Prozac Nation, Side Effects & Shakira Therapy

I sat and watched Prozac Nation this evening, Sparky taped it for me ages ago, but I was in a weird mood and wanted to watch something dark and dramatic tonight, maybe to make myself feel better, and I'm 'sort of' caught up on my Ebay work so I thought what the hell.

We have HBO right now, and Sparky was bored himself yesterday and sat and watched Spanglish on TV, expecting a comedy, which he decided was a huge mistake afterwards. He said it was a depressing film about miserable people and it had a very unhappy ending.

Prozac Nation was also about miserable, depressing people but it had a somewhat abrupt kind of happy ending, she got on Prozac and, after a suicide attempt, she got better. I had never read the book, but I had thought it was more about her experiences with taking the medicine, but most of the film she's in psychotherapy, which looked about as boring and un-useful as the short period that I went through. I only went because in the early 90's my insurance required me to receive my prescription from an actual medical psychiatrist, and required a minimum number of office visits.

Now you could probably get anti-depressants from your veterinarian... or at least your OB/GYN doc. Which is not necessarily a good thing. Prozac can be a great medicine, or it can really wreak havoc with your mind and body. Or it can do both. It's done both to me, but I'm not sure I could completely do without it. I have managed to back off from 40 mg a day to 10-15 (I actually dump half of the 10 mg capsule out, don't try this at home). All without medical supervision, because I do not have insurance, and even when I did the doctors I've dealt with have proven to be both uncaring and irresponsible about prescribing medicine, though I can see their viewpoint also - they see hundreds of people a week, they are overworked and understaffed, and the pharmaceutical companies are constantly marketing products to them, and they cannot keep up on all of the required reading. But don't get me started on the evils of the pharmaceutical companies.

But after a year or so of taking 40 mg of Prozac daily, I realized that I was actually feeling worse than I was at lower doses, and I was having lots of weird physiological side effects - such as feeling numb internally. Which was making it hard to do things like use the bathroom, I actually had lost my sense of feeling and could not use my internal muscles. Of course, the numbness could be sort of pleasant also, it masked some of the pain from my MS, but after my doctor gave me yet another medicine to help me be able to use the bathroom (Bethanechol aka Urecholine), I realized that this whole situation was terribly warped. Also the new medicine was horrifically expensive, which prompted me to reevaluate what I was taking and start hunting for side effects.

Back when I could take antihistamines (they cause an allergic reaction on me now, see 300 things) I used to take the super-allergy med Seldane. My allergist was giving it to me up to twice a day (it was a once a day drug), along with another daily new allergy medicine called Hismanal. I started having heart palpitations, so I went to my GP doc, who sent me in to have heart testing, I even wore a holter monitor for 24 hours, and they couldn't find anything other than my mitral valve prolapse. No one ever questioned what I was taking daily as a possible cause. But then one day I stumbled upon a sheet of Seldane side effects and - wow - heart palpitations were up high on the list. I backed off on using it, and the palpitations went away. Seldane was pulled from the market not long afterwards because patients were having serious heart problems. And I was taking a triple dosage each day under the advice of my doctor. So I'm not very trusting of most doctor's standardized prescriptions and opinions, I don't fit the standardized patient mold.

But I've been carefully backing off on the Prozac, trying to keep it to the 10-15 mg level. I was very lethargic a few weeks ago and I jumped back to 20 mg and it made me pretty manic, so I went back to 10. Physically things seem to be working a little better, though everything does hurt more. But my brain is a little clearer, my OCD is still tormenting me, but I care more about things. The higher dosage made me feel very mentally numb also, I lost interest in a lot of things. I thought I was just getting older and more jaded, but I know a lot of it was the Prozac turning the volume down on everything. Which, like I said, can be nice at times. If it weren't for my stomach problems I could very easily become addicted to things like painkillers just to NOT feel all of the weird signals my body is sending out constantly. But painkillers make my stomach hurt and make me feel like I need to be eating all the time, which is not good.

The other thing I noticed immediately was that time seemed to move at a normal speed again. It was actually quite slow now. I had a lot more time in my day to get things done. Almost too much time. Before, life just kind of whirred past me in a blur, I would spend whole days getting nothing accomplished yet feeling like I was always busy, just really ineffective. So that's one of the ways I'm judging if I'm on the right dosage now, if time seems to be passing at the correct speed. I'm wondering if I'm a little bipolar, though. I have times where I can get lots done and other times when I just feel paralyzed and can't seem to get anything done, can't even start. Like typing entries in my weblog, or even answering emails from friends. I need to find a balance between the all or nothing mentality. Logically I know it's a problem, and my conscience will make me do things I have to do when I'm feeling paralyzed, but it's hard. My poor husband has been wondering why he sometimes gets some really weird choices for dinner and at other times I just dive in and cook something, but when I'm paralyzed even thinking of what I'd like to eat is nearly impossible, let alone shopping for it and cooking it.

But it's probably just my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder acting up, I don't get the euphoria that people that are truly bipolar describe, I just feel like I need to work and get as much done as I can before I crash again. Or it might be my Multiple Sclerosis, that messes with your brain also. When you've got so many things going on at once it's hard to single things out as individual problems. But I've been eating some seriously crappy food lately, I know I need to work on that problem. And I need to do something to move my body more. My latest healthy obsession is with Shakira and her music. Listening to her (and watching her perform) is very inspiring and is hitting someplace deep inside me that remembers I used to love to dance.

Posted by Morticia at March 31, 2006 04:54 AM