Is family really all we have? (Last post??)

Greetings, Readers!  This blog hasn’t had one follower sign up, so this may be my last post.  Unless I can get at least 5 followers in the next couple of days, I will be shutting this blog down.  So, if you enjoy what you’ve read already, spread the word, k?

I have been thinking lately about family.  Not just mine, either.  I know I’m not the only person with bipolar that has burned some bridges with family members.  Why does that happen?  “Is it my fault?” is a question I ask myself all the time, but I know it’s not.  It’s not my fault that I have bipolar disorder.  Like other bipolar people, I have other illnesses that go along with the disorder.  Depression and anxiety disorder are two of them.  The two pretty much go hand in hand, am I right?  Not all family members understand mental illness.  And not only do they not understand, there are some that don’t WANT to understand.  I have experience with both kinds of family members.  It’s not easy.  And to those of you who are newly diagnosed or haven’t dealt with this yet, you will more than likely NEED to part ways with either some friends or family members.  I’ve learned that this can be necessary for the proper healing needed in your treatment. 

When I hear someone say, “Family is all we have,” I want to scream.  No, family is NOT all we have.  Those of us with mental illness have surrounded ourselves with at least one or two people that truly understand and that we can trust.  Among those that we trust can include psychiatrists, doctors, and/or therapists.  Not everyone is lucky enough to have health care professionals that they trust.  I truly believe that those people will eventually find that right person that can help with treatment either with medication or just to lend an ear.  Having someone that’ll listen to us sob, rant, rave, complain, or even rejoice can be our saving grace.  Even I have a couple of people that I know if I didn’t have them around me, I may not be here.  I hope those people know how important they are to me.  I try to let them know every now and then. 

In the future, I hope to be someone’s “person” so that I can help them get through their difficulties with mental illness.  My story could truly help someone learn what to do and what NOT to do.  There have been several mistakes I’ve made that I wish I hadn’t, but they’ve gotten me to where I am today, and I’ve obviously learned from them. 

Until next time… (hopefully)

Continuation from last post, teeth grinding, and insomnia

So, in my last post, I mentioned a new concept in our healthcare system.  I tried to find out if there was a specific term for these offices, but was unsuccessful.  I call them one-stop-shops, but that’s me.  So, I’ll just describe it to you, k?  In this clinic, there’s general physicians, nurse practitioners, behavioral health providers, and in some clinics are dentists.  From what I’ve heard, they’re hoping to open more clinics like this and want to include eye doctors.  I’m definitely in favor of this concept.  If you really think about it, a lot of physical ailments/issues are mental health-based.  For instance, think of how you feel when you’re stressed.  Symptoms include muscle soreness, headache, jaw pain, backache, low energy, upset stomach, insomnia, etc.  I have friends that have gone to the doctor for symptoms similar to these and the doctor will eventually ask, “Are you under any kind of stress?”  Of course, who isn’t these days, right?  So, if you go to one of these clinics for a regular doctor visit and the doctor thinks you might benefit from talking to a behavioral health provider, you don’t have to wait for a referral and usually have a long wait.  The same goes for a dental health provider.  If you go for headaches and it turns out that you grind your teeth, the dental health provider can help treat you for this problem.  By the way, if you do grind your teeth, I highly recommend a night guard.  It’ll help deter morning headaches.  You can either get one specially fitted at the dentist’s office or throw the dice and get one at Walmart, Target, etc.  That’s the route I go, and it works for me.  I can’t guarantee it’ll work for you, though.

So, since I’ve brought up the issue of teeth grinding and insomnia, I want to talk about it a bit.  When I was younger, I was really bad about grinding my teeth.  It got bad enough that the dentist specially fitted one for me.  Now, this was MANY years ago, so technology has helped the process since I went through it.  It’s been within the past 3 or 4 years that I’ve gotten worse about it, and have had to go back to wearing one.  I was a happy girl when I found out they can be bought at the store.  I’ll admit that I was leery of getting it at the store instead of having the dentist make it for me, but it works well enough to help with the headaches I get frequently.  The bad part of a store bought one is that they don’t last NEAR as long as the ones from the dentist.  I got to a point that I went through a guard every two weeks.  Yes, my grinding has been so bad that I’ve chewed holes in the rubber-like material. 

Now, the insomnia I suffered from wasn’t related to my teeth grinding.  My insomnia stems off of my anxiety.  You have probably heard at least one person say that they can’t get their brain to shut off when they go to bed.  I’m one of those people.  Not only do I easily get off on a tangent when I’m talking, I go off on tangents when I’m trying to sleep.  I can go from “Should I apologize for telling so-and-so to shut up?” to “I need to have that rash looked at.” in less than a minute!  It’s not a good time.  And of course, while I am thinking about the funny looking rash, I can’t get comfortable at all!  Not only can I not get comfortable, I have two Chihuahuas to worry about when I’m trying to readjust.  9 times out of 10, I’ll hear one of them squeal.  That’s, of course, when I freak out because I thought I squished one of them.  If I have one of those bad nights, absolutely NO ONE gets any sleep.  The pups and I usually spend the next day trying to keep our eyes open.  Am I alone in this? 

Until next time…

Doctor Visit

I had a doctor appointment a couple of days ago as a six-week follow-up.  Now, I really like my doctor.  These days, it’s hard to find a decent general physician (GP) and I lucked out with this one.  I’ll refer to him as Dr. M.  My appointment was set for 10:50.  I was a minute, maybe two late due to a train and in this town, it’s not unheard of.  I sat in the waiting room for ten minutes, tops.  I thought to myself, “Okay, he’s just running a few minutes late.”  After being weighed (we all love that part of the doctor visit, right?), I was taken to the exam room where the nurse asked the usual questions and took my vitals.  She told me she would let the doctor know I was ready for him.  I acknowledged her and sat in the room patiently.  Well, I was patient, but only for the first half hour.  Another twenty minutes passed and I started having a panic attack.  I was shaking, bouncing my legs up and down, and then started to sob uncontrollably.  I grabbed my cell phone and texted my mom, who lives with my husband and me.  I told her what was going on, and she said that I needed to let someone know what was going on with me.  Finally, I worked up the courage to open the door and find help.  I looked up and down the hallway, located the nurse’s station, and found the nurse who had left me in the exam room.  She could clearly see the tears streaming down my face, the tear-soaked and wadded up Kleenex in my hand, and that I needed help.  The fact that she could sense that I needed help didn’t seem to register on her face.  Between sobs, I asked her if there was anything she could do and how much longer the wait would be for Dr. M to show.  She just looked at me, people!  I saw no concern on her face.  Yes, I was emotional, but I was with it enough to notice that she didn’t seem to care much about my predicament. 

Now, here’s a question: are doctors and nurses given training on dealing with mentally ill patients?  Doesn’t it seem like a requirement?  Even if it’s a GP’s office, they should have some kind of protocol for dealing with mentally ill patients.  After having a conversation about this with my mom, I’m really wondering about the education they’re giving to today’s nurses.  Now, I understand that they’re not to overreact to a patient having an anxiety attack, but they should at least show concern, take the patient back to the room, maybe offer a cup of water, and talk to the patient until the doctor is able to show.  In my situation, the nurse didn’t seem to know what to do or say to me except that she would see what she could do, but remained standing in front of me unconcerned.  I stormed back to the exam room, left the door open, and continued to try to calm myself down.  The nurse walked by the room three times without asking how I was doing or even letting me know how soon the doctor would be there.  When Dr. M finally showed, he apologized for his running “a little” late, which was really an hour and fifteen minutes.  Like I said earlier, I really like this doctor and because of that, I didn’t lay into him for being late, because it wasn’t really his fault.  I went about the visit like nothing had happened and so did he. 

Dr. M had referred me to a psychiatrist around Indianapolis, which is an hour away from here.  My first visit was an hour and I really liked her.  My second visit, which I had this past Monday, was only fifteen minutes (remember, my drive is AN HOUR!).  In this fifteen minutes, I managed to tell her the changes I’ve had since she altered all my current meds I take for depression/bipolar.  One of the meds she added was Seroquel.  I was on it several years ago and had a horrible reaction to it.  What I remember is that it made me feel like a zombie.  I figured that since it had been so long since I was on it, that I could give it another try.  She wanted me to start on 100 mg. and work my way up to 200 mg.  The first three mornings, after taking 100 mg., I felt like a zombie.  My alarm clock would be going off for over an hour before I finally managed to get up to take my dogs out to potty, which they had already done in the living room (it’s a good thing there’s potty pads in there, huh?).  Even after being up for a few hours, I still felt like a zombie.  All day, I felt like I could fall asleep anytime, anywhere.  So, I shared my concerns about this med, and then shared my mom’s concerns.  Now, her bedroom is across from mine, so she can hear what goes on in my room including the bear-like snores at night.  My snoring had seemed to worsen since I started the Seroquel, and my sleep had been so deep that I didn’t hear one of my pups squeal in the night because I had rolled onto her.  So, I told the psychiatrist this.  She simply told me to not let the dogs sleep with me as though it would be easy for me to do.  She doesn’t understand how I treat my dogs like royalty.  They are allowed to sleep with me, and haven’t had to sleep in a crate or on the floor like other dogs do.  I told her that, and she said to me, “Your sleep is my number one priority and the most important thing in the world for you right now.  There’s a reason you see me, and managing your sleep habits is part of that.”  I understand where she’s going, but it’s not as easy as she seems to think.

Back to my Dr. M appointment.  He agreed with some of my observations of the psychiatrist, and that I should’ve started on a low dose of the Seroquel.  Also, he didn’t care much for the fact that she took me off of Lexapro, which I had been on for several years, so he added it back to my regimen at 5 mg.  When I took the first dose, it felt as though my body had said, “It’s about damn time!”  As a matter of fact, I think I made a similar comment.  After Dr. M shared a funny story with me, which helped calm me down, I was able to drive myself home.

Am I wrong for being enraged for this doctor visit?  Remember, I’m not enraged with Dr. M, himself, but with the fact that he was running late and the idiot nurse, who didn’t seem to know what to do to help me.  Do you, reader, know that doctors are being told by their networks to not take any longer than 15 minutes with each patient?  If you’re a good doctor, you take as long as the patient needs you to treat them.  But the networks they work for aren’t as understanding because they’re all about $$.

I used to work for a doctor’s office that had two GPs, two behavioral health providers, and a lab that could take blood and urine samples in-house.  I love this idea!  I will talk more about this concept in my next post, so please stay tuned.

Your comments would be appreciated on this topic/issue.  Until next time…

Welcome to Bipolar Living

Hello, reader.  My name is Valerie and this is my very first blog post.  I'm new to the blog world, so bear with me, if you will.  My blog will be covering everything about living with bipolar disorder from tantrums to manic episodes.  I hope this blog will be something you look forward to when you see there's a new post.  I want to educate, help, and even learn from my readers.  Like most bipolar people, I see a therapist, and I hope to share some of the education she passes onto me to help me cope with this disorder. 

A little personal background: I'm 32, married, unemployed, and have no children, unless you count my four-legged kids, and in that case, I have two Chihuahuas (Annie and Joey).  My pups are my entire world.  I don't know what I'd do without them.  When my husband and I first got together, we adopted a beautiful Siamese/Calico cat from our local animal shelter who came with the name Piper.  Almost two weeks ago, we had to say farewell to our beautiful girl.  She was approximately 12-13 years old, was diagnosed with feline leukemia and pancreatitis back in May.  We were both devastated when it came time to say farewell, but knew it was for the better.  So, that'll be something I'll get into a little more into detail later on in this blog.

I hope to hear from you, dear reader.  I also hope that you'll forgive me with the ginormous picture of myself on the homepage of this blog.  I'll see about getting it shrunk or even removed if needed.  Even I can only take so much of my big face (tee-hee).  Until next time...