Screw recovery. I'll stay nice and drugged up, thanks.

Welp, the last week was a complete disaster.

All I did was go from 200mg to 150mg. I tried splitting up 300mg pills, or taking an exact 150mg using three 50mg pills. (I am the Seroquel lord, owning all shapes and sizes at this point)

In the end, both approaches ended up with the same results - disaster.

I woke up constantly each night, and three nights I wasn't able to fall asleep (until I took Ambien). By Friday this lack of sleep took a toll on me, and I was half awake all day.

Then I started to feel sick, which is continuing to intensify as I write this. (I find I can get sick after not sleeping well - body lowering its defenses or something)

Very frustrating.

I've never had such trouble tapering off of a medication. I might get withdrawal symptoms such as nausea, but in this case I just saw a return of my old insomnia symptoms. (The whole reason I took Seroquel in the first place recently)

So back to the full 200mg, and thank god for that. Can't wait to finally get some solid sleep and hopefully soon feel well rested during the day/not sick.

Granted, Seroquel has a sedative effect in the morning, but I'll take that morning sedation over feeling like shit all day.

Final stage of recovery

To quickly summarize the blog, I've gone on a long road of medication adjustment hell over the last few months.

Finally, things have stabilized in the last month or so, to the point I've been able to cut out my Ambien and Rozerem medications, and still sleep great.

That means one medication, Seroquel, remains to be weaned out of my medication diet. It's done amazing things for my recovery, which I never expected, given I've always seen it as too strong of a medication.

But here we are, and I finally feel healthy enough to try tapering off of it.

I talked to my psychiatrist, and am going to try going down to 150mg from 200mg. In actuality I'm just sloppily cutting 300mg pills in half using a pill cutter, so it ain't perfect, but it's better than going down to 100mg by cutting up 200mgs (what my psychiatrist recommended).

Frankly I'm nervous as hell. Sure, I can always just go back to 200mg, but after everything being so terrible recently, and only recently being stable, I can't help but feel reticent.

At the same time, I won't consider this a full recovery until I'm off of the Seroquel. Now that I'm working again, I'm noticing how sedating it is in the morning (I just nap on the morning subway now). And now that I can afford to relax on the weekends, I just sleep for about 11 hours (about the amount of time it takes for the Seroquel to wear off, I believe).

Cross fingers.

Whither Freelancers Union

In Kafka's The Trial, "K." is arrested for a crime, except he is not told what the crime is.

Recently I received a letter from my health insurance company, Freelancers Union. It accused me of something, but it would not tell me exactly what I was accused of. I needed to mail in some paperwork for my ambiguous charges to be further investigated.

It was very time sensitive, and it definitely was a bunch of sad looking papers that really could have been made available online to instantly fill out, instead of laboriously mailed in. But so it is - sad papers, away to the post office!

I was suspected of having a pre existing condition, but they couldn't tell me what condition I was suspected of. As a result all of my health insurance benefits relating to this unnamed condition were immediately revoked until further notice.

That's right, all benefits revoked related to the condition that they won't tell me about. That they're not even sure I have yet. They took away it all for now anyway.

But if they do decide I have one, that means I will be cut off from those related service for one year.  It sounds like I just pay them for a year to not do anything, until finally I am deemed worthy of their services. Much like God deigning to open the pearly gates and cleanse our dirty pre existing conditions.

(aka a year of $465/month premiums that won't do shit)

I'm still reeling from this.

The waiting period makes even less sense, considering I've previously been enrolled in Freelancers Insurance for almost two years (2011 January to 2012 November). I've never had a problem from them.

I understand that bipolar disorder is considered one of the deadly pre existing conditions (dun dun dun), but now? They choose now, after taking my money for years, and two months before the ACA (Affordable Care Act) starts. Really?

You might - say 'Great! No more pre existing conditions in 2014?' right.

Sort of.

I read up on healthcare.gov and found Freelancers can continue screwing me in 2014:

"The only exception [to covering pre existing conditons] is for grandfathered individual health insurance plans -- the kind you buy yourself, not through an employer. They do not have to cover pre-existing conditions.

That's right. Freelancers Union, who have marketed themselves for years as fighting for the freelancing underdog, will proudly be one of the few remaining health insurance companies in the country to still not cover pre existing conditions.

So they will most likely make me wait a year to receive services - someone who has previously used their services for the same damn thing for about two years.

I want to call them up and ask "Do you realize nearly every insurance plan will cover pre existing conditions in January, and that you're going to lose customers over this? "

Progress

I haven't had too much to write about recently, as things have started evening out pretty well.

Since about a week and a half ago, I've been able to sleep without using Ambien, Klonopin, etc. I've been able to fall asleep without feeling eternally awake.

Not only that, but over time I'm starting to sleep through the night as well, without waking up the way I have been. I've been exercising a lot too, which might have been helping.

But either way, it's great. My life is completely back to normal now I would say, which is just huge.

The final step is to wean off my 200mg of Seroquel, but I'm very wary of this, for obvious reasons. People online recommend very cautious measures of tapering in tiny pieces using a razor blade, but I've also read/heard that breaking up a pill can reduce its potency if it's not scored (with a line down the middle).

Tapering is one of those areas where popular advice from psychiatrists can just not be cautious enough. I followed more cautious Internet advice tapering off of Cymbalta, and that worked very well, vs previous psychiatrists recommending quicker methods that results in at least a few days of messy withdrawal symptoms.

This has been a (by my standards) long road to recovery since August, and I am VERY very wary of making any medication changes, after seeing what all of the recent changes have brought.

I'll probably wait a bit more to make sure I'm doing okay, and time it when everything is going well. I might start a new job soon, in which case I might give myself some time to get used to that first.

The Lord Giveth, and then the Lord Takes Away

Almost as  a cruel 'fuck you' from the universe after last night's success of sleep, I have been wide awake since 4:00am (it's around 6:00am now) and getting to sleep was wonky too.

I took a full 10mg Ambien, and even taking 1mg of Klonopin at 4:00am didn't put me back to sleep.

I'm starting to feel like I have magical powers, where my body can absorb all sorts of powerful sedative drugs like it's simply breathing oxygen, with no reaction at all.

There's a clear correlation with what I do during the day to my sleep - if I exercise, or go out somewhere in the evening, before bed, I sleep better. Yesterday I was letting my legs rest after jogging and did not exercise - nor did I go out last night. Bam.

But this is the first night where 10mg of Ambien plus 1mg of Klonopin is not doing anything 4am onward. I have a lot of questions about what to do next, because my insomnia has clearly resulted from my psychiatric destabilization, even though during the day I am completely stabilized.

I realize this blog is new with a very small readership, but I'd love to hear any comments from people who might have gone through similar situations of chronic insomnia that's resulted from medication changes.

Hey, I slept on my own!

Some good recovery signs - my appetite is back, so eating is no longer an abstract game of guessing when/how much to eat. Food is enjoyable again, which is nice.

In addition, I was able to sleep last night without any sleep aids! (i.e. Ambien/Klonopin,etc) That's a first in weeks. To be fair, I was out and had three drinks, but it was nothing serious. Still went to bed around 12 or 12:30am, usual time. In general I'm still taking Ambien, either in 5mg or 10mg, though.

I am starting to fully appreciate how far I've come since I was convulsing and not sleeping at night at my worst over a month ago. This whole mess turned sour around August 5th, and by initial projections I was supposed to recover by the end of August.

When I think about it like that, with so many days of feeling terrible spreading onward, I can't imagine it. The time has kind of all blended together, and I'm thankful I've been able to still function, support myself, and do everything I've needed to do in general.

Before this whole mess started, I wanted to experiment with going off of a mood stabilizer. Now, it's clear how much damage changing medications can do - or, at least, when changed too quickly/haphazardly. Lithium is cheap as hell anyway.

Of course, once my sleep normalizes, I still need to get off that Seroquel. That could be a mess. I'll have to be incredibly cautious.

Getting frustrated

Halving my Ambien to 5mg was a failure - ended up taking another 5mg when I couldn't sleep in the middle of the night.

I just feel exhausted now the next day after taking 10mg Ambien.

Very frustrated over how long this recovery has been, and how close I am. The remaining symptoms are insomnia and a complete lack of appetite all day - signs something is clearly still amiss.

Going to try 5mg again tonight, but not optimistic. I can try upping the Seroquel from 200mg to 300mg if this doesn't work out, but that will probably knock me out during the day for at least a few days even more strongly.

Leaning more closely to seeing another psychiatrist, but I suppose I just want to see if things get better as well over time. Maybe let my body adjust to all of these medication changes more.

At least exercising is back to normal - no panicking or exhaustion. But c'mon, is it too much to ask to just go back to normal already?