. To this day I am haunted by something a nurse told me when my muscles started to wake, that my screams from the pain were exactly like the ones from burn victims. 

Three years ago, one P-doc put me on Remeron. After about two weeks on that I got so suicidal I checked myself into the hospital, because I reckoned, I would rather be shot up with Thorazine and be alive and get off this drug then stay home and I know I would suicide. While I was detoxing off Remeron, the same pdoc wanted to put me into Trenton Psychiatric Hospital due to the side effects I was experiencing with the meds. I fired him, and left the hospital against doctors orders. Alive. If I was put in Trenton Psych, I fear I would still be there, like a scene from "Cuckoo's nest" 

And being on lithium, since 87- with small respites on Depakote and Lamictal- well, I just wrote about loosing my hair. I am constantly sick to my stomach, and can only eat bland food. Anything spicy- no. Nexium has become a magic pill for me to be able to eat anything.  But the worst- is knowing that sometime between now and September I have to go for another bone marrow biopsy, and it's just a matter of time before I have leukemia unless by some miracle my white blood count should stop duplicating and go DOWN. Which it hasn't since 2003, it's been going up in some kind of Mathusian equation I haven't been able to crack.

I said this book belongs on every one's bookshelf. It does.This book deserves to be on the Times Top Ten list. But no matter your stance- pro pharma, anti pharma know this.  But please, question the doctor for everything. Don't be blind trust, there are good ones and bad ones out there- but you are the most important person in the world, and you must know every option out there, and question. Likewise, there are good drugs out there- Penicillin, for example has saved lives. But question. Question everything. Question authority like you haven't done since you are 18-19.  The life you save will be your own, your husbands, child's or parents. You owe them and yourself the chance to live long and prosper. 

ETA: After I posted this, Pharma Gossip put this book review on it's site as the book of the month. It's an article also worth reading. 

My Crowning Glory

I've spent the last few days engrossed in Robert Whitaker's new book- "Anatomy of an Epidemic", so much so that I have been off line.  I cannot put this book down, and will be writing about it shortly. Suffice to say, it belongs on everyone's bookshelf.

My mother and I went out yesterday- my energy has been coming back and I am currently cutting back on some of my meds. I am feeling like the old Susan from before- I've been in a four year depressive state, so it's nice to know it's finally lifting. It's a wonderful, wonderful, thing.

I had not had my hair cut in 2 years. It was way to long, unweildy, and it needed it. Of course I am unhappy, I asked for 3 inches to be cut, she cut off close to six.  I don't like short hair on me, I like it long. So it feels weird. But, it's not so bad as a friend reminded me last night on the phone, it can grow back.

What upset me, and shocked my mother, was as the girl was shampooing my hair, and then arranging it to be cut- she started seeing bald spots. As she put her comb through my hair, it's coming out in lumps. My mother is shocked and I am biting my lower lip not to cry.

"Did you have cancer?" the hair stylist asks me.

"No", no I nod.

"By any chance are you taking lithium?", she asked- and both my mother and I almost jump up- in our chairs.

"Yes, Yes".

"Well,  I have other clients who take lithium. You know it makes your hair fall out".

Shit. Well, my hair is falling out, and I am trying not to cry. My mother asks about what we can do- and she suggests either hair extensions, or a wig.

"Or just style your hair like this= it will look OK.", she assures me.

This morning I went for my blood draw, and looked long and hard in the mirror. Not only is it short- shoulder length instead of past my neck- but the texture is now baby fine from kinky curly hair- like Elaine from Seinfeld had in the first few seasons. I really cannot look in the mirror without crying.

Stupid me. I know there are people who follow my blog who have been through hell in Afganistan and Iraq. There are people who have lost children and marriages due to this illness. I know another reader two weeks ago who just died by his own hand. This is just a hiccup in my life, I have been through worse. No doubt it will make me stronger. But not today. Today I just want to say "F**K You lithium".  You took away my crowning glory. But you aren't going to get me. Not me or my soul. It's on! 

An Update Written By Holly The Wonder Cat

Dear -

It's Holly.

Mom is not doing well from her lithium and other med cocktail. (Abilify, Rispardal, Topamax, Trileptal) I am glad I am only on catnip. The weather went up to 104 degrees F, we are on the top floor so it got over 110 at one point, and mom was just too hot. She tried cooling off in the bath tub with ice cold water but that didn't work as long as she wanted, so she was just walking around with her flip flops so she didn't step on any of my mousies. Then she tried to lie in bed and got really sick. Sick to her tummy, started to shake, grabbed the bucket and started to sweat really bad. And shake. She could barely hold the bucket.

But what scared her and this is why she called you because she couldn't call grandma- is mom started seeing bugs. Not like Mr. Bunny, but the creepy crawly kind. And she thought they were on her skin, and were creeping up all over her.

I can tell you, I have never seen a flea. So it's not fleas. Mom is scratching herself raw, going in the bathtub in the oatmeal bath, just crying absolutely miserable. When she closes her eyes she sees bugs. And she is sweating and shaking and keeps the bucket next to her.

She looks this up on the internet, and finds out it's a rare side effect from her meds. This is the second time it's happened to her, but it happens from the heat. Her skin is on fire. And she won't let me touch her, or lie next to her. I have to snuggle a few inches away from her. If my fur touches her skin, she literally cries. She is still drinking her water, but her urine is coming out black this afternoon, and she is crying in pain, doubled up when she is trying to pee.

Not like me. I use the box like a trooper. I am a good kitty.

She has to get a lot of water in her today, and it has to stay down, and she needs to pee normal and not see any bugs, and stop scratching. I know she needs/wants to changing the bedding, it soaked through with sweat. I hope she has a better day.

We are sorry we bothered you last night, I was just scared for mom, I really didn't know who else to call. I wish you lived closer so you could have come over with some fish and we could have tried to feed mom and I could have eaten off your plates. When mom feels better can you come over and we can rent a movie and the three of us can chillax? And I can show you my new catnip duckie.

I love you very much, you are a good human bean.

Your friend Holly.

Sleeping In the Bathroom - (Rewritten)

I am dreaming. I dream I am dead. I see myself, in the coffin, in the ground. Something comes out of my mouth, and ears. I wake up screaming, as I always do, praying I will be cremated. I realize I am alive. My heart is racing, my breath is fast. My cat stirs looks at me with her big copper eyes and closes them. It is 2:15 am.

I hear a knock and a doorbell ring about 20 minutes later. I look outside the window, and see a police car, the lights flashing red in the darkness. I realize the police are at my door. I don a bathrobe, and close the door, leaving the cat to slumber on my bed uninterrupted, and climb the steps downstairs to my front door. I am tired. I open the door, leaving the chain on. The cops shine their lights on me. Can we come in miss?

I open it wider to make sure they are police officers. They are. I close the door, remove the chain and let them come upstairs to my apartment. One starts talking to me, the other one takes the flashlight and starts poking around, “Don’t let the cat out! “ I scream.

“What the blue blazes is going on”, I want to say. The constable seems to read my mind. We had a 911 call that there were loud screams coming from this apartment. Are you alone?

Just me and the cat.

No other people, you aren’t hiding anyone?

No.

He asks me to show him my neck. I do. I am fine.

Do you have a boyfriend?

Not at the moment

Did anyone hit you tonight? Hurt you?

No, I had a bad dream and woke up screaming.

The other cop tells his partner, no one else is here, and I checked, no alcohol. No drugs.

It was a bad dream. I dreamt I had died and there were worms. I am afraid of the worms.

They leave, assured that I am OK. And I am embarrassed. And wish the floor could swallow me. The love of my life was a constable, the one person who tore my heart asunder.The one I still sleep with parts of his uniform because they still smell of him. I respect policemen, but they make me nervous.

I am on a ledge. I am afraid I am going to fall.


I drove home from my parent’s house the other night, with a notion I wanted to take the car off the road and swerve it into a tree. The whole way home a police car was behind me, passing me about 500 yards from my apartment. I was mad.

Last night was the worst. Earlier this week I noticed my hair was coming out from the lithium, I am currently taking. Or a side effect from Leukocytosis I have developed from lithium. A visit to the hairdresser confirmed it; I have lost a great deal of hair. It was shorn - I lost over a foot. It had always been my pride and joy. Now it lay on the floor discarded. I spent the day after it was cut in bed, afraid to look in a mirror. It is hardly on my back now. I washed my hair today, more in the drain. It looks like I will be totally bald soon. At least my insurance pays for a wig.

I was too depressed to want to off myself. Today I felt good. And decided to try to hurt myself. I tried to get my boom box into the bathroom plug it in and drop it in the bath. To my dismay, it didn’t reach. I couldn’t get the blade out of the safety razor. So I did something I had promised a good friend I would never do. I went to an office supply store and got an exacto knife. And slit my wrists. Maybe with all the medication the blood didn’t come out. It didn’t. Or maybe I didn’t cut deep enough. It hurt like hell. I had a fantasy of perhaps saying “F**K You” in blood, I am mad.

I am PO'ed that I missed a promotion. That was given to a girl ten years younger than me who rumor has it slept into it. It makes me so mad, because she didn’t even swallow. I wanted it, worked as hard as her. It is not fair. Some people just have life fall into their laps and other people keep getting sh*t thrown at them. I am tired of shoveling sh*t. I am so tired. I want to sleep. I am so angry. Why do I have to have this?

A friend of mine, has told me I cannot get well until I accept I am a manic-depressive. Bipolar. I cannot accept it. I am fighting it, I have been fighting since I was born, being shoved in foster homes until I was adopted. I fought back when I was raped, and probably lived to tell the tale because of it. I fought the entire time I was living in my car, after being tossed out of my folks house when a roommate blew my entire life savings up her nose, going to a battered women’s shelter to shower and change. I could probably knock the s**t out of Mike Tyson.

Perhaps not.

I am getting more and more acutely suicidal. Do I want to hurt someone? No, but I want to scream. I have never tried to electrocute myself before. Would I have done it if the cord had reached? Yes. Would it hurt? Absolutely.

I have always fantasized about wrists and hanging. Obsessed. I finally gave into the fantasy, to that last taboo- and tried that. Obviously, it didn’t work, I am still here. Damn. Why?

A friend of mine, a wonderful man on the other coast told me if he had one wish in the world, he would wish that I could finish a novel, get it published, and live off the money from it, get famous, or slightly famous and live happily ever after. If he had one wish. He is a good friend. He could have easily wished that his children get full scholarships to his Ivy League Alma Mater. He could have wished for money, which I know he could use. He wished for me. He is one of the few people who have not left me during the last two months of hell during my leave of absence. Instead he calls me daily, letting me cry, as I rapid-cycle, up and down as often as 47 times in an hour.

And I repay him back by slitting my wrists. Nice one. I should care. But I don’t I am in so much pain. I just want it to end.
Make peace with this? I went into this world kicking and screaming, I am going to leave it the same way. Why does so much bad things have to happen to me.?

Why can’t I be like everyone else? Why can’t I have the little white house and the picket fence and 2 children, 2 cats and a dog? Why can’t I be a soccer mom? All the women I know my age are soccer moms.

I am a failure. I am the opposite of King Midas, instead of everything I touch turning to gold, everything I touch turns to s**t.
I want to curl up and die. I don’t care about work. I am sick from the medication. Is it worth it? Vomiting constantly, migraines, and hair loss? Rapid-cycling as often as 47 times in an hour? I lay down to sleep and I have nightmares? The sweats? I am keeping my apartment at sixty degrees and I still am sweating. Sleeping in the bathroom because I cannot stop vomiting. All to be normal?

But don’t we all want to be normal?

(Rewritten December 26, 2009. Original dates from either 2002 or 2003).

Hot Town, Summer in the City

It's 99 degrees outside. Fahrenheit. I don't know how to convert to Celsius, but it's hotter than a hot thing that is quite hot.


Being a lithium user, i am intolerable to this kind of heat. It's not the heat in NJ/NYC, it's the HUMIDITY. You go outside ands your legs and arms feel like lead, and sweat comes out of pores they haven't even discovered in Med School. The air conditioning in my apartment is so crappy, it's brought it down to 90 degrees. Whoo-Hoo!


So I am in my underwear, glass of ice tea by side, on the sofa, it's too hot to write, even though I have something done and needing proofing, my brain cannot handle it . I have a tape recorder too if i cannot write fast enough, and it's too hot for that.

Maybe it's time to go in the bathtub, pretend it's a pool at some tropical resort, and the cat is a cabana boy fetching me tall cold iced glasses of ice tea, or water with a lemon wedge, covered in ice. I cannot stop drinking, I feel as thirsty as someone in the Sahara.

Or maybe it's time to dream i had the money to go to the ice hotel in Quebec.I wish I had a passport. I am so there.

This was on TV last night, great video, and the one it make fun out of is probably the best, seminal video to come out of the 80s.

Ladies and Gents- Chris Griffin

Headache back, plus book rejected

I woke up this morning about six am. The cat was crying for her nom-nom's. I fed her, watered her, cleaned out her box. I scritched her behind her ears, rubbed her backbone down to the tail, and gave her a kiss on top of her head. Then i took some ice tea out of the fridge and took my morning medicine. 600 mg of lithium, and 60 mg of Cymbalta. I took the glass of ice tea over to the computer, read a few emails, replied, and read a blog which made me cry, and responded to that. By that time, the meds were kicking in. My head was pounding, and I could barely make it to the bathroom in time to vomit all the tea I had just drank.

i went back to bed, put a cold compress over my forehead and eyes, put the radio on softly, and fell asleep. A couple hours later I hear the doorbell ring. it's about 9: 30. Big Fed-EX truck by my door. I open up door a crack, I am still in my lavender nightgown, and sign for a package. My heart sinks. I know what it is.

It's my two manuscripts I sent to the boyfriend/fiance of a relative who works for a major magazine. i wanted to get an honest opinion. Are they sell=able.

The note was kind, considering the circumstances. The first book, about a bipolar woman, was good and almost publishable, but people aren't interested in reading that type of book right now, with the book market in shambles.

The other one on Jack The Ripper was excellent, but very dark, and extremely graphic. You might want to lighten it up. (I m sorry, but the murder of Mary Kelly is GROSS).


Ok. Try again. Or maybe, i can re write the first book, the bipolar one, and make her a Vampire. Hell, all the Twilight fans would buy it!


For a blue Saturday, i leave you with a funny picture my Godmother emailed me yesterday. Enjoy!


How you know you are taking the Swine Flu too seriously....

water.... i need water....

Still here.

Lithium went from 3000 mg, to 2700 mg. This month it went from 2700 to 1200.


I am fine but sleeping 16 hours a day, and drinking water. i dream of water.....

Cymbalta is still 60 mg.

For some reason I am ravenous.


I have been writing, but the last 3 days I was manic, and I cannot show people my manic writing. Else I wind up in the hospital.



Back to sleep now. Take care

I have no mouth, and I must scream.

I feel like the picture of Hello Kitty, in my last post. Have you ever noticed that Miss Kitty has no mouth?

I found this gem tucked in some articles about the APA conference currently being held in San Francisco. It's a good thing I wasn't there covering it, like some people I know- because if I saw it, I might want to throw myself off the Golden Gate in frustration. And I am so afraid of heights I doubt I could ever go near it.


Thisis what the article said,

Interview with: Jeff Guo, Ph.D., University of Cincinnati
WASHINGTON, May 9 -- One-fifth of patients with schizophrenia receive prescriptions for drugs that can cause dangerous interactions when taken in combination, a researcher said here.

Significant adverse effects were rare, but between 18% and 22% of Ohio Medicaid patients under treatment for schizophrenia were given prescriptions for an antipsychotic and one or more other drugs with well-known interaction potential by the same physician or pharmacy, reported Jeff Guo, Ph.D., of the University of Cincinnati.

What's more, 11% to 12% of patients received prescriptions for such dangerous drug combinations from the same provider on the same day, Dr. Guo told attendees at the American Psychiatric Association meeting. Action Points
Explain to interested patients that the study found about 20% of schizophrenic patients got prescriptions for drugs that can interact with other drugs they're taking.

Note that this study was published as an abstract and presented as a poster at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

"That shouldn't happen," he said, because the interactions analyzed in the study have been described extensively in the medical literature.

The article goes on, explaining what drugs could cause serious interactions.

Aripiprazole (Abilify) with ketoconazole (Nizoral)
Clozapine (Clozaril) with ritonavir (Norvir)
Clozapine with fluvoxamine (Luvox)
Haloperidol (Haldol) with lithium
Risperidone (Risperdol) with fluoxetine (Prozac)


IT SAYS HALDOL AND LITHIUM CAN BE POTENTIALLY RISKY.


Big speak for it can kill you.


It almost killed me. The doc should have known. If I can find it on the internet why cannot she?


I ALMOST DIED FROM THIS. YOU BET I AM PISSED.

My doctor, who I believed in, should have known better. One month in a rehab hospital, learning to walk again, loosing control of every muscle in my body but my heart, not being able to go to the bathroom without a catheter= not being able to make a bowel movement for over 2 weeks..... Not being able to sleep, lie down or move.....

Why couldn't the doc take 5 minutes to check the interaction? My GP and Gynologocist and Dentist do. I know there are good shrinks out there. I just never met one in my lifetime.

This Time it's Different-A New Hollowness in my Soul

She sits in front of me in a big overstuffed black leather chair, black patent pumps swaying softly while she crosses and uncrosses her legs as a nervous tick.

She is made up and looks like she just stepped out of Vogue for working women. I, on the other hand, look like an unmade bed. It's been a week since my hair was washed, and that long since I showered. I did brush my teeth and floss before I got there, and brushed my long blonde hair, tying it up in a scrunchie. My jeans are clean, but the shirt I threw on, a black turtle from LL Bean, has a white mark from deodorant, and should have gone straight in the laundry pile. No make up , not even a trace of lip gloss. My shoes are brand new and hurt, brownish tan clogs from my parents for Christmas to replace the blue ones the cat destroyed a few months earlier.

We are discussing my current med cocktail. The fact that it appears that my thyroid has shut down or is shutting down because I am constantly tired and sleeping close to 16 hours a day. I cannot eat but am drinking copious amounts of water. I crave sugar. The Dunkin Donuts across the street is singing a Siren Song to me.

Lithium is being raised to 3100 mg, Cymbalta is staying the same at 60 mg. If the lithium doesn't start working soon, I will be weaned off it and go on Lamictal. All I know is it took every ounce of effort to get there this afternoon, to get dressed, brush my teeth and drive the two miles to the therapist's office. Climb the 15 stairs to get to her room in the building. I am winded like I was in my childhood when I had asthma.

All I know is I am in crisis. My brain knows this. My mind and my soul know this. Life hurts and every breath I take makes me feel like a medieval torture devise of being crushed or weighted to death in the Tower or some other gloomy place. I just want to go to sleep and never wake up. But surprisingly, I am not suicidal. I just don't care- I just want to go to sleep and wake up as worm bait.

Raising the lithium, with the Cymbalta, now- it's not passive anymore. it's active. But not active like it was when I was on Remeron and got so suicidal I knew to get to the hospital pronto. It's different this time, but isn't every depression slightly different, like identical twins are never really totally identical?

I find it more violent, the ways I want to go out would give Stephen King a new novel and a literary hard on. It would make Jeffrey Dahmer a new recipe for madness. No OD'ing on pills and slipping gently into that good night. These are painful, horrible, dreamscapes and nightmares from a fevered mind sparked from neurons and gray cells not reacting or over reacting to chemical number 3 on the Periodic Table.

I hover between periods of sanity and insanity- wondering to go into the hospital and make arrangements for the striped baby girl, or just going to Home Depot, buying a few items, and going out one night in the parking lot when everyone is home and asleep and ending it all, the last moment of consciousness dialing 911 and telling the cops to seal off the parking lot.

Right now I can hover. I am scared I might slip. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but hopefully not soon.

Huge Med change today

My meds are changing today. Cymbalta- stays at 60 mg. Lithium is going from 2600 to 3100. I'm clutching at straws trying to get out of this horrible darkness, it's not only Churchill's black dog this time, it's more like Cerberus.

As Bette Davis said in "All About Eve"- "Fasten your seatbelts= It's going to be a bumpy ride".

If I can post later I will,If not back tomorrow.

In the mean time, if anyone knows about Lithium Orotate, please contact me.

My miracle-A memoir in madness-REPOST

I normally do like this time of year. Autumn sounds so much nicer than fall. Watching the leaves fall in my part of the country is the most beautiful gift that Mother Nature provides. All the magnificent hues of reds, yellows, and oranges. But the leaves soon fall off the trees, withering, dying, reminding us of our own mortality as we watch children playing in the leaf piles. I watch the squirrels scampering around in a last minute of food collecting before the winter arrives. It always makes me smile at their antics. And I must confess, I feel lucky to live in a town that has both black and gray squirrels.

But with the change of scenery brings sadness. This is not a depression, this is a sadness that is overwhelming. It permeates my entire body, through each pore, worming it's way into my soul. I take extra care to make sure I am doing well, watching it carefully so it does not transmogrify into something more overwhelming and sinister. It is hard. There are changes at work, and many of us feel our jobs are not as secure as they were prior to September 2001. Yet I manage to stay optimistic, I am fortunate enough that I have saved up enough money that I could live for a year frugally and write if I lost my job. Not that many people have that luxury. Or perhaps it is me; I have once been homeless, so I watch my money carefully with a sense of dread that it can happen again.


Despite the best measures, I found myself slipping towards depression around Thanksgiving. I do not know why, after all, my heart's desire has always been two things, one of them looks like it will happen next year. I have always wanted two things in life, one is to be a published writer. I have an agent. It may happen. I just need the discipline to make it happen. The other heart's desire will not happen. That is to be a "normal" person, with a family. And real manic depressives should not be with other people, since we drive them crazy, as our moods washing over us and changing as easily as turning on and off like a water faucet , as mutable as the tides. And perhaps that is where the depression came, from sadness. A writer, like all artists, tends to be a solitary introvert. I find when I write, and I get on a roll, I do not want to be bothered. I take the phone off the hook. I walk around in a t-shirt that covers down to my knees, and just write. As a person with bipolar disorder, I find the bests writing I do is when I am slightly depressed, just somewhat sad, as you would feel after seeing a movie like "Titanic". Or slightly manic, just ever so slightly just as a normal person would feel after 3 cups of coffee. In these moods I have the discipline to sit and write for hours with a glass of water or a Snapple by my side. But no, this is down and out depression. I see the warning signs. Two days without showering. Three days without washing my hair. Two days without brushing my teeth. I tend to hypersleep when I am depressed. I am now sleeping 12 or more hours a day. I cannot concentrate. I cry at the drop of a hat. I take such things like St. John's Wort. This does not work. I call my shrink. He suggests I come back in to go back on meds after being off them for about a year. With trepidation, I do. I don't like meds, I really don't. But I have decided if it is between meds or suicide, I will take the meds every time. Suicide is not an option. I had Lyme disease so my body chemistry now does not allow some of the more standard drugs anymore. He and I discuss what options there are. He feels I am not in danger to myself, or others, so hospitalization isn't an option. So it comes down to lithium or Depakote. I've been on and off lithium for years, I personally don't like Depakote because it makes me fat. So I leave his office with a script for that and start taking it.


My body does not adjust to it well. I go several days unable to sleep, unable to keep food down. I have nightmares. I am fortunate enough to have a good friend on the same coast who is a hypnotist, and he helps me through the drug induced nightmares. I find as the lithium enters my bloodstream to normal levels, I get suicidal. Very suicidal. I decide to do the unforgivable. I want to die. And being a Virgo, I have to organize it. I paid off all my bills, checked my 401K and my will, and made sure the cat was taken care of. This makes me feel good. It's a fail-safe in knowing that I can do this if I choose to.


Then one night it gets bad. Very bad. I wake up in a cold sweat. I try to get back to bed, and I cannot. I feel alone. I do not mind being alone, but this time I do. Maybe it's my hormones. I feel lonely. That is overwhelming. The sense of despair which has been my constant companion for the last few weeks is sitting besides me, it's arms wrapped tightly around me. I cannot breathe. I sense a panic attack coming on. And then it hits. The suicidal feeling washes all over me. I am not thinking clearly. All I know s I want to die now , right now and ease this pain. I feel like it's not going to get better And I want, no NEED to end it now, and fast.


For my own safety, I have no sharp knives in my apartment, or razors.( I do shave but it is with a safety razor). I have no toxic things in the house like Drano, for two reasons, my safety and the cat's. There is no place in the apartment to hang a noose, unless I feel like hanging a stuffed anial. And I am on the 2nd floor, so if I jump, all will happen is broken bones. I took care of myself when I found a dwelling place. But then an idea occurs to me. Perhaps it was because I was reminiscing on a quote from Tolstoy "Happy families are all alike". I live near the train station. Every hour a train goes from NYC to Washington DC. I can throw myself under the train. I get in my old green Ford, and drive to the train station. And just missed the last train, as luck would have it. I sit on the outside, on the cement ledge looking down on the train tracks, my feet swinging softly on the track, my feet making imaginary circles. I look at the train tracks and I know when I see the train coming, I just have to jump down, walk to the thrid rail and lie down. It shouldn't hurt too much, what ever pain there will be will be fleeting. I feel somewhat at peace, very calm, an emotion I haven't felt in a long long time. I am at peace, knowing in less than an hour, I will be one with universe and the stars. I will be anywhere but New Jersey.


It is an absolutely beautiful night, lots of stars in the sky, and a sliver of moon. the air is clear. I
find tears streaming down my cheeks. I do not know why. I do not feel alone anymore. I feel some presence near me. It's 3 am and there are no other people around - cept for a cop. There is indeed a a person next to me, a police officer. He sits down next to me, his badge and belt buckle shining in the moonlight.

"Are you Ok?", he asks.

"Yes"

'What are you doing by yourself at 2 am here? Are you drunk?"

I assure him I am not drunk. he moves my blonde hair off my face, to get a better look at me. I am surprised that such a big man can do this so quickly I don't feel him do it.


We both look at each other with a hint of recognition in our eyes.
We knew each other in college. He was in one of my Lit classes when I was a Teachers Assistant. He makes small talk with me, and realizes I am sitting on the curbside because I want to jump. And a miracle happens. He does not talk to me anymore, we both just hear each other breathing and stare at the beauty of the stars. I feel totally at peace. What seems to be an eternity later, I hear the train coming. I can see the light. I know the police officer's breathing is now coming harder, his adrenaline kicking in. He thinks, no he KNOWS I am going to jump. I look at him, his brown eyes staring deeply into my blue ones. I get up, he is breathing real hard, staring at me. And then I offer my hand to him.

"Can you walk me to my car, please?" I ask him as the train rolls by.

The smile he smiles would light the entire Vegas strip. "Sure", he says and it is over. I am safe, aI am alive, and in the end, that is all that matters.


The suicidal feeling still stays with me, it's still here, it's overwhelming. But I am not going to act on it. I won't jump. And that, strangely enough gives me comfort.




Copyright- 2002, 2007, 2008

Huge med change today

Went to the doc today, blood work indicated lithium still wasn't even near therapeutic level, so it's now at 2800. It was at 3100 in March when I got sick. Cymbalta stayed same at 60 ,I was hoping to start tapering down to 40. And Klonepin is now daily at 10 mg.


I feel like a zombie, with the bucket next to me. And my hands are shaking I cannot hold a cuppa tea. I wouldn't mind a cute single guy come over and make me some soup though.


Anyway, will write tomorrow. Just taking a day off to be a couch potato tonight.

Wonky meds and a sick cat

The last 24 hours have been - for lack of a better word, frantic and worried. I had seen my P-doc on Monday and she said my lithium level was way too low, something I suspected as well. I had been on 3000 mg of lithium prior to my illness in March. Since Easter i have been on 600 mg. And since May, I have been ultra- rapid cycling faster than Lance Armstrong.


So it wasn't a surprise to find out my lithium has been doubled, as of yesterday I am on 1200. I seriously believe by the time of my next blood draw- around the 10 of November, it will be upped again.

Cymbalta, currently at 60 mg a day is staying as is until the lithium gets to the right level. I was really hoping to start tapering down to 40mg.

Yesterday, I took a nap for about 30 minutes, cat resting against my left leg. I woke up and she continued to sleep. Nothing new there, cats spend a good chunk of their lives asleep. It snowed, and was cold. I turned the heat on for the first time this year, and had the electric blanket on. Kitty loved nestling up against electric blanket.

I noticed she hadn't touched her food bowl since the morning, and hadn't used her box, nor touched her water bowl. I went to collect her, and she meowed a strange, plaintive meow I never heard before. it was small and hardly audible, like a kitten's.

She was up the entire night, sitting on the couch in a sphinx like position, looking sort of like the Sphinx, and the lions at the NY Public library. But she was staring into space and if I tried to get near her, she would meow, hiss, spit. Then go back to staring.

I was afraid to go to sleep, and i kept trying to coax her to eat, opening a tin of tuna which she wouldn't touch ( Her favorite), and putting some whipped cream on my finger. Again, she wouldn't touch it.

This morning I called the vet. But she must have had her kitty ESP going, because she ate a few hours earlier, used the litter box, drank her water, and batted her catnip mouse. But still won't let me hold her or pick her up. The vet said it sounds like she might have a cold, but if she was eating and using her box, there was no discharge from her nose, and her breathing is clear, keep monitoring her for another day and if there is no improvement or the same, bring her in tomorrow.

I was walking to put the phone in the cradle, and next thing I know I am on the floor. I was feeling light headed all morning, but did have some breakfast. I must have fainted. i put the phone back, and went to the bathroom. And saw my face. I must have hit the floor hard, my face was bruising badly, and my wrist and hand were swelling too.

I sat back down on the couch, reading a book I have to review, and a few pages into it everything gets blurry. Then I wake up on the floor. Fainted again.

Twice in one morning.

No sleep, fainting, I feel slightly manic, and need to take care it doesn't progress. So I am logging off the computer for the rest of the day, listen to a bit of music and read. Watch the World Series tonight and get some good sleep.

Hopefully by tomorrow both the cat and i will be back to our old selves again.

still dry

Idea wise for the blog, I mean. No ideas. Some vignettes, nothing worth noticing.

Got the shakes so bad from Lithium, cannot type. Bear with me.