Posted by Elizabeth on July 20, 2001, at 15:36:26
In reply to Re: hand holding » Elizabeth, posted by Lorraine on July 20, 2001, at 10:29:50
> > > > I went to a school that's considered very tough academically, but I found time to party too.
>
> That's great, elizabeth. It shows that you have great confidence in your intellectual abilities.No, it shows that I was really stressed out and needed to chill sometimes!
> I did all my heavy partying in high school and managed to miss attending most of it. I had no idea that I was smart until I started performing well in college ( a local state school), but I don't think I was always a bit insecure about it and so didn't tempt fate by partying at school.
I didn't party much in high school at all. My high school experience was pretty dull.
> You test your basil temperature by putting a thermometer under you armpit for 15 minutes upon awaking but before leaving the bed. If you temperature is below 98 degrees consistently, then it suggests that there is a thyroid deficiency notwithstanding the results on the standardized thyroid tests.
Buprenorphine probably screws up my body temperature. But I could do the armpit test before taking my morning dose of buprenorphine. Thanks, I think I will try that. (Hmm, do I even have a thermometer?)
> I'm confused. Doesn't the weight gain associated with Nardil indicate that it is not activating?
The weight gain is due to appetite stimulation. Nardil is activating, especially for people who are very tired and slowed-down when depressed. It generally reduces your need for sleep, but some people who take it do get really tired in the afternoon, for some reason.
> I do wish that weight gain and sexual dysfunction were not part of the Nardil profile.
I didn't have any sexual problems on it. But then again, I didn't have sexual problems on Prozac, either. I have encountered a lot of people who say they didn't gain weight on Nardil -- it's clearly not a universal thing.
> I also wonder if I am more likely to have these side effects given the fact that I have had them on SSRIs.
I don't know about the weight gain; sexual dysfunction seems to be almost universal with SSRIs, though.
> [re charting moods]
> You know the pathetic piece is this--I need to track them in part because I don't "trust" my reactions to drugs. I mean when my pdoc says how is it going with ___, my reaction may very well depend on how things are going that day. The mood clouds everything. So the mood charts help keep me honest, so to speak, and provide me with some information as to triggers etc.That's not pathetic; of course how you feel about the drug depends to some degree on how you're feeling about life in general at that moment. But you're right, that is another good reason for keeping a "mood diary."
> Well, I wasn't wild about my pulse rate fluctuations on it either. One day (early on), my pulse ranged from 120 to 58 during the day.
Your pulse always fluctuates widely over the span of a day. Did you check your blood pressure at all?
> And, I didn't like the amount of exertion I felt on running up the stairs.
Propranolol did that to me a little bit, too; I got winded more easily when I was on it (I only use it occasionally, when I need my hands to be very steady, although I used it more often on Nardil because Nardil made my essential tremor worse). I also remember that I would get dizzy when I was working out.
> I know, but I'm very sensitive to drugs. (When I go into a new store, the first place I go is to the pill crushers to see if they have a better one than I use. By the way, the one at Kmart seems to be the best).
< g > I'll keep that in mind!
Do you think you metabolise some drugs poorly, or is your drug sensitivity more of an anxiety thing?
> I can go up on the Valium to 2 mg if I need to.
That's something. Although I've taken as much as 40 mg of Valium and it didn't do *anything*. (I take 2 mg of *Xanax*. < g >)
> I have felt the hyperventilating decrease pretty significantly on it--but we'll see. Initial reactions don't alway pan out for me.
That's not so surprising. Sometimes you might have a nonspecific ("placebo") response, or you might become tolerant. Beta blockers do help with hyperventilation and other sympethetic nervous system effects. I've used Inderal successfully for hyperventilation with MAOIs, stimulants, and opioids (that last one is pretty weird, I know).
> I'm also concerned about the withdrawal issues. My pdoc's response to this concern was: "Lorraine, you take so little of these drugs I just don't think it will be a major issue for you." I'm wondering if this is true or whether the addiction issues are not absolute dose dependent but rather dose dependent relative to the amount that works for that person.
I wouldn't use the word "addiction" to describe what you're talking about. But yes, I think that withdrawal symptoms can have something to do with how effective the dose you're taking is; for example, a large person may need a higher dose than a smaller person (or an extensive metaboliser may need more than a poor metaboliser), but they both may experience similar withdrawal symptoms upon discontinuing the drug.
> I suggested Klonopin to my pdoc. His thought was that it was sedating and that Valium has a very long half life.
That's sort of misleading, IMO. Valium is very rapidly taken up into the CNS, but it's then redistributed throughout the body. It does have a long-lived metabolite (nordazepam), but the anxiolytic effects can only be expected to last a few hours. It shouldn't be used once a day (unless you're just using it for sleep, of course).
> By the way, I did take Xanax for about a week once. I hated it because I felt so drugged even at low doses.
It's just as well; Xanax is a pain to use if you're going to take it regularly. (Then again, so is Valium.)
[re: opiates reaction]
> Codeine is the only legal one I have tried. Dysphoric may be too strong a word.It just means "crappy." :-)
> My reaction to the drug was immediate (within an hour of taking it) and, of course, I took no more. It was prescribed for a root canal. I had thought I could go back to my staid law firm and work the rest of the day. Talk about a bad place to feel unsafe and vulnerable.
That still seems really weird and alien to me, even though I know it's not all that uncommon.
> > "senior moments?"
>
> If you don't know what they are, then you are young and lucky.Uhh...okay.
> > > > Huh. I don't get the analogy -- in what sense is your anxiety like the contents of a box that you opened?
>
> OK, elizabeth, but don't say you didn't ask. It's like the bell that can't be unrung.I think I understand.
-elizabeth
poster:Elizabeth
thread:67742
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010720/msgs/71087.html