Day 162, step 140, 1 day streak

Coming up on 3 months since the last big update, since @ladylazarus1971 asked... it's a wall of text :p

The antipsychotic I was barely started on last update has been continued, though we stepped up to the next dose. The FDA approved a generic of the XR version, and this is day 4 trying out the generic for $65 a month in savings... so far so good...

September was still all over the place both in sleep and mood... increased the med 22 sept...

October was starting to level out, between actually getting regular sleep and another med increase 20 oct (to the current dose)... but things were getting much more manageable...

November started out with 10 days of depression, a short bounce back to hypo-mania, and I was 5 days into a 2nd depression when I saw my GP for the next appt... and we added an SNRI to the mix, and doubled my blood pressure med... 2nd referral in for a psychiatrist for an official diagnosis and direction...

December started out with another short smooth bounce into hypo-mania, and a little bit of a hiccup...
With 8yrs of blood pressure issues (about 6 months after I stopped drinking, I went in for a seperated shoulder and found out I had stage 2 hypertension, that hadn't been while I was drinking)... I'd had a few occurances of being light headed and racing pulse but usually after exersion or overheating... neither of which was the case on the 9th... Pulse 135 for an hour before going in, was still 124 at 90min when I was with my doc but another ecg came up 'normal' for me...

Saw my GP most recently for the 2 week check on the SNRI addition this last week. I've been accepted by a psychiatrist here in town and should hear from them soon. He sent in a referral for an echocardiogram tuesday morning, and they called me at noon for a wednesday morning appt. Talk about fast! Added a calcium channel blocker / vasodialator to the ace inhibitor / dieuretic he's had me on, with instructions to monitor and adjust as needed until I see him again the end of January.

So for anyone keeping track that's 3 med changes (existing blood pressure med, snri, and cacium channel) in 3 weeks... I've commented in the chat the last couple of days it's better living through pharmacology. Today is day 10 of feeling 'normal' again if we ignore last friday's hiccup and being physically wiped out (13hrs of sleep!). This is day 3 of actually being chipper. Had a customer comment yesterday that they enjoyed seeing me come in every time with a smile on my face, and I wasn't faking it on friday!

All things considered, looking at my charts for the past 5 months (09 july - 17 dec), the current combination seems to be working nicely. Not in a daily uncertainty and constant rollercoaster, starting to see smoother longer curves... Now we're waiting to see if that holds and improves in the next 6 weeks, and find out what the psychiatrist figures out when they contact me to set things up.