Why Am I So Sad?

On By WendyIn Bipolar, Chronic Illness29 Comments

*Warning, this post may be a trigger for some people. It mentions major depression and passive suicide ideation.

self

I’m sitting here with a severe migraine and I’m certain that’s why I simply want to die, but why do I feel that way so much on other days? Let’s face it, my life is going better than it has in a long time. Yes, I’m having a really bad migraine right now, it isn’t as bad as it was last night or I wouldn’t be able to type this, but it’s still pretty dang severe. However, my migraines are much better overall. I’ve had 5 migraine free days this month! That’s enough for me to be dancing in the streets! I haven’t had a month with 5 migraine free days in….Oh, I don’t know how long! I have a house of my dreams, an amazing husband, wonderful neighbors….So why am I so sad? Why do I sit here and question if I should actually exist? How can life be so much better, and yet I feel so bad so much of the time? I have this urge to just run and run and run. I have this compulsion to pack a bag and leave. Where would I go? Why do I think that would make anything better? In reality I know it wouldn’t, after all, I’m trying to get away from myself and no matter where I go, there I am. I simply do not want to exist.

So these are these are the things I asked my psychiatrist last week, why am I still so sad? Why do I feel no better when everything in my life is going so well? She said, “It’s not what’s on the outside that’s bothering you, it’s your brain chemistry that’s out of balance.” Yeah, I knew this, really I did, but I’ve never had it this bad with everything going so well, and that’s a bit too simplistic for me. So I came home and started reading, I wanted to know more about this “brain chemistry” of mine. I found this article in Harvard Health that explains things really well in language I understood, and I thought some of you might find it really interesting too. What Causes Depression? Onset of depression more complex than a brain chemical imbalance.

More about me….We are still working on getting the ketamine approved. It seems as if it might actually be happening soon, or at least we will be getting a definite yes, or no from the insurance company, instead of this extremely long hold up that both me and my doctor are extremely frustrated over. If they come back with a “No”, I don’t know what the next step will be.

I’m doing everything I’m supposed to to try to be better. I’m eating well (most of the time), writing a gratitude journal every night, writing affirmations every morning, I’m trying to move more, I’m meeting new people, making friends…..All of this is very hard for me. I’m pushing myself beyond all my comfort zones and I’m still doing it, I’m trying so very hard to get better. At least when I’m focusing on those things I don’t have time to think about other things, but then I have days like today when all I can do is sit here because it hurts so bad and I think, “what’s the point?” I was supposed to go to coffee with my neighbors this morning, and I had to get Stuart to cancel for me because I couldn’t lift my head off the pillow it hurt so much. That’s a great way to make an impression, huh? I’m so tired. I’m just so tired of trying so hard, it just shouldn’t be so hard.

I know it isn’t always this hard.

I know it can get better.

I know it will get better.

I KNOW I WILL GET BETTER.

“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” ~Seneca

When I Can’t Take Abortive Migraine Medication

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness8 Comments
Image by Seksak Kerdkanno from Pixabay

I have chronic migraines. You are defined as having chronic migraines when you have more than 14 migraines a month, I have more than 20. In the last month I’ve had 2 migraine free days. Due to the risk of Medication Overuse Headaches (you can read more about MOH here), and the possibility of some nasty side effects, you are only allowed to take abortive medications twice a week or a maximum of 10 per month. Abortive (also referred to as acute or rescue) medications are medications you take at the time of the migraine to stop it, they are best used at the first signs of a migraine. Abortive medications are analgesics (such as NSAIDS, Excedrin Migraine…), triptans, ergotamines, and on rare occasions opioids.

This week has been a rough one, I’ve had some intense migraines and I’d already used my abortive medications for the week. What’s a girl to do?

Suffer? Yeah, maybe, but I have found a few things that do help a little and sometimes they even get me back to my smiling self. 🙂 Like most migraine treatments these work best if you use them early, when the pain gets really bad, it takes much more to get it under control. (so it’s really hard when you wake up with a whopper) Here’s a little list of things I’ve been using that seem to help me, just keep in mind that everyone is different these might not work for you, or, who knows, they might work better for you than they do for me.

  • caffeine – one of the first things I reach for now is caffeine. I don’t use a lot, but I am using more than I used to. I always keep my consumption under 200mg a day (going over can cause rebound headaches so you have to be careful about this treatment), but when I have a migraine a little jolt of caffeine can help. I normally take it in conjunction with other things. (my usual dosage is about 41 mg in a 16oz drink)
  • ginger – Ginger has been shown to help stop a migraine. There have been a few studies showing how ginger helps with migraines, the one that impressed me the most was one that was held in an ER, the patients that came in with migraines were either given an NSAID with ginger or the NSAID alone and the group that were given ginger were more likely to find relief across the board. There is also a study that showed that ginger was as effective as sumatriptan (Imatrex) for some people. I’m not one of those people, but I do think it helps. So I take 500 mg of ginger now at the first sign of a migraine. Here are some links to studies about ginger Ginger and migraine treatment, Ginger efficacy compared to sumatriptan, Feverfew and ginger for migraine.
  • I decided to try a homeopathic remedy, I honestly didn’t think it would do anything, but it didn’t cost much so I thought I’d give it a go. Much to my surprise, it helps. It’s not a miracle, it rarely takes it all away, but it often lessens it enough that I can function. (I think it’s worth noting that I’ve never taken this without either caffeine or ginger) It’s called Hyland’s Migraine Headache Relief. It contains Glonoinum, Belladonna, Gelsemium, Nux Vomica, Iris Versiolor, and Sanguinaria Canadensis. I found it at Sprouts, but when I did an online search it looks like you can find it all over. The dosage is 1 or 2 tablets every 4 hours. You let them dissolve on your tongue, I like this a lot. If I happen to not have water I can still take this, and it doesn’t taste nasty. I always start with 2, and in 4 hours if I need more I then decide if I need 1 or 2 at that dose. I have noticed no side effects from this so far. I bought this product with my own money, I am not receiving anything from the company, they know nothing of me, this is not an official review or anything like that.) undefined
  • medical marijuana – I’m going to write a post about this soon, probably the next post I put out, but I thought I’d put a little blurb here that I do use medical marijuana to help with my migraines. It is not a miracle, but it does help. However, it is a lot of trial and error to find what works for you.
  • ice or heat – my head is variable, it sometimes feels relief from an ice pack, sometimes from heat, so I try both. Sometimes I’m afraid to try either for fear of making it worse. But normally I’ll try ice if my pain is mainly on the top of my head, if my neck is the main culprit I’ll use heat, if my forehead is where the pain originates I kind of leave it. I have an IceKap, I have found it works well when my head wants ice, but it’s heavy and my neck doesn’t like that so I don’t use it much. However, if you are someone who needs ice for your migraine, this cap is great for getting your head cold and it stays in place. It presses on my glasses though, I don’t like that, I don’t like to take my glasses off when I have a migraine because of the vertigo. (again, I bought the IceKap, no one knows I’m saying anything about it. I’m not getting anything.)
  • Epsom Salt Bath – I can’t do this all the time because of vertigo and other times when I’m hurting too much I just can’t get in the tub, but when I have a moderate headache a nice soak in a tub with Epsom Salts can really help. Add the scent of lavender or mint and it can really be relaxing, and I normally hate scents, but I really liked the lavender Epsom salts I tried recently. It wasn’t a fake smell, or too over powering. It was very relaxing. That’s a good thing.
  • That’s about it from me, other people really like essential oils, but for the most part scents trigger migraines for me, none have relieved them. I do find peppermint a little helpful sometimes, but other times it makes me nauseous, so I don’t like to risk it. Lemon is about the only smell that never makes me sick. Oh…Sometimes if I eat something spicy it will lessen the pain in my head for little while, but it doesn’t last. If you can trigger an ice cream headache, it’s supposed to stop a migraine, but dang! That’s something I don’t really want to try. Oh who am I kidding, I have tried, you know it’s hard to trigger one of those when you are trying to do it. I still can’t tell you if it works, and when I think about it I really don’t want to cause myself that much pain.
  • Note that I didn’t include things like massage, acupuncture…. because I consider those more preventative and today I’m focusing on abortive treatments. Also I’m focusing on things I can do for myself without help.

How do you treat your migraines when you can’t take your meds,?

Did I share anything that you found interesting?

How has your week been? I’m thrilled to say today I don’t have a migraine! The exact opposite of every other day this week. Yay.

May we all have a pleasant weekend. We are finally getting the rest of our furniture this weekend. Woot, Woot!

Ready for 2020?!

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness13 Comments
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I’m baaaack! Whew, I didn’t mean to be gone so long. I actually did write a post during my absence, but, silly me, I forgot to hit “Publish” and it’s out of date now.

Let’s see what was going on when last I left you?

We were getting ready to move into our house. Check, that happened; there are still plenty of boxes and there is actually more to move from Stuart’s dad’s house, but we are in OUR house and it feels good, even if I’m extremely exhausted and flaring.

I had hopes that the nerve block injection I had in my neck was working, but it didn’t. I had a couple of good days, but I think that may have just been good days because it sure didn’t last. I saw the pain doctor again and I had an occipital nerve block on the right side on December 30th to hopefully help with my migraines. I actually do think this one is working. I have had migraines since the injection, but they did not start in that area. That’s great, because a LOT of my migraines do start in that area. It hasn’t been long, but so far I’m hopeful. I also had an x-ray of the thoracic region of my back and it showed no damage; I have to say I was surprised. I have so much pain in that area, and it feels like it comes from the bone. I’m happy I don’t have problems there, but I do wish I knew what the heck is wrong. It’s really hard when you can’t have an MRI. She also wants me to have a nerve conduction study to see what may be causing my arms to go to sleep since the nerve block in my neck didn’t help. I’m not looking forward to that test, it’s not very comfortable (to say the least), but hopefully it will provide some answers.

Right after my last post I had a severe gastritis attack accompanied by severe diarrhea (literally crapping my pants over and over. yes, I know, TMI). I had my yearly physical right after that and my doctor thinks I may also have diverticulitis. I’ve been referred to a gastroenterologist, but haven’t heard from them yet. The day of our move I woke to the all too familiar feeling of gnawing pain in my stomach, luckily it didn’t escalate to a severe gastritis attack, but it was a very uncomfortable day.

I can’t say much about the holidays because it is just a blur. I know they happened because of all the decorations in stores and specials on TV, but boy oh boy we sure didn’t have time to celebrate anything.

So now I am ready to say goodbye to 2019, and face 2020 with renewed hope and wonder. I plan to take each day as it comes, have more fun, and take things less seriously. I’m not going to make up a bunch of resolutions I probably won’t be able to keep, but I do want to face this year feeling a bit renewed. After all, I just moved into a new house, my life is drastically changing. I’m going to be changing places I normally do my shopping and even some doctors…because we now live on the other side of town. So much is changing, there is no need for me to make resolutions, things are just going to change naturally. However, I do plan to make some short term changes throughout the year. There are some things I want to try so I plan on doing some 30 day challenges for myself, perhaps some of them will last longer, I’m sure some won’t last the whole 30 days. For example, for 30 days I want to eat vegetarian, to meditate daily, to journal daily, to draw daily, to not eat out, to not buy anything new except food… Well that’s 6 months right there! I’m not going to be hard on myself if I can’t keep to these things, but I feel like if I put a short time frame on it then I can just try it out and see if it’s for me, who knows it may be something I just love and will keep doing forever, or it may be something I hate and quit in a week, no pressure.

I think that’s enough to get things updated and to get me writing again. It has been one crazy busy month! Not only have we been moving, during the holidays, I had 1-3 doctor’s appointments each week. It’s time to slow down and get this year started.

Happy New Year everyone! May this year be filled with love and happiness for you all.

Ending a Horrible Year the Best Way

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness17 Comments
Image from pexels

I’m still pinching myself, I just can’t believe how much has changed recently, and all for the better. Wow…just Wow.

Our new home

I’ll start with the best news first, we close on our house on the 19th and we move in on the 20th! Yes, we will be in our new home before Christmas! I’m so excited I could squeal! and I probably have! hahaha We found the cutest house in the nicest neighborhood, I just adore it. It’s not exactly what we were looking for, but I just fell in love as soon as we walked inside. The neighborhood is focused on sustainability. The houses are all energy efficient, the neighborhood has a lot of walking and bike trails, it has it’s own coffee shop, and a few other little shops. It has the greenest school in the country that also ranks very high academically. It’s beautiful. The house has enough room for us and Dad, without being too big, and it has a little casita (a detached guest suite) in the back that’s going to be my studio. And I’m going to plant a lemon tree right outside my kitchen window. Perfect.

I’m able to enjoy all of that because my antidepressant is working better. I still haven’t gotten the approval for the ketamine, but we increased the dose of the Fetzima and it is helping more, I still feel like I have this black cloud over me, but it isn’t dropping buckets of rain and hail on me all the time. I can see the sun, maybe even a rainbow.

I’ve also had a few migraine free days. Yes! I really said that! The days aren’t consecutive, but I have had one here and there. I normally do not wake up with a migraine now, I get them in the afternoon usually. I’m not having as many severe migraines. They are normally moderate in intensity, when they are severe the severe stage doesn’t last as long. For example, I might have a migraine that last 9 hours, 2 of them will be severe. I did have a severe day one day this week, so it still happens, just not like it was. It looks like the Aimovig is doing something. Yay!!

The nerve block I got in my neck started helping, not completely, but I have been waking up most days without my arm being asleep or aching terribly. Every once in a while it will happen, but most of the time nope, it’s good. My follow up appointment was rescheduled because my doctor was sick, so I don’t know what the next plan is, I’ll find that out soon.

I had planned to post much more often but I’ve been so busy with all of the house stuff, doctor appointments, holiday stuff….I am so busy! I will try to post more soon, but I can’t promise anything, the next few weeks are going to be crazy busy! I have a lot of post written in my head, I just need to type them up.

Not everything in my life is perfect, but I’m feeling so much better I can’t think of a better way to close out a really crappy year and start 2020.

A Midi-Me Update – Injections, Psych meds, Houses…Stress

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness15 Comments
Photo by Thomas Plets on Pexels.com

A little bit of a catch-up as to what’s going on in my little corner of the world, besides, if I don’t write it down, how will I ever remember?

I got the results from the x-rays of my neck, it basically says I have Degenerative cervical spondylosis (often referred to as degenerative arthritis) with narrowing of C5-C6, retrolisthesis (the posterior or backward slippage of a vertebra) of C5 on C6, and bilateral neural foraminal encroachment (spinal nerve root is compressed on both sides) at this same level more extensive on the left.

I went in on Monday and got my injection. They did the injection between C7 and T1, a little to the right, because my right arm is the one that bothers me the most. When the nurse took me back to the procedure room I told her how nervous I was because of my hearing loss and Stuart couldn’t be back there. Since losing my hearing it’s very hard to have procedures BEHIND me without Stuart there to help me. She reassured me over and over that they would take good care of me. I had her tell me everything they would be doing, and I felt a bit more at ease. The doctor came in, this is the first time I met him, I only saw his assistant before, he asked if I could hear him at all and I tole him Yes, but after I lie down and he is behind me it will be garbled and I will have a very hard time. He seemed to understand. Obviously he didn’t, because it was horrible. He talked with his assistant the entire time, it sounded like just chit-chat but I can’t be sure because I couldn’t understand anything that was being said. I had no idea when he spoke to me. I didn’t know when he was going to stick me, nothing. I was terrified he was telling me to be very still or to move or something and I was not able to understand. When it was over I didn’t even know. I was confused if it was time for me to get up. When I sat up the nurse was there and asked if I was alright and I said, “I do not feel taken care of” and I burst into tears. I explained what happened and she said how sorry she was and that it should not have happened that way. I got myself together and went back to my room to get my IV out and leave. The doctor came out and made sure to catch me before I left and apologized. He was very nice and told me that he talks because it calms him, he was very sorry and it will never happen again. We will make sure we have a better way to communicate. I left feeling much better, and I was proud of myself for speaking up. In the past I would have held it in and gotten out of there as fast as I could and simply not gone back. Now they were educated and I had a much better experience.

Unfortunately, the shot hasn’t worked. I’ve seen no evidence of any change. We will have to try something else. I go back the day before Thanksgiving for a follow up, we’ll discuss the next steps then.

Now for an update on the psych side of things. I still haven’t gotten approval from my insurance company for the ketamine. They came back saying I needed to try TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) first, so my doctor’s office had to send back explaining that I can’t do that because of my cochlear implants. Of course, it takes the insurance company forever to come back with an answer. Geez. On the up side though, the new antidepressant she put me on, Fetzima, is doing some good. I’m not back to my normal self, but I’m not feeling like I’m in the deepest darkest depths of despair either. I saw my psychiatrist on Wednesday and we increased the dosage, I’m hoping it will bring me up a bit more. She told me to watch out for side effects, as it can cause headaches. I asked her, “How would I know?” I was being kind of serious, like, would they be different than this constant thing I have now? or what? But she said, “I guess you wouldn’t.” Well damn. Now how do I know if my migraine is actually getting better but this drug is causing me to have a headache?

We have been constantly looking for houses, trying our best to find just the right house for us before our lease is up. We can move into Stuart’s father’s house, but that means we’ll need to move twice. We thought about renovating the family home, but we don’t really want to live there forever, so we are still searching for a place to call our own. Crossing fingers and toes that a house we saw this week will turn out to be the one. We might just have a very magical Christmas.

Speaking of holidays, is there anything more stressful than trying to organize a holiday meal with people won’t tell you what they will and will not eat until you tell them what you are making and then they just say, “Oh I can’t eat that”, or “The kids won’t eat that”? Ugh! I used to really want to have a family holiday, but boy oh boy is it a pain in the butt. They can’t afford to do much, so we thought we’d do everything, but I couldn’t get anyone to tell me what they would eat. I swear you just can’t please some people. So they are bringing food too, we will have way too much food for 7 people, about half of it, I can’t eat. When we lived in NC we used to have an “orphans” Thanksgiving. We’d have a big meal with a bunch of people who had no where to go for the holiday. It was always so much fun. We’d often play games after dinner and talk for hours. I don’t know anyone like that here, of course, I don’t know many people here.

To make things much less stressful for Thanksgiving I ordered our meal from Wholefoods. I’m adding another vegetable, a desert, and some cookies. That’s all the cooking I’m going to do, and I love baking, so that’s not stressful. I also make my cookies in batches, I simply freeze the dough and cook it later. Also, if I can’t do it, it’s not a big deal, the meal is taken care of, and the other half of the family is bringing a pie, so everything is covered. I find, the trick to surviving the holidays when you are chronically ill is to have all your bases covered in case you can’t do the things you want to get done. Don’t over extend yourself. Rest often and don’t eat too much junk. Try to keep your normal schedule if you can. You might want to increase some of your supplements. I increase my vitamin C, D, and Zinc during the winter.

How do you survive the holidays? Any tips you want to share?

Free ebook version of an Award Winning Cookbook Giveaway! November 12th

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Giveaway
Just click on the image to take you to Amazon

I’m sharing this post by my friend over at See Janye Run. I’m so excited about this cookbook giveaway to take place on Tuesday, November 12th,  and thought you might be too! Jayne just told me they started the giveaway a little early so I just got my copy!  Be sure to head over to Amazon and snag a copy before it’s too late! 

All the details are in her post..

https://seejaynerun.com/2019/11/10/november-12th-only-free-award-winning-ebook-cookbook-for-all-us-kindle-readers/comment-page-1/#comment-228

Doctor of Pain

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness15 Comments
PAIN drawing by W. Holcombe

We have a little joke in our house about how the Pain Clinic sounds like it’s a place where you are going to get pain, a little S&M anyone? It should be called the Pain Relief Clinic don’t you think?

My migraine doctor (a neurologist that specializes in headache disorders) said she was sending me to a pain specialist for my neck pain; you can understand my confusion when I ended up at a Spine and Sports Medicine Center. I’ve been to a sports medicine center before and it was filled with lots of sweaty people doing exercises and recovering from surgery. To say I was a bit wary of this appointment was an understatement.

The confusion ended once I talked to the doctor. This may be called a spine and sports medicine center, but it’s not like any sports medicine center I’ve been to before. Stuart actually said he wondered if they used that name because of the negative connotation association with pain clinics. I think it may also be because they mostly treat people with spine issues. But yeah, this was different.

They took a thorough history, that was very hard for me to go through, I kept breaking down when I was filling out the paperwork as I was realizing just how long I’ve been living in pain.

These are the things, that I know of, that are causing pain to my head, neck, and back area (this does not include pain in other areas). In 1973, at age 10, I broke my right arm and found out I had a bone tumor, that would end up with 5 more breaks, and a major surgery including a bone graft in 1978, leaving me with my right arm shorter than the left and recurring pain. May of 1974 I had my first migraine, two months later I woke with a headache that never went away. In 1991 I fractured my 7th cervical vertebra, and had a severe contusion to the back of my head (I now have arthritis in my neck). In 2016 I had akathesia as a side effect from a medication that has left lasting effects to my back. I hope that doesn’t sound like I’m whining, really I’m not, it’s just the way it is.

After we talked about all my symptoms, the different types of pain, the numbness down my arm… and after we went through all the things I’ve tried to relieve my pain….PT, chiropractic, supplements, Botox, medications, acupuncture, massage….and how little they worked we discussed my next option, injections.

The first injection I’ll be getting is on Monday, it’s a corticosteroid injection to the right and between the C-7 and T-1 vertebra to address the nerves that run down my right arm. Every day I wake up with my right arm in severe pain and it has electrical sensations running down it, and my hand is weak. They decided to address that first. I’m very nervous about getting any steroid injections because of the risk of Avascular Necrosis. I had AVN in my left hip causing me to get a hip replacement, they believe it was caused from steroids. You can read more about that here. She said that most of the injections in the future would not be steroids, so hopefully this won’t do any harm. But what choice do I have? My quality of life is greatly diminished right now.

She sent me home with a prescription for a muscle relaxant and orders for an x-ray. Now I’m just waiting for Monday. I’m slightly nervous about this only because I was asked if I wanted sedation. Why would someone need sedation for this? They give you a local before the main injection. I’ve had major injections in my hips, and I’ve had lumbar punctures and patches in my spinal cord, I was never offered sedation for those. Am I wrong about how bad this is going to be? I had an injection for pain in my neck when I fractured it many years ago, I didn’t have sedation then. I was given something to calm me and it made things a little hard actually because I couldn’t stop laughing.

Have any of you had these kind of injections? What was your experience?

First Meeting

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Deaf6 Comments

I met someone yesterday who touched my heart, she cleaned my house, but that isn’t what made her special.

Since I’ve been having this flare I haven’t been able to keep up with the house cleaning so we decided to have someone come in to help out. I was looking on the Nextdoor site and saw where a neighbor was asking about a cleaner for her home, several people answered her but one person’s comment struck me more than the rest so I messaged her and asked if she’d be interested in helping us out. Lucky for us, she said yes. That’s how we met Lennie.

After several texts back and forth we set up a date and she came over yesterday. When she came to the door I felt I would like her instantly, and within the first 5 minutes I knew I was right. Her smile lights up her face and she is genuinely warm and friendly. We have a sign in our front yard, I posted a picture of it on here before, it says things like “Love is Love”, “No Human Is Illegal”, “Science Is Real”…. This sign means a lot to me. It says a lot about what I believe in, and who I am. When Lennie came in she mentioned how much she loved our sign, she said she saw it and thought “These are mine kind of people.” I gave her a high five.

We chatted some as she went about her business. She knew from our messages about some of my health issues, but I didn’t know she had a few. Her illness was not supposed to be chronic, but it did have some long term complications. She really understands going through a long ordeal before being diagnosed.

The main thing I really wanted to write about was how she reacted to my hearing loss. When she found out I lost my hearing just a few years ago she first asked the same thing everyone else does, “Do you know sign language?” I wonder why that’s the first thing people ask? You know when you are not immersed in a language it’s hard to become fluent in it, especially at my age. Taking a class when you are fighting vertigo and migraines on a daily basis is almost impossible. Absorbing a foreign language while dealing with those? Well I haven’t been able to do it. But anyway, after we discussed all that, I promise I didn’t say anything rude, she asked me something no one else ever has: “Has losing your hearing been difficult?”

My first instinct was to say “No”, and just brush it off. I started to say that I thought it was more difficult for Stuart, but then I stopped. I looked at her and felt tears well up in my eyes, “Yes, yes, it has been very difficult.”

I was taken aback by the fact that she asked, and genuinely seemed to care. No one has ever asked me that before. I’ve never gotten the impression that anyone has felt that it has been very difficult. I think some people see that I have some challenges, but I don’t think they understand how difficult it is, and I think it would make them uncomfortable if they knew. I think a lot of people think my cochlear implants “fixed” my hearing loss, and others think I’m really good at handling it. Truth of the matter is, it’s extremely difficult, my CIs are far from perfect, and I think I handle it pretty well but that doesn’t mean I always understand what the heck you’re saying or that it’s any less difficult.

Meeting Lennie made me realize that I can still make connections with people in the “real world”. It may still be difficult to nurture a friendship when I can’t drive and may often have to cancel things and I can’t hear in many situations…but Lennie made me want to try.

You never know what kind of mark you may leave on a person, try to make that mark a good one. Look what Lennie has done for me.

(I will try to post about some of the difficulties I have dealing with hearing loss soon.)

Ketamine and Esketamine — Repost from Experiments in Happiness

On By WendyIn anxiety, Bipolar, Chronic Illness, Invisable Illness, Mental Health9 Comments

In the upcoming weeks, as soon as my insurance approves it, I will be receiving Spravato (esketamine nasal spray) for depression. I wanted to put together a post explaining what it is all about it, then I found this post and thought I couldn’t possibly do a better job. So I hope you don’t mind if I share this with you. Please note that this covers all forms of ketamine, if you want to just read the “How Effective Is It” statistics surrounding what I will be receiving read sections 3 and 4. I got so much information from tbe post started to not even watch the video attached to it, but then I noticed that it is captioned so I went ahead and watched it and it is very interesting. It does get a little in depth in the science part of things, so if you are interested in that kind of thing, it’s worth it, but if that bores you, you might want to skip it.

Do you have any experience with ketamine? Know anyone who has? Do you have or know anyone who has, medication resistant depression? Or like me, the meds stopped working or there are just way too many bad side effects? I’d love to know other’s experiences.

Ketamine and Esketamine

Drug Class: NMDA Antagonist

How it works: Blocks a channel for a chemical in the brain called NMDA. This, in turn, increases the effects of another channel for a chemical called AMPA. This leads to increased effects of BDNF and mTOR. The increased effects of BDNF and mTOR helps the brain to rapidly form new […] Ketamine and Esketamine — Experiments in Happiness