JoBlog

Edronax plus Lithium is not a friendly combination. They combine to give you much worse side effects than the two taken separately. Most of them I can cope with, but not with the daily headaches, which don’t respond to paracetamol. And no, I can’t try ibuprofen, as Lithium prevents you taking any non-steroidal anti-inflamatory pain killers.
Since my consultant is on holiday all of this week and next, I’ve decided to reduce the dose by 1/4 on my own, because I just could not tollerate the pain. I would expect to speak to my consultant, and a drug change some time after Easter.

On an unrelated note, my second dwarf Hamster died on Friday night. We think he had a stroke. As a result we have 2 very large hamster cages, and loads of toys if anyone’s interested! Otherwise we’ll put them in the paper, or give them to a charity shop.

Thank goodness for holidays! My Easter Holiday starts today, since I’ve just sat my Ethics exam. (They make us do a humanity in our second year). It was horrible, but at least I don’t have to resit it if I fail – I can still pass the year.
I got my MBII exam back a few days ago, and I passed it (C including coursework) which I’m happy with, so hopefully passing the year is a reasonable possibility.
I’m still plodding on with the Reboxetine. I’m coping better, but feeling worse if that’s possible. I’ll talk to my consultant sometime next week.

Not surprisingly, the time has come for me to change drugs again. We’re sticking with Lithium, and removing the Duloxetine, before adding an antidepressant I responded quite well to last time, Edronax (Reboxetine). Coming off the duloxetine is currently not great, since I’m getting really nasty headaches, but they should be over in a few days.

The next step if this doesn’t work, would be to add a low dose of Fluanxol to the mixture. It’s used fairly often in a mixture of drugs, and can help with depression, although it is an antipsychotic.

Yeah, I know I’m late with this, but I figured I should catch up.

Four jobs I’ve had in my life

• Baby Sitter – I only include this because I couldn’t find a 4th
• Some kind of IT lackey at my Dad’s company when I was 16 – I installed ghost images onto people’s computers, and wiped a few important documents…
• Call Centre Monkey, for a mail order company.
• Silver Service Waitress, all over London

Four films I can watch over and over

• The Matrix
• The Lord of the Rings Films
• Serenity (or rather I will, when it gets released)
• Shrek

Four TV shows I love to watch
Again, I’m not sure if these count. I mean, they were tv shows, but now they’re DVD’s…

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Angel
• Firefly
• Friends

Four places I have lived
Ok, so this is cheating a bit, but it’s the best I would come up with…

• Bishop’s Stortford
• South Kensington
• Chelsea
• Battersea

Four places I have been on holiday

• California (a long time ago)
• Slovenia
• Sailing round the Greek Islands
• France

Four of my favourite dishes

• Roast Pork, with apple sauce
• Lamb Passanda, with Nan bread
• Apple Crumble and Icecream
• Stew and Dumplings

Four websites I visit daily
Erm, I’m not sure if I have 4…

• Gmail
• My Uni E-mail
• Google, most days I guess
• Erm, my blog?

Four places I would rather be right now

• In a jacuzzi
• In bed
• In New Zealand
• In Canada

Four bloggers I’m tagging
Unfortunately, due to my great tardiness, I can only think of one, and that’s Kayleigh.

My mood is not good. Hence the severe lack of posting, since all I have to say most of the time is “I feel poo”. But I’ve been feeling poo for long enough that some of you need an update, and I want to put forward a theory I have. But first for the moan:

Lithium Augmentation helped me. For about 3 weeks. And then I hit PMT, did a great big metaphorical nose-dive, and have been there ever since (about a month). More PMT is expected in the next few days, so be nice to me!

I’m feeling very isolated at the moment, as though all my supports have been taken away. Ben’s doing his best, but he’s in his final year, and in the middle of exams, so he’s busy and stressed, and needs support himself. But I have come up with a theory of why it might be happening with everyone.

It’s based on the fact that this is everybody’s second time of watching me go through this. The first time someone meets someone with severe depression, who talks about suicide, and self harm, and crying and all the internal pain, most people have one of two reactions. They’re either scared stiff and run screaming, or they’re wonderful and supporting and look after you.
But because depression is episodic, that low passes, and after a while a new one develops. Except this time, all your friends are in a “second time situation”. And they don’t know how to react. In my experience some people just stop being sure of what to say, others pretend you’re not down, and the rest ignore you in the hope that you’ll go away.

I don’t really know what I’m aiming at here, because I don’t think there’s really any way to change people’s reactions. And I can understand them. I mean, they have seen it all before. And I did want to die before, and yet I’m still here. So why should they bother?

My questions tend to be the other way round though. Why should I bother trying to get better when it has never lasted in the past. Why shouldn’t I kill my self, because no one cares how I’m feeling, and I know I’ll feel like this again in the future. Every day is a battle, and every day, the people on my side drift away.

This is something I have been thinking about for some time. What are blogs supposed to be for, and who makes the rules?
I was first given a “column” on studentssocial, back when people visited, and it was just a place for me to write something interesting, for our group of friends. When I became very ill it became a way for me to comunicate with everyone about what was happening, and to try to educate people about depression a bit more. And then I kept it updated with my progress from drug to drug, incase anyone cared, or it could help anyone out.

So now I’m left with a new blog, which certainly taught me some css, but not knowing what to write about. Of the blogs I read, the majority combine non-personal posts about their life, and information about the next technological craze, or programming hack. Whilst most of what I want to write about is my depression.

So, do I continue writing about my various treatments, and bore everyone to tears. Or do I stop writing altogether? Can I write about my feelings and struggles, or would that turn me into an attention seeker? Public opinion matters to me far more than it should, but I need to know how people see me, and my blog.

As of yesterday, JoBlog is now available at www.joanslow.com (my name, for those of you who found this without knowing me!). Hopefully this will be much more memorable, and will encourage you all to visit!

Please update bookmarks etc, because although the old address will continue working for a while, it will stop at some point (I have no idea when…)

The domain came with some new hosting, so if you find anything that’s broken during the migration, please let me know.