Don't Let Anyone Dull You're Sparkle part 2

Meds

PRN

Buspar:

Buspar helps with anxiety really well. However, it only helps with anxiety. Taking it to calm myself before a stressful situation, or as I begin to "ramp up" is the best option. It can help some with terror depending on the cause.

PRN abilities

Because the buspar is very fast acting and has short lived benefits, I have found it useful

as a PRN. The best way to use it as a PRN is to take it regularly as well. Just a single tab is not enough to make a big dent in a problem, but by taking it regularly, I can use one tab to boost the meds in my system in the moment.

Risperdal:

What it does

Risperdal helps with paranoia, panic, obsession, negative thoughts, terror, and muscle spasms, by calming the emotions that cause them. I take a very low dose of risperdal. A regular dose of 0.5mg and up to 0.5mg of PRN. I don’t know why this low dose works, but it does. To compare: I was on 2mg a day plus 1 mg PRN. The higher doses did nothing any more helpful than the lower doses and had bad side affects.

PRN abilities

I take risperdal as PRN only when I have to, because I have such a limited PRN. I use it for the reasons above. This little 0.25mg tablet can help so much. It is often the only way I can stay in school or in public.

Ibuprofen:

How it effects me

Ibuprofen works to relax my muscles and mind. It calms me. There is some evidence that by taking Ibuprofen I may be adjusting the lithium in my blood stream. It doesn’t actually matter to me. It works. Slowing muscle spasms and calming my thoughts.

Regular only

Lithium:

What it does

Lithium is the only med that has an unclear function as far as specifics. What I mean by that is: all the other meds are new enough that I can recognize a clear difference

between taking one and not taking it. With lithium, however, I really don't see the effects daily. But when I miss a dose, it gets really bad. For example: The last time I had the flu, I missed multiple doses of lithium in particular because of its side effects - nick named "lithium sick". Because of being off lithium for those few days, I became paranoid and panicked. I would do things like hiding under the table, crying.

Lithium sick

Lithium sick is best described as similar to the feeling one gets right before vomiting, but instead of the feeling being in one's tummy, the feeling is in one's neck. It's a gagging type of feeling and I have worked hard to not puke when this happens. It happens not only when I take the lithium, but sometimes when I drink water.

Lamictal:

How I started it

We decided that I would be more comfortable if I got off the lithium, so we tried to trade it out for lamictal. The day I reached half the daily dose of lithium I had been taking, I developed extreme emotional pain. Reactions such as uncontrollable crying and hiding were the main events. I was not in control of myself. So I went back on the lithium. But we kept the lamictal because I found that it adds an additional positive effect.

What it does

Lamictal is able to shift my emotional range to the positive side. This does not change the size of the range, it only shifts the range to a more happy, confident place. As one can imagine, this was huge for me when I realized that I could be more happy on both meds.

Zoloft:

Why I started

The zoloft was started to help me have less of an emotional roller coaster ride around my PMS time. I think it is working to some extent. My emotional ride is less, most months. That is really helpful. But like everything else in this world, it's not perfect.

Note: I am now off of this med: early 2015

Fine balance

The main difficulty with the zoloft is that it has to be a very fine balance. Add too much and I begin to think about running away and potentially leaving the human culture. This is not good. Too little of the med and my PMS symptoms are off the charts, emotionally.

Abilify:

Why I started

I started the abilify as a replacement for risperdal when we decided I should not take risperdal because of some of its side effects. However, we decided that I needed the risperdal so we added it back in. I discovered that the risperdal and abilify did different things. So, now I am taking both.

What it does

Abilify shrinks the range of my emotions so that I don't get as high or as low. But I still cycle some. This creates an ideal system for my emotional experience. The flatness of very little change in emotion would be as unbearable as having the extreme changes.