Temporary Sanity 101 Blog

Ugg, my neurologist is a little Napoleon.  It seems he forgot to whom he was speaking, because he told me that people who are a little loopy are always worse than they seem.  He said they are worse, because they are trying not to look loopy.  This conversation started over my reluctance to switch to Neurontin, since a person I know with bipolar who took it went nuts and beat her child.  I didn't get the bipolar part out, so he went on blathering about people using medication as an excuse for doing what they would have done anyway.

Before I knew I had a medical mental problem, I was just being myself, so I do not agree with Dr. Neurology's assessment on the slightly "loopy" people trying to act "less loopy."  Of course, I try to check myself and make sure I'm not overreacting, but I'm still acting however I act and analyzing later to see if I need to ask for more or less medicine.  The level of control I have over myself...

Tags: bipolar, doctors, medication, mental illness

People don't get that medication doesn't cure bipolar.  It may mask the symptoms.  It may delay episodes.  At some point, it will need adjustments or it will fail, and it might fail altogether no matter what.

When someone with this illness discontinues a medication, it's usually because that medication is no longer working or is causing more problems than it seems to be correcting.  There may be some people who think they are better and stop taking medication, but why would you quit taking what worked if it was really working and really made you well?  Seems to me like that kind of thinking is crazy thinking and indicates that there is a problem prior to quitting the meds as well as after.

For me, I get scared by freaky side effects.  Sometimes bipolar medications cause permanent damage, and I figure there are enough medications out there for me yet to try that I think this justifies my avoiding what may be irreversible side effects of some medications. 

The other problem is that my doctor...

Tags: bipolar, medication

Another unusual thing that happened in trying to manage the pain from my dental work this summer is that I started smelling smoke that no one else can smell.  This condition is called phantosmia.  It can be a symptom of tumor or seizures, which Dr. Neurology says I do not have.  He thinks it is just more brain cooties.

My latest theory is that at times my medication makes me extra sensitive to the thiols (also called mercaptans) in the environment.  Thiols are sort of like alcohols (OH), except the oxygen in replaced with sulfur (SH).  The sulfur is attached to hydrogen (H).  Thiols are added to natural gas to make it smell bad so leaks can be detected.

My reasons for this theory are:

1. Some medications similar to what I take are thought to enhance the sense of smell
2. The smoke smell started after beginning a medication
3. The smell can be interrupted by breathing through a mask or tissue or cloth
4. The smell comes and goes
5. The smell seems to happen when the furnace...

Tags: medication, mercaptans, phantosmia, smell, smoke, thiols

This fall I switched from Lithium to Tegretol.  Lithium was depressing and made me gain weight which was even more depressing.  But that's not the main reason I switched to Tegretol.

This summer I discovered a new chronic illness to add to my repertoire, as if I needed more.  This one is called Trigeminal Neuralgia, and mine was triggered by getting a shot of novocaine and having two fillings replaced.  It is treated with Tegretol until eventually that no longer works, then you just want to kill yourself even if you have no mental health issue. 

The pain is like an ice cream headache in one whole half of the face.  I have pain everywhere that the novocaine effected, and the pain started in earnest when the original numbness wore off.  The shot hurt like hell in the first place, but since I'd not had a shot like that before, I didn't realize that was not supposed to happen.  There are very few days, and by that I mean one or two days in...

Tags: bipolar, dental work, medication, migraines, mood stabilizers, pain, trigeminal neuralgia