All Entries Tagged With: "dosage"
Sacrifice of Sanity
Tareak is a great help and support to me in trying to overcome my depression, but sometime I feel like he doesn’t have any idea what I’m sacrificing. I was on Paxil for 7 years before I attempted to lower my dose. The 30 mg I was on helped me lead a relatively normal life. Currently I am on 15mg and I would say that I am simply surviving.
Our family dynamic is a little different than most. In our case, Tareak is the one that is anxious to have children instead of me. Were he not so anxious, I wouldn’t have ever lowered my Paxil dosage. I don’t see anything wrong with staying on medication for the rest of my life, but getting Tareak to even take asprin for a headache is like pulling teeth. Because he is anti-medication he would like to see me get off Paxil as quickly as possible.
Since lowering my dosage I have basically given up a year of my life. During the past year I have simply been surviving, not living. I have sacrificed the joy that I used to find in even the smallest of things. I have sacrificed my sanity, the ability to feel like I am in control of myself and my emotions. It is hard to feel like I can take care of myself and even harder to imagine taking care of an infant in my current state.
I know it is hard, if not impossible for Tareak to understand what it is like to not have control of your sanity. I hope he never has to experience this feeling. I would never willingly give up this feeling unless it was for someone I loved. Even if Tareak can’t understand the feeling, I hope he can understand what my sacrifice means about my love for him.
Pregnancy and Pills
Today Tareak completed his assignment of contacting the doctor that put me on Paxil. We have been concerned about the potential risks involved with being on Paxil while pregnant, and this doctor has a lot of experience with babies born to mothers on Paxil, or similar drugs. Basically what he said is that so long as the Paxil dosage is low, he hasn’t seen any problems with the babies. This doesn’t mean there isn’t a risk still involved, but with a low dosage the risk is lower. He said that 10-15mg of Paxil would be considered low, and I happen to be on 15mg. He assured Tareak that based on my current dosage we shouldn’t have anything to worry about in regards to starting a family. His other recommendations were as follows:
-If possible, try not to be on Paxil during the first trimester because that is when the organs are developing. If there are depression problems though, it is better for me to be on Paxil because my depression could cause other problems for the baby.
-Find a Psychiatrist I can visit with throughout the pregnancy to help me monitor my conditions and work with my doctor to adjust medications accordingly.
Tareak is obviously very excited because a few months ago he was facing the reality that he might never have biological children, and now that future looks brighter. We still have a lot of learning to do before we can actually start our family, but it looks like it could be sooner rather than later. I’m still not super excited about the idea of having little kids (babies), and would still prefer to adopt older children, but I am now open to the idea as I feel more mentally stable (due to the increased 5mg of Paxil) and in a condition that I feel I could actually care for the small children.
On a side note… last week I saw a blog that mentioned the new book, “Pregnant on Prozac“. I ordered it and it arrived today. I will post what I learn about being pregnant while on depression medications in a later post.
Good Start
2009- So far, So good.
Despite my delayed sleep phase syndrome being worse than ever, 2009 is proving to be significantly better than last year. Nothing extraordinary has happened, but I am definitely in better spirits.
Last month I increased my Paxil dosage to 15 mg. It takes a few weeks for your body to start noticing any changes, and so I decided to do an experiment. I had a doctors appointment on Monday and wanted to make sure to get all my prescriptions re-filled at that time. In order to know how much Paxil I should ask for I needed to know if 15 mg was effective. I left Tareak a note on Saturday that we should have the “baby talk” on Sunday night to see how the 15 mg was working. I could tell Tareak was excited to have the “baby talk” and I’m sure was hopeful that we’d be able to get through it without tears.
Sunday night rolled around and we set up a “picnic” on our bedroom floor and started chatting. The 10 mg Leslie could only get through about 2 minutes of conversation before crying so much that there wasn’t any point in talking further. I am happy to report that I was able to get through about 2 hours of conversation (much of it was off topic) before the tears came. This is a significant improvement in any one’s book! The big issue is still my lack of desire for a baby. Since I do realize that I eventually want to have older children I am starting to come to terms with the fact that they have to be babies first. This doesn’t make me feel any more confident in my ability to manage my illnesses and raise a child/children simultaneously, but it is a step in the right direction.
At my doctors appointment on Monday we asked the doctor about the danger of being on 15 mg of Paxil while pregnant since it is such a low dosage. Apparently Paxil is a “class C” drug which means it shouldn’t be taken during the 3rd trimester, but I could be on Paxil during the beginning of my pregnancy. There are other drugs that manage depression, but not ocd, anxiety or trichotillomania that are safe to be on during the entire pregnancy, but I don’t know if my body chemistry is compatible with those drugs. Tareak is also to the point where he realizes that it might not be realistic for me to breast-feed our babies since I may need to be on medication. Earlier in our marriage he was very adamant about our children being breastfed for at least 6 months, but he has now resigned to saying, “If it comes down to not having a baby, or having a baby that drinks formula, I’ll take the baby with formula.” I wish there wasn’t a need for such compromises.
I’m hopeful that I’ll continue to feel in good spirits this year and for Tareak’s sake hope that my desire for children gets stronger sooner rather than later!
Increased Paxil Dosage
As I have mentioned before, I am currently taking Paxil to help me cope with Depression and other mental illnesses. My prescribed dosage is 30mg/daily. I’ve experimented (under the direction of a doctor) with my dosages and have found that any more than 30mg doesn’t do me any good. The only noticeable difference is my head is very hot (I mean this literally). Shortly after we got married I started to slowly decrease my dosage in hopes that within a year or so I would be off the drug completely. By March of this year (2008) I was down to 10mg/daily. Tareak couldn’t notice any difference in my moods or behaviors. The only thing I really noticed was that I had a harder time controlling my Trichotillomania. Things were going fine for a few months and then Tareak started to ask when I was going to go off of Paxil completely so that we could begin trying to start our family. This was the first time that either of us really realized how stable Paxil was making me before. When trying to discuss children my thought processes became very irrational and exaggerated. There were legitimate concerns and fears behind getting pregnant, but my imbalanced brain was not able to process everything rationally. At this point Tareak decided to back way off on the “baby-talk” and give me some space. He told me to let him know when I was ready to discuss starting a family.
Fast forward to November 2008 and Tareak is getting restless. He wants kids. He is afraid he is going to be an “old dad”. Tareak brought up the topic of children and I spiraled into a deep depression for several days. It has been 2 weeks now since my initial “Baby Breakdown” and things have only gone down-hill. We are now to the point where he can’t even say the word “Baby” without me breaking down into tears. I would say that in the last 2 weeks there have probably been between 6-10 major breakdowns. After recovering from 3 consecutive crying breakdowns last night I decided something had to change. One of the main benefits I receive from taking Paxil is the ability to think more rationally and control my thoughts. If I have a negative thought I am able to tell myself it is negative and unproductive and stop thinking about it. When I am not on Paxil I am not able to do this and my negative thoughts run wild.
Today I increased my dosage to 15mg. I will stay on 15mg until the end of January and if I don’t see any improvements I will go up to 20mg. The main purpose of increasing my dosage is so Tareak and I can talk about our plans to have children without a 3 hour crying episode every time. If I am able to reach a point where I feel like I am willing and ABLE to have a baby, we may need to consider the risks of me staying on Paxil while I’m pregnant. While studies have shown that there are increased risks for birth defects if on Paxil, sometimes the benefits of using Paxil can outweigh the potential risks. This obviously isn’t the preferred course of action.
After deciding last night to increase my dosage I felt like a failure. I thought I was strong enough and my brain had trained itself enough that I would be able to manage my thoughts drug-free. It is a huge let down and disappointment to finally admit to myself that I’m not to that point yet and I’m going to need to still rely on the drugs for an undetermined amount of time. Feeling bad about increasing my dosage obviously doesn’t help my depression, but hopefully the increased dosage will help.