Dextroamphetamine, day 1

Comments

I took my little 10mg capsule when I woke up at 8 AM, and I felt it kick in during my shower. It’s led to a feeling of clarity and less chaos in my brain. I did a few put-off chores before work, and at work I’m not feeling totally overwhelmed by stuff. I’m still not focusing on what I mean to be working on, though.

Blood pressure is 131/89, heart rate is 65. Slightly elevated from my baseline but definitely nothing to be worried about. My hands are also slightly shakier than usual but not, like, alarmingly so.

This shows some promise and I’ll be working to adjust the dosage and timing accordingly. I might try supplementing with a caffeine microdose later today.

Also, last night was my first dose of fenofibrate, which hasn’t solved all my pain issues overnight but I’d expect that to take a week or so to be effective.

Pain, fatigue, and focus

Comments

Two weeks since my last ketamine infusion and my anxiety is… present, again, and my chronic pain never went away at all but now I’m feeling a lot more aware of it.

I went back and tried Adderall again and it didn’t mess me up, although it also didn’t help me like it did the last time I tried it. But neither Adderall nor caffeine are messing with my blood pressure or increasing my anxiety, so I’ve reopened the conversation with my doctor regarding other meds for ADHD. In particular, I asked about Dexedrine and Desoxyn. Both of them seem promising at the dosages I’m looking at, although my insurance won’t cover Desoxyn (which is unsurprising, there was a TV series about it) so we’re trying Dexedrine first.

Regarding chronic pain, my doctor went over my chart and he noticed that we never really did anything about my high triglycerides, and then he had a thought: what if my high triglycerides are contributing to my fibro symptoms? Doing some cursory literature search found that it’s plausible, at least, so I’m also going to start on Fenofibrate to lower my triglycerides and hopefully get my body in some sort of balance there. He’s also ordered some more labwork to see if I have any gaping vitamin deficiencies.

Have I mentioned how much I cherish this doctor? Of all the doctors I’ve seen, this is the only one where I feel like he actually listens to me, doesn’t talk down to me, understands that I know my body and have done my reserach, and is willing to try things to attempt to treat these complex, deep-seated issues that have caused me problems for the past 25-odd years. It’s a lot easier to be patient as a patient when the healthcare provider treats me with respect like this.

He’s definitely a rare breed.

Ketamine 4.1

Comments

On the plus side, my focus is way higher, and my anxiety is the lowest it’s been in a decade.

On the minus side, my chronic pain still sucks a lot, and this is still making it very hard for me to do my job.

It’s still been a huge net benefit for me though. And supposedly it takes a little while for ketamine treatments to have an effect on chronic pain. I’ll get there eventually.

I spoke too soon

Comments

Maybe I should have been checking my blood pressure more frequently. I didn’t check it at all yesterday like I should have and just assumed it was fine, because I just woke up at 4:40 AM feeling a bit off and on a hunch I checked my blood pressure… which is now 169/86.

Wellp, so much for my last chance at being medicated.

Vyvanse continuing

Comments

So I’ve been on Vyvanse for many days now. Four total, one last Friday and three this week.

So far it isn’t really helping me, but it also isn’t hurting me. This is also just like the lowest possible dose for trial purposes, though.

It makes me feel awake and a bit alert. I also feel like I’m a bit more prone to irritation and feeling stressed, but that might just be other situational things happening right now. It hasn’t really helped with focus at all.

My heart rate and blood pressure are slightly higher than usual but not alramingly so.

I think it’ll be worth trying the next dosage up at some point. I have a followup with my doctor next week to discuss that. It’s promising.

Today I drove for the first time while on it and boy howdy did that feel weird. I’ll probably want to go without it during my trip in a few weeks.

We’ll see how I feel this weekend.

Vyvanse, day 1

Comments

Today was my first day trialing Vyvanse, just a single 10mg dose in the morning. I took it at around 9 AM, and felt it kick in at around 10. It gave me a slight headache, and a slight vague spacy feeling, with maybe a bit of… something that I’m having trouble describing. Almost like my spine was being squeezed from the inside? I don’t know.

My blood pressure and heart rate did rise up a little, but not to concerning levels; my rest pulse is usually 50-60 and my BP is usually 120/80, and on Vyvanse it peaked at around 75 and 135/85, respectively. Nothing terribly concerning, and not so much that I could feel it myself.

I don’t feel like I’m specifically more focused than usual, although my headspace is at least a bit less cluttered. And I’m definitely more alert than usual. It’s not quite how I felt on the two good days of Adderall, but it’s also not like, say, Concerta or Strattera which had me feeling frustrated and, well, colicky, for lack of a better term.1

Anyway. It was good to try this experiment on a day right before a weekend, since that means it won’t mess up the rest of my week if something went wrong, and also this was on a day I wasn’t expecting to be very productive anyway, what with the everything. I’ll be skipping it over the weekend but now I’m feeling a lot more optimistic about resuming it on Monday.

Read more…

Armodafinil followup

Comments

Just a followup, I ended up staying awake for over 25 hours, finally fell asleep for a bit today at 10, woke up again at 11, and mostly I’m feeling like I have a gigantic hangover.

Apparently armodafinil’s mechanism of action is identical to cocaine’s, so it actually IS stimulant-based and not just “a wakefulness agent” and I wish i’d known that before embarking on this. I don’t know why my research failed me this badly this time. Probably me being desperate for something that works.

I’m definitely not interested in continuing with armodafinil, in any case. Advice for dealing with this massive pounding headache would be appreciated.

sleepless from armodafinil

Comments

i feel like crap and i;m wide awake and i want to sleep but i can;t sleep

i;ve been having electric pains through my nerves all night and i feel like i drank three pots of coffee and i am not sleepy at all but i am very very tired

on the plus side i’m having no apnea symptoms tonight but that’s because i’m not getting into a state of relaxation which allows it to occur in the first place

why is my body so awful at processing medications

Charting my armodafinil response

Comments

Just to keep track of stuff here for onlookers

Time Systolic Diastolic HR Notes
9:11 120 76 59 Just took dose
9:13 119 78 59 Validation check
10:01 136 90 52 Felt it starting to kick in
10:02 132 86 51
10:20 130 93 52 Feeling a bit bad
10:38 142 99 55 Feeling quite bad
10:46 147 102 54 hi
10:50 136 67 64 the ratio
10:59 140 100 54 am i going to die?
11:17 148 87 50 yeah probably
11:21 151 91 54 if i hit 160 I’m going to the hospital
11:30 156 95 55 really shouldn’t have taken this on an empty stomach, huh
11:38 158 96 55 but hey at least I’m very much awake
11:56 171 109 61 911 is being called right now
12:15 170 87 68 EMTs don’t seem to be very worried
12:17 152 89 60 Called doctor, seems the EMTs were right
12:20 156 96 65
12:26 144 86 60 Out of the woods? I’m feeling better but just shaken
12:57 142 89 57 Still feeling really shaky but at least I’m pretty sure I’m not gonna die today
14:36 145 94 56 feeling like garbage but I also still haven’t eaten which might have something to do with it
16:56 147 91 62 still feeling shitty but at least I’m stable, hopefullY I sleep really good tonight
18:56 139 86 62
23:46 137 01 59 bedtime