Hello there my pretties!
Welcome in all friends and fiends alike.
I've come to the conclusion that using all platforms available to me is the most important thing I can do for my sanity and mental health. I’ve also learned and telling ones own story can be very heavy but also intensely meaningful and impactful on others. Knowing I can help or educate others in any way shape or form would make me feel like my pain has purpose and my medical trauma all had a powerful meaning in the end.
I have been on a major health journey these last few years. However, let's start a little further back. About 15 years ago, at age 21, when I gave birth to my joyous baby boy, Rayne. Shortly after, I began to experience extreme chronic pain all over my body and major depression. My long-time family doctor decided he wanted to go be a Montessori teacher up in Washington to be closer to his kids and left me in the care of his replacement... This new Doctor was the opposite of the goofy, down-to-earth, well-rounded, and super-smart old man that I was used to.
I then spent the next 12 months tortured as this Doctor’s guinea pig, changing between different depression medications every 2-3 months, suffering from insane side effects almost every single time. If you’ve never been prescribed antidepressants then let me explain a little bit about how they work. Once you start them your body gets an instant reaction. Sometimes this can make you super suicidal or overly happy for a brief time. After those first couple days the symptoms go away and you're back to your normal depressive state (and possibly a bit more messed up than normal due to the few days of intense emotions, headaches, or stomach aches etc...) Then you have to wait a minimum of 4 weeks for these daily meds to finally start doing what they're meant to, all that time trying to monitor your reactive symptoms and manage your emotional states.
By week 4 you miiiiiight be starting to get some relief from the crippling weight of your depressive symptoms… while also starting to notice new symptoms caused by the medication’s side effects. I have a bad stomach so I’ll have nausea/diarrhea/constipation more than likely with any new medicine switch. Insomnia or extreme drowsiness is another common one. Some annoying ones are dry mouth, and weight gain. Some super frustrating ones are the meds that affect you in the romantic loss of libido department, especially when you’re newly married! At one point I took a medicine that made me insanely dizzy and I passed out on day 3 face first onto a tile floor. I landed on my forehead with a sickening thud, a massive goose egg sized lump where I made direct impact (thus causing one of my many concussions as well.) I stopped that medicine immediately…
I kept being put on antidepressants only and nothing for the pain due to this doctor instantly jumping to a Fibromyalgia diagnosis. However, one of the medicines I tried was actually a pain management type medicine called Tramadol. What a horrible drug! It does not last long and makes you feel pretty drunk when you take it, so you reeeeeeeally shouldn’t drive (I still did and busted a tire driving 3 mins to work once.) When it wears off you go into instant withdrawals. And I mean INSTANT. I had to set an alarm at 5am just to wake up and take the next pill so I would be able to get up at 7am and not have full body aches, migraines, and extreme nausea. The saddest part was it was the first thing that finally gave me partial relief from the constant pain. It did nothing for my depression and my doctor wanted to test some other new medicine that would hopefully treat both my pain and depression. Unfortunately, this new drug had a reaction with Tramadol so he told me I had to stop it to start this new stupid thing he wanted to “test”. I was so sad… I just left the office and went down to my car and cried my eyes out. I felt like my one tiny window of relief had been ripped away just because it wasn’t perfect enough. Then I spent the next TWO WEEKS suffering through the most intense withdrawal symptoms ever, a misery that gripped my entire body. I thought I was going to die, but I read online it was common to have tough withdrawals and pushed through, suffering alone on the couch for those very VERY long two weeks.
After that, I had spent a full year being this Doctor's guinea pig. He was mad at ME when I told him the newest medicine was giving me horrible side effects and that I did not wish to take it anymore. He told me he was done, he had given up, and he flat out refused to see me anymore for this issue. He said he would send me to a psychiatrist for the depression and a rheumatologist for the fibro and that was it. I never saw him again.
The Psychiatrist was a horrible lady who spoke to me and my mom for 20 mins and decided I was bipolar because about “once a month” I had mood swings. Despite me trying to tell her how excessively sensitive my hormones are and the fact I can't take any birth control due to that fact as well. She prescribed me the TINIEST dose of Xanax to take before any “stressful events.” She said my anxiety was causing my depression. However, I am a tiny bit smarter now and understand that both anxiety and depression are not official diagnoses. They are TECHNICALLY symptoms of something else. Whether it be a medical and hormonal imbalance, personality disorder, environmental stress or even neurotypical spectrum sensitivity issues. Depression and anxiety are medical conditions with different factors that interact to trigger them caused by deeper rooted issues and further medical problems. I never saw that doctor again and had monthly check-ins with her nurse to see if my dosing was still correct. Despite me saying it’s not helping enough, my dosage was never changed once and I was ignored when speaking about my opinions.
Every. Single. Time...
2009
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