Life In Space

I hate doctors. No, not the ones I work for. I like most of them. It's the ones I pay for medical care. Or in this case mental care. I had an appt with my head doc yesterday, the one that treats my ADD. Ok, hate is a strong word. He's probably just as frustrated with me as I am with him. I was dreading this visit. You see, I'm so sensitive to most meds that if I take anything for an extended period of time I usually end up feeling like crap from it. In the 4 years since I was diagnosed I've been on 5 different meds, and have ended up having bad interactions with all of them, sometimes after taking them without problem for months. This makes controlling ADD rather difficult and frustrating for everyone. This wouldn't be a big problem if the effects weren't things like not eating (for 3 months) and my pulse/blood pressure skyrocketing (in some cases almost doubling).

Well, this was that day where I had to put my foot down and tell my doc that we weren't messing with the dose anymore, I'm tired of feeling like crap. I'm tired of crashing into exhaustion; I'm tired of feeling nauseous all the time. At least I wasn't on the verge of having a stroke, like I was with the Adderall and Ritalin. The med I've been on for a year or so isn't a stimulant, so I haven't had the cardiac problems, which is the only reason I've suck with it so long! But frankly, I'm missing out on more when I feel so horrible than I do when I'm my normal space cadet. So 3 weeks ago I threw my hands up (again) and quit taking it. Completely. And suddenly I'm functioning, a little inefficiently, which is an improvement. I figured my doc would kill me. He hates it when I mess with my meds without telling him. He's convinced I'm going to kill myself in some freak accident if I'm not medicated during all waking hours. And ok, so maybe I did accidentally leave the eye on the stove turned on for 2 days while Greg was gone to Kansas, but I didn't actually burn the house down!

So we change to something brand new. Which, it turns out, is very similar to Adderall. Great. But he says it's a smaller dosage and better control and blah blah blah and if that doesn't work we'll try the Ritalin patch. I'd pretty much rather go back to work at the bank than take Ritalin again, but that's for another visit.

I dropped off the prescription today and of course it's new so they have order it, but I should have it tomorrow, so I can start it on Thursday. Yippee. In a way, I'm dreading it. I'm physically and mentally miserable when I'm on the meds, but I can't function like a normal person without them. This sucks. I'll stop griping now. Things could be worse, I know this, but after four years of fighting this, I'm tired. Really really tired.

UPDATE:

Apparently yesterday when the pharmacist said, "We'll have it in tomorrow," what she MEANT to say was, "We'll have it in sometime after noon on Friday..." Gee thanks. All pumped up for NOTHING. No, I'm not bitter.