JoBlog

This blog is rapidly turning into a list of antidepressant medications, with a new one every six weeks or so.

Today I started a new course of medication, Duloxetine. It’s a fairly new drug (only having been licensed in the UK 9 months ago), but it’s been around in the US for longer. The side effects profile isn’t too bad, and I have historically responded well to drugs of its type (Selective Serotonin and Noradrenaline Reuptake Inhibitors), so here’s hoping.

Not the wonder drug I was hoping for. Headaches, tiredness, slight constipation and feeling sick are not the best side effects in the world, and as of yet, it’s not been helping my mood. My consultant has recommended I give it another 2 weeks to make sure that no benefits can be achieved from it, at which point I will probably move onto Lithium.

Life is really quite stressful at the moment, as I’m organising a house for myself and 3 friends to live in next year. Work is also very stressful for other reasons, and as a result I am currently signed off work with stress related problems. I’m feeling very down a lot of the time, so we’ll have to see what happens.

My first year exam results came through yesterday, for the exams I did in June, and I got

• Proteins and Enzymes: A
• Molecular Cell Biology: B
• Molecular Biology: A

Needless to say I’m happy.

This is a kind of plea for help I guess.
I want to reorganise the way this blog is structured. Basically, what I want is three main sections, with links to each displayed in my title bar, with an indication of which one you’re currently visiting. The sections will be my blog, my depression related pages, and some CSS articles which I wrote for another project, which seems to have died a very convincing death. Each section needs to have a different sidebar, and I don’t know where to start.
A smaller issue is the naming of pages and posts on here. They’re currently named p46 etc, which isn’t hugely helpful, so any pointers on how to change those would be appreciated.
Ok, I think that’s it for the moment.

Yep, yet another new drug. I am actually starting to sound like a monopolar depression drug dictionary, so they’re trying me on one for bipolar depression. Originally used as an anticonvulsant, carbamazepine also has a very good record as a mood stabiliser, especially for people described as “rapid cyclers” (more than 2 cycles of depression a year). I am a rapid cycler, so we’re augmenting the Sertraline which I am currently taking with a low-ish dose of carbamazepine, to see what happens. Antidepressants can sometimes be augmented by the addition of a modd stabiliser, and produce a dramatic improvement within weeks. That’s what we’re hoping for!

The side effects aren’t too bad so far. Headaches, tiredness, the usual. But they are helping me to sleep better, which is a huge bonus. So I guess I’ll let you know how it goes.

I also had to go to the dentist this morning (I hate the dentist *so* much), and I have to go and have a filling. I think my Mum might actually have to physically drag me there… It needs doing though I guess.

Just a quick post to explain my absence from these pages. I had 3 exams in June, which took quite a lot of work. There was also the End of Year Ball, (see flickr for the photos), and then the process of moving out. And since then, I’ve been working back at Coopers, dealing with all those lovely complaints.

I’ve been struggling with my depression for a while too. The medications are not working well enough, so we’re about to embark on a new stage of treatment – antidepressant augmentation with a mood stabiliser, namely Carbemazepine. It’s an antiepileptic, and usually prescribed to Bipolar patients. I have to have a blood test before I start it, so as soon as I can get that done, I’ll be starting.

So what with working, not sleeping, and feeling down, I don’t have a lot of time for writing here.

Over the weekend I dragged Ben round London on a girly shopping trip. To be fair, he does actually quite enjoy it, but as a kind of extra incentive we visited the Apple store on Regents Street, so that he could go and fondle the laptops he is considering buying. And the whole experience has led me to one inescapable conclusion.

I do not like Macs.

In fact, I violently dislike almost everything I have seen of them. Some of you may have seen my comments about iTunes on Fatty’s blog, so I won’t repeat them here, except to say that I’ve tried it, numerous times, and I don’t like it.
Ben has his computers set up to be as mac like as possible. Including the start bar being at the top, and that funny dock thing at the bottom. Firstly, start bar at the top – eurgh. I don’t look at the top of my screen for things, I look at the bottom. Hence why firefox is configured for me with tabs at the bottom.
And I don’t understand the point of the dock. I have a start menu, with the things I need nicely on there. It doesn’t pop up if I accidentally put my mouse at the side of the screen, and it doesn’t bulge in that horrible ugly way when I put my mouse over it.
And that’s another thing. The mice. Where’s my scroll wheel? And what’s with the funny shape that it hurts my hand to hold? I understand that the system is designed so that you rarely have to right click, but shift click? Why not just put a right mouse button on them and be done with it?
I hate keyboard shortcuts. I can type fairly well, but it’s only with about 4 fingers at most. I can’t touch type. For people who can, I’m sure shortcuts are incredibly useful, but the mac pretty much forces you to use them. It would be incredibly time consuming for me to find half the keys involved, let alone learn the combinations.
And finally, the graphic effects. This is partly covered by the dock, but certain actions result in ripple effects over the whole screen, or you can make windows fly to the sides and come back and so on. Sorry, but it’s horrible.

I know this has turned into a rant rather than a reasonable post, but I don’t really care. In the community I find myself in (mostly geeks, to be honest), Macs are constantly having their praises sung. And I feel they could tollerate the other side being mentioned – that they’re not for everybody. And yes, I know most of the things I’ve mentioned could be turned off, or altered, but they do seem fundamental to what makes a Mac unique, and as such I suspect I would dislike the rest of the machine.