Re: been waiting a year now after referral to the psychiatrist…

[Curlymoe115]

In Alberta I was booked into a sleep study and then had to go in and pick up the machine and do it at home. I have a slight sleep apnea (but only if I roll onto my back, suggested I get a shirt with a half tennis ball sewed into it) and they did the sleep study in one night. I have my own room, I call it my cave because with my new room darkening covers, fan blowing on me and my blankets tucked under my chin I am warm and snug. But even with all of these things I still do not sleep through the night. And when I wake up I have to get up and move around. Then 2 or 3 hours later I finally get back to sleep. I am a great believer in the afternoon nap.

I do know that my psychiatrist would prescribe meds for my numerous conditions and then he would give me a lab form so that he could check a number of balances in my system so that he had imperical data on how I was fairing on medications. He also wanted my anecdotal take on how I was fairing on the medications. So you maybe surprised that his only reaction to taking someone elses meds would be to just ask you how it made you feel. Be as honest as you can. A year is a very long time to go for an assessment and if you find the symptoms completely debilitating then you would of course be desperate.

A lot of doctors are still hung up on stimulants being addictive yet they continue to prescribe things like Oxycontin for pain or morphine. Completely addictive substances but if they help you deal with the pain then they are good. But even when you tip over into addiction they often can’t recognize the symptoms. My 80 year old granny was a drug addict completely addicted to Oxycontin. She was too disciplined to abuse it, but she would watch the clock for hours before it was time for her next dose. Her pain became truly agonizing as she waited for that dose. But before the T3’s ate through her stomach lining she was able to be pain free right up to the time of her next dose. Yet even with other family members urging the doctor to change her medications he refused to do so. He was convinced that since she was not wolfing them down like candy that her addictions were manageable. This woman went from being active in the community to zoning out in a blissful state right after she had taken her next dosage to walking the floors continuously for hours before the next dose was due. She stopped leaving the house, she stopped doing her “work” and became a clock watcher. Then she died of a heart attack brought on by her addiction.

So if you get a feeling of slowing down your brain chemistry from a stimulant then it is probably appropriate for a stimulant to be prescribed as long as you journal your feeling and you have a trusted advisor watch to make sure that it does not become an addiction. If you have no past addiction issues and you are truly not using these as a high, then you aren’t really abusing drugs. I have never heard of stimulant meds clearing sinuses but perhaps this was a benefit for your friend so as a last ditch effort she offered this solution to you. Whatever the case when you are finally diagnosed with whatever then you already have an idea of a medicine that you are interested in trying. Ancedotaly you already think it will have a therapeutic benefit. So then once he prescribes it he will probably send you back for blood work to check how your body is processing the drugs.

On another note, I can never get zen. I have tried meditation but no matter how much I tried thoughts always penetrated into my brain. The more I tried to block these thoughts the more they bombarded me. Yoga is too slow. I do better when I am huffing and puffing instead of trying to fold myself into a pretzel. So I am happy that you have found something that is working for you.

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