Sometimes I feel like all I do is go to doctor appointments, pick up my prescriptions, and manage my prescription refills. This week, I have two doctor appointments and another appointment for blood work. That’s about how many appointments I have each week. I feel pathetic. Most of my life is spent attempting to manage my health, especially my mental health.
My current meds are: Lithium 450mg twice a day, Tegretol 200mg one in the am and two at night, Cytomel 37.5mcg in the am, Clozapine 200mg at night, Deplin 15mg at night, Mirapex 1mg three times a day, Inositol 500mg in the am, Depo Estradiol injection weekly, Depo Testosterone injection monthly, Valium 10mg twice daily as needed, Percocet 10mg as needed up to four times a day, and Zofran 4mg once daily as needed. It’s difficult to manage this many medications, but I do it pretty well. I’ve gotten used to it; I’ve developed a system so I get all my meds filled on time without missing a day.
I have an appointment with my psychiatrist on Thursday to discuss my Clozapine dosage. I’ll probably end up with more than one medication change. I’m hoping to get off the Deplin. It’s really expensive and it doesn’t appear to be making a difference. We’ll see what happens on Thursday.
My Side of the Pole 
Gosh, that is so much medication to take. It is admirable that you can manage all those and take the correct doses at the correct times. I can imagine it must be so challenging, well done! How do you cope with the side effects that come with them?
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Most of the side effects get easier to deal with over time. Some of the meds are there to deal with specific side effects. For example, the Zofran is there to help with the nausea that a couple of the medications cause. Sometimes, I just have to deal with the negative side effects, such as memory loss or weight gain. Sometimes, the side effects are helpful, like helping me sleep, most of the time. I just have to weigh the positives and negatives for each medication and then decide which is easier to deal with. Would I prefer to deal with med side effects or out of control bipolar episodes?
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WOW! That’s a lot of meds that you are on. I don’t think that I would remember to take all of them at the right time, I would be confused. But I’m glad that you are managing. Take care.
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I have a pill organizer that helps me stay organized. The ones that I take as needed (instead of every day) stay in my purse. It gets a bit confusing when I have to refill my med organizer, but I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I’m really hoping to come off one of the meds starting tomorrow; we’ll see what my doctor says.
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