Tweaking the Meds

At my last shrink appointment (yes I call him my shrink) my medication doses were upped by 50 milligrams. It doesn't sound like a lot, and it wasn't really because I was already on the lowest "full" dose. So adding 50 milligrams wasn't much at all. But Dr. L wants to take is slow to see what is going to work the best for me instead of going as high as we can. I like that about him, even though it takes trial and error to do so. It's better than being over medicated in my opinion.

Well today I started feeling... down. Not depressed, but down. Master said I seemed vacant. That's actually a pretty good word for it. I was stressing out and as a result, instead of dealing with it I was shutting my mind down. While shutting my mind down I lose my personality, my sense of humor, etc. I can still function. I can still do my job just fine.. but everything else is pretty much gone. I believe it is some kind of self defense mechanism. It is my way of dealing with it without dealing with it, if that makes any sense. I pretty much become numb. Numb is not healthy.

Master said He was worried and I understood that. My next appointment with Dr. L is next Friday. Well I didn't want to wait that long to tell him. So I called his office and played phone tag with him for a little while until finally he called me back and I was actually at my desk. I explained to him what was going on and how I don't think my current dosage of 150 milligrams is enough. When my medication dosage is changed it works great for a little while because it is more than what my body/mind is used to. It's one of those drugs that has to be constant because it builds in your system, it's not an instant reaction. So this is where the tweaking comes in.

Dr. L asked if I still had some pills left. I said that yes I do. So he told me to take 1 full pill then cut another in half and take half of that pill. So basically I'd be taking 225 milligrams per day. I said I would do that. He said we'd talk more about it at my next appointment. Thankfully that's only 8 days away. But the fact that he was willing to help me right away by being creative about it was really comforting. He's a great shrink. I really like him.

Thankfully I have just enough pills to make that work. I'll run out exactly on the day of my appointment, at which time I should get a new prescription. So the timing works out perfectly. I would hate to have to refill the current prescription just to turn around and get a new prescription three days later. That would be a waste of a copay.

So hopefully this will work and be the right dosage. I won't know until I talk at length with Dr. L and see what he has to say about it. I'm just glad that I honestly don't have a problem talking to my shrink about my problems openly. I'm not embarrassed about it. I don't feel weak because I have to ask for help. And I'm glad that Master encourages such. He doesn't want me any more crazy than I have to be. ;-)