Hello Mold

On 01.10.10, In Asthma, By admin

Still off the Lamictal, Seroquel, and Neurontin. Comparing now to a couple of months ago, how do I feel?

I don’t feel as moody, as paranoid, or as anxious. I haven’t had any panic attacks. I’ve lost about 10 pounds and I do feel lighter and less bloated because of that. I’ve stopped eating sugar all day every day so my energy level (such as it is) is at least more even than it was. I’m still getting muscle cramps but they don’t feel as debilitating. I’m not sleeping as well, but I’m getting more sleep than I did before (I think). More important to me, however, is the fact that I’m not taking those 3 medications that I’ve had a sneaking suspicion I had no business taking to begin with. Most important of all is that I don’t feel “addicted” to Seroquel. (I should add that I really hate trying to fall and stay asleep without Seroquel. I’ve tossed and turned so much in the past two weeks that I’m sore from it, and I’m getting up multiple times in the middle of the night).

However… this was not a panacea. It simply helped to narrow down the range of possibilities as far as what’s making me feel bad. My biggest “I don’t feel good” complaints right now are:

  • Rapid heart beat upon any kind of exertion
  • Shaky
  • Dizzy
  • Wheeziness
  • Itchiness
  • Watery eyes

I’ve been able to see a clear correlation between using my inhalers and the rapid heart beat/shaky symptoms. This makes perfect sense, but it’s also depressing. I tried going without my Symbicort for more than a week, and it was damned difficult to get to sleep at night because I never could clear my lungs out well enough to get a good breath. Without either inhaler I’d probably be shaky, etc., just from lack of oxygen.

Of course, I smoke, and yet what’s becoming clear to me – what I always suspected but am only just now becoming certain about – is that allergies… severe, chronic allergies… are behind the worst of my symptoms. They change every day. Some days, smoking makes things much worse. Some days I can smoke like a chimney and it doesn’t seem to make any difference at all.

So, as you know, I’ve been focusing on our house where the allergies are concerned, and feeling pretty overwhelmed because of it. I finally talked to David about it a little bit, yesterday, and told him I believe we’re going to have to bite the bullet and find some way to gut the master bedroom/master bathroom and get rid of the mold I have always suspected is everywhere in the walls and ceilings in there. He didn’t disagree, which is a start. In fact, we decided to go ahead and pull the wallpaper out of the master bath and take a look behind some of the tiles, last night – and there was mold everywhere. On the studs behind the rotted drywall, for instance, a slick, black coating of slippery mold. On the surfaces underneath the tile we pulled off, colonies of black and green mold. The area around the window seems especially bad, but we haven’t made our way to the door frame yet, which is rotted at the bottom and has a moldy hole we can already see inside of. The ceiling in the bedroom is puffy and droopy from an old leak the previous owners didn’t fix correctly, so my imagination is running wild thinking about what it looks like on the other side of it. And then there’s the carpet, of course – our air conditioning unit froze up last summer, causing a leak that flooded the carpet in our bedroom and hallway. God only knowns what the pad and floor look like underneath the carpet.

So our mission for today is to get our stuff out of the bedroom and move in to David’s office (our next largest bedroom) for the time being. From there we’re going to tape off the air intake vent and the doorways and start knocking stuff out. With plenty of protective gear/face masks, etc., of course. Depending on how it goes we may or may not have to call in some professionals for assistance.

A little afraid of what we’re going to find in the attic when we get the ceiling down. There’s no access to that part of the attic, right now. Our home owner’s insurance doesn’t cover mold – I remember that quite clearly – so whatever we find and whatever we need to do is going to be up to us to cover the cost of.

Once we get the moldy stuff off of/out of there we can call in the professionals to clean the rest of the moldy, dusty, 40-year-old-blown-in-insulation out of the attic, and to clean the duct work and reseal the ducts.

Maybe my allergies will improve as things progress, giving me more energy to deal with the mess itself.

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Between A Rock And A Hoard Place

On 01.06.10, In Asthma, By admin

Finally started my period, somehow managing to make it through PMS without falling back on the comforts of my old medications. I am sleeping through the night on nothing but 100mg of Unisom (which, in theory at least, should also help take care of my allergies).

My allergies, and accompanying asthma, have become my primary focus. I have to admit that my allergic reaction to the environmental variables around me is more than just an annoyance; I am in a more or less constant state of illness. If I take nothing for it I am incapacitated, if I take something for it the symptoms improve but are counter-balanced by the negative side effects of the medication I am taking. I am stymied as to what to do about this.

First, let’s look at the allergies themselves: pet dander, mold, and dust. These are the three items my allergy testing came back with as clear allergic reactions.

We have 3 cats (they came with the husband) and one big, fuzzy dog. All four animals shed profusely, and the cats prefer to lounge on whatever surface my husband and I most enjoy lounging on – especially the bed. At this point in our lives, pet dander has seeped in to the crevices of everything in our home, from our clothing to our walls. We are deeply attached to our pets and they will be with us for the rest of their lives.

Austin has measurable mold in the air every day of the year. Periods where the mold is “high” often find me wondering if I’ve contracted pneumonia because it makes me so ill.

Dust is another big problem. In my own life I have tended to retain few possessions, but my husband came with a house-full. We have stacks of furniture, boxes, bags of stuff in every room of our house. Although we don’t use these things we seem unable to get rid of them. My husband worries that he has hoarding tendencies and it’s true that he does. We are surrounded by things that not only collect, but generate, dust.

When we were dating I used to return home from my husband’s apartment overflowing with the symptoms of allergic reaction. I worried about what it would be like to live with them full time and now, five years later, I know.

I feel so trapped by all of this. I love my husband and my pets, but I am so tired and so sick from all of this that I don’t have the energy to do much about anything. I feel that I am fighting a constant, losing battle, and most days it seems like the best I can do is to brush the cat hair off my pillow before I go to bed and shake the dander out of my coat before I go to work. My husband really doesn’t get it. He doesn’t seem to have any allergies to anything, and he thinks of dusting as being that thing you do to the edges of boxes that allows you to get a better grip when you move them around every few years. His favorite time of day is snuggling in bed with the cats and, although we’ve gone through periods when we’ve banished them from the bedroom, eventually they always find a way back in until, eventually, the live on our bed. We’re going through such a period right now.

I’m at a point in my life where I need every once of energy I can get and yet the drag, the inertia, of my living situation seem insurmountable.

I will probably feel better within a few days – more hopeful, anyway. Today, though, just like yesterday and the day before, I feel glued to the spot I am in. Sick, tired, and resigned.

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RACTHOUGHTSING

On 12.30.09, In Asthma, Bipolar Disorder, Dentistry, By admin

Quick update: it went great – 100 times better than I could possibly have hoped for. Not only did they not have to give me any shots to numb my mouth during the teeth cleaning, but they told me I no longer have gum disease. On top of that, they did not 2, but 6, fillings – at the gumline of each of my top upper teeth. It was fabulous. A bit sore, now, but the impact to my self-esteem is huge. I no longer feel embarrassed to smile.

Well, so much for thinking I might be able to get by with Trazedone and Claritin :-(

I’ve been waking up with a song stuck in my head and racing thoughts for the past few days, and this morning was the worst, yet. I’ve been growing more distracted at the same time — and perhaps a bit moodier.  And my heart is racing, and I’m shaky. And this is very, very uncomfortable. The very worst of it seems to dissipate as I wake up, but most of it will probably stick with me throughout the day.

I’m concerned about myself, this morning. Will these old, familiar (but absent, for the most part, on my Seroquel/Lamictal/Neurontin regimen) go away if I stop taking the Trazedone and Claritin? One small hope along with the concerns, though, is that it will stop once I start my period, which is likely to be late this month because of all the changes and stress over the past few weeks. Racing thoughts have always peaked right before my period.

So — no Claritin today, and I’ll try half a Trazedone instead of the full 100mg pill before bed, tonight.  I’ll try switching to Unisom (my old stand-by from my pre-psychophamacuetical days) over the next few days, or maybe I’ll try Melatonin, instead.  I’ll try taking something else for allergies — or even taking nothing for allergies. Allergies are a common topic of conversation in Austin, Texas, especially this time of year. While the optical migraines, itchy skin, runny nose, and watery eyes are miserable, they are nothing compared to how uncomfortable I feel when my asthma gets worse on top of it (as it always does). This time of year I have the triple-play of mold, cedar, and artificial heating, and I have yet to find a way to feel better for any long period of time. Claritin works minor miracles, but I can’t tolerate it for more than a few days at a time (if the racing thoughts don’t happen, extreme irritability does). Although this sounds extreme, it’s actually quite common in this part of the country.

And just to get all of my whining in, for the day, my internal thermostat has gone wonky. It’s 41 degrees outside and we’ve had our heater set on 73 for the past 24 hours, and I’m sitting here in my husband’s sweatshirt, flannel pajama bottoms, and socks; sitting here drinking hot coffee, and freezing. Wishing it was 104 outside again, as it seemed to be for most of the summer. I don’t have much tolerance for cold – in fact I started looking for beams of sunlight to stand in during my smoke breaks when the temperature finally dropped below 90 last September – but this has been one of the coldest Decembers on record in Austin.

I’m heading off for my second round of dental work this morning. I’m taking what would normally be 3 separate appointments (one for root scaling and planing in both sides of my mouth, and one for 2 fillings I’m having done) and combining them in to one. While I do not expect it to be a pleasant experience and while I know my mouth will be sore and my teeth will be extra sensitive for the next few days, I do look forward to having this dental work behind me.

I need to leave here in about 45 minutes; in the meantime, I’m going to go crank the heat up to 77, wrap up in a fuzzy comforter, and plop down on our sofa under the heating vent.

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Check Up

On 12.28.09, In Asthma, Diet, Insomnia, Medication, By admin

I ran through the contents of this blog the other day. I started it back in October (not so long ago, really) with a few posts from the previous year. I thought I wanted it to be a blog about mental illness… but that’s not how it worked out, it seems. For now, at least, this blog is really more about simply trying to feel better in every possible way. And for now, at least, that means trying to sort out what is causing what in my body (if baseline should be a body that functions well and feels fine).

I’ve stopped taking Lamictal, Seroquel, Neurontin, and Symbicort. I’ve cut my Protonix dose in half. I’ve added Trazedone and 12-Hour Claritin D. If you saw my post about side-effects, then you know the list of problems I’ve been dealing with on a daily basis is quite long, and if you’ve been reading lately at all you know that I also had some relatively major oral surgery a couple of weeks ago.

Here’s an update on how things are going, so far.

Sleep {Seroquel}

I have a history of running in to intolerable withdrawal symptoms when I try to wean myself off of Seroquel. But off of it I am, and I seem to have managed to get through it just fine, this time.

Seroquel is the most effective sleeping pill (not it’s intended purpose, but a side effect, actually) I’ve ever taken, and believe me when I say I’ve tried them all. On the other hand, it never made sense to me to take a sleeping pill every night for the rest of my life. Sleeping pills are usually short-term solutions. Instead, it’s been a daily solution of mine for close to ten years. Add to that the risks associated with this drug — weight gain, high cholesterol, diabetes — and you have some very good reasons to stop taking it. The final kicker for me, though, was that I began to experience what my doctor and myself thought might be extrapyramidial symptoms (i.e., I couldn’t swallow at night).

To my enormous surprise, I was able to successfully make the switch from Seroquel to Trazedone in one fell swoop. Two things made the difference, I think: 1) my allergies bother me a lot at this time of year, so I started taking 12-Hour Claritin D at about the same time that I stopped taking Seroquel (which made the all-over itching tolerable); and 2) my oral surgery gave me something else to think about.

I think I’m sleeping about as well on Trazedone as I did on Seroquel, though maybe not quite as deeply. I gradually stopped having any trouble swallowing, though it’s impossible to say if Seroquel was the specific cause of that problem.

Although I’ve taken Seroquel for about 10 years, I took other things for years before that, starting back in 1996. My hope is that some time in the next year I can learn to sleep without a sleeping pill, again. It’s going to take quite some time to get there, I fear.

Mood {Lamictal, Neurontin}

Here’s something worth noting: my mood does not appear to have been affected by these changes in any negative way at all. In fact, the paranoia has disappeared, and my mood overall just seems much more even that it had been. Trazedone is also an antidepressant, so I guess that could be helping things, but I don’t know.

You’d think that someone who’s bipolar would at least have some kind of major mood swing when confronted with all of these sudden chemical changes and physical stressors, but it simply hasn’t happened.

Lungs/Asthma {Symbicort}

All of the congestion in my lungs – and I do mean all of it – stopped as soon as I stopped taking Symbicort. That’s one drug I didn’t stop all at once, I tapered off of it, and the congestion tapered away with it. The constantly having to clear my throat, the coughing something up every few minutes of the day, are gone. In addition, I simply don’t feel nearly as out of breath, and my heart doesn’t threaten to explode when I climb the stairs at work.

On the other hand, I do have a dry, allergy-like cough.

Now, here’s something weird: I tend to keep my albuterol inhaler with me at all times, and I typically use it either before or after every smoke break at work. My bronchial tubes protest when I smoke, this time of year, and the albuterol calms them down. Last week I got to work only to realize that I’d forgotten to bring my inhaler with me. It was a panicky feeling, let me tell you – I was convinced that as soon as I smoked I was going to start wheezing in a particularly uncomfortable and embarrassing way… but it never happened. I smoked less that day, and I never had an asthma attack, and I was just fine. I was just fine until I got home, that is. And then the bronchial spasms started back up.

We have 3 cats and a dog and we’re all slobs. Pet hair floats freely through the atmosphere, along with dust and dander, and I happen to be allergic to all three of these things. Yes, I’m allergic and I know it and I don’t do anything about it.

Long story short: my allergies and my housekeeping are both bad. And I need to stop using drugs as a crutch to avoid those realities.

Not that I’ll stop using my albuterol. Asthma is serious business. But still…. I’ve obviously been using my inhaler even when I don’t really need to. And if we were to clean this house up, and wash and groom our pets, and keep at it, I could probably use it even less. Meaning that I would feel better and lower the risk of side effects adding to my misery.

Indigestion (aka GERD) {Protonix}

A quick update about this. Unfortunately, this is not a symptom that has improved with a decrease in my daily dosage of Protonix.

My prescription for this medication calls for me to take twice the highest recommended dosage every day. I tried to cut it back to, simply, the highest recommended dosage. I’m back to getting indigestion every night. I haven’t woken up choking on it, yet (FYI: this is why I take it – I’ve had several frightening nights when I’ve woken up after having inhaled a bunch of acid from my stomach).

Two thoughts about this: 1) The original instructions I had for this medication called for me to take it first thing in the morning 30 minutes before I consume anything else, including coffee. I’ve never taken it that way, so that’s something to try. 2) Maybe I need to go back to my doctor or see another doctor about this problem.

A related problem has been nausea. It may be a withdrawal symptom, but I have been experiencing sudden and intense waves of nausea. These have been easily remedied by eating something as soon as the nausea hits. I have mild nausea when I don’t eat enough, anyway, but this has been something else. Thank goodness there’s a fast and easy way to control it.

Diet

My intense craving for sweets seems to have dissipated. In fact, a bigger problem I’m facing is a simple lack of appetite. I do still get hungry, occasionally, but only after going for close to 24 hours without eating. I’m having to force myself to eat during the day because the motivation (hunger) to eat simply isn’t popping up in a normal way. I have no desire to cook anything specific because I don’t feel hungry for anything specific. When I do eat, I don’t eat much.

How much of this anorexia is being caused by my change in medications, and how much is being caused by recovery from oral surgery (eating is also much more difficult than it was a few weeks ago) is impossible to tell.

My diet is definitely causing me some problems. I’m running out of energy, and when I’m low on energy I’m even less likely to eat.

I think of this as an opportunity to change my diet for the better. If I don’t care what I eat then it doesn’t matter if I choose, say, a healthy meal rather than junk food. This is a work in progress for me.

(By the way, I think it’s worth noting, here, that after my oral surgery the morning of the 16th, I didn’t eat again until the night of the 19th and that was just some mashed potatoes and green beans).

I’ve only lost 5 pounds, which means I’m not getting anything out of this problem with my appetite. Probably because I’m continuing to make poor choices about what I eat – a milkshake in lieu of lunch, a Snak-Pak pudding in lieu of breakfast, a sausage-croissant sandwich from Jack In The Box in lieu of dinner.

Sex Drive

Well hello there! Haven’t seen you around these parts in awhile. Where did you disappear to, anyway? Gosh but I’d love to spend some time with you. I hope you’ll stick around while I recover from the raging yeast infection the antibiotics I took for my oral surgery gave me. You. Are. Looking. Good.

While my husband is clearly happy to hear me say I have a sex drive again, he seems equally happy to chuckle about my inability to do anything about its return. Almost as if he is basking in the irony of the situation. I mean this is a good way. Anticipation in any marriage is a welcome change of pace.

That’s it for today, just wanted to check in. I’m curious as to where this will all lead. But hopeful, too. Coming soon: research the side-effects of 12-Hour Claritin D and Trazedone, and update my side-effects table.

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