i don't know what's going on. i seem to be deteriorating. these problems are very debilitation. i'm weary of leaving the house unescorted for fear i'll end up at the emergency room. i saw my primary care doctor yesterday, hoping to get some help on these issues.

the pains in my behind-elbows and behind-knees, mostly on the right side. the pain also appears on my neck and temples sometimes, again usually on the right side. now there is a slight swelling on my right behind-elbow and behind my right knee. i've been concerned about the strange elongated bump on my right behind-elbow that's been there for months, and that is the main reason i saw my primary care doctor.

i've also been having dizzy spells. falling to the ground. i can usually predict that i will no longer be able to walk, and therefore am able to sit myself down gently before i actually collapse, but i often only have a few seconds to do so and therefore must sit down wherever i am, even if there is no seating available. it is better than falling catastrophically

in addition to that, i experience periods of intense panic with the associated physically symptomology. such attacks for me can last much longer than "standard" panic attacks do. many last several hours, and thus are enough to trigger suicidal ideations. i often become disorientated during these episodes as well.

distortion effects occur too. sometimes the screen flickers, sometimes all i get is static. sometimes my audio will go to static as well. occasionally i will smell a strong odor of ammonia when there is no source and no one else can smell it. these are not psychotic symptoms, and instead are classified as sensory distortions. the difference is that i would have to believe, for instance, that the ammonia was really there for it to be considered psychotic.

while frequency, intensity, and duration have waxed and waned, they have all been longstanding issues. they were also separate issues, but lately all those various problems have been occurring simultaneously. in addition to them happening at the same time, the most intense episodes also feature a sharp pain in my chest. i don't know what's going on, it's very weird and doesn't match anything i've heard of.

luckily my doctor offered a solution yesterday after doing an extremely quick examination: go back on my psych meds.

I missed my appointment with my primary care doctor again yesterday. It's rescheduled for August 9th. I really need to see her soon. I think my nervousness about seeing her and about all the financial issues that surround it with Mount Auburn factor highly into my inability to make my appointments. I absolutely need to make sure that I make it in next time. But sometimes that isn't enough.

I did make it to my therapy appointment. I hadn't seen my therapist in three weeks. I was feeling completely out of it. I wasn't really able to keep eye contact while I was talking. Staring at the wall and floor, but never really looking at her. That is actually a problem I have had in the past, but really hasn't surfaced recently. She was not familiar with me acting that way, and was therefore a little concerned.

She told me not to do heroin, which wasn't surprising. I told her how blissful heroin is. How it makes all the pain go away, physical and mental. How it is pure and wonderful. But, that so far all I've had are ideations about doing it. I haven't really had much in the way of motivation. Still, she warned me that recovery from heroin is hard. She said that she'd met several people on methadone, and life was no longer blissful for them. I told her that part of the idea was that I wouldn't recover. I see it as a sort of quazisuicidal act. She asked me to tell her when I've given up and it's all over, which I guess is fair.

She wants me to go back on medication. At least antidepressants. I personally think that my depression in large part is caused by my anxiety, which would make something for anxiety more helpful. Of course she was not going to recommend benzos after the big heroin discussion. However, she is not the person who would be prescribing the medication. I will have a (hopefully new) pdoc to do that. I just need to keep the heroin discussion away from them. Benzos are tricky to get, regardless. Psychiatrists are reluctant to give them out if you ask for them, but will give you insane amounts if you don't.

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It's early. I'm going to head over to my house and try to get some cleaning in before the day heats up too much.

I canceled my endocrinologist appointment today because I thought it was more important to see my primary care doctor. I accidentally double booked them for today. However, I just canceled my appointment with my primary care doctor. It's too hot out and I have no clean clothes that are appropriate for the temperature. The heat, lack of cool clothing, and my genetic hyperhidrosis would make going out in the middle of this oven of a day extremely hellish. I don't have enough faith that I'll actually get enough help from my primary doctor to justify going in the current conditions. I am considering canceling my therapy session for today as well. I just do not want to venture out in the heat.

I haven't mentioned hyperhidrosis on LiveJournal before, because up until about a month ago I didn't even know that it existed. My brother was recently diagnosed with it. My niece and nephew apparently have it as well. I knew that I had excessive sweating on my face, bottom, and feet. I must use baby power, especially on my bottom, to avoid getting a rash from the sweat. But, I didn't know that this was a disorder. I just thought I happened to be intolerant to heat.

When I say excessive sweating, I don't mean just a little sweatier than normal, I mean that I'm drenched in conditions that are just slightly hotter than normal. Activities such as brushing my hair can also trigger it. When it gets extremely hot, the experience is utterly miserable. On the scale of things, it is by far not the worst genetic disorder one can have. However it does make life that much more sucky. I've always had a habit of avoiding situations that would be to hot. A high of 95°F (35°C, 308K) is enough to keep me from venture out during the day unless it is an absolute necessity. The winter is little better than the summer. There are few things I look less forward to than getting onto a heated bus in my winter garb. Everywhere I go in the winter has the heat cranked and I must immediately shed all layers. Spring and fall are the best seasons for me, because it is generally temperate inside and out.

I cannot afford any of the treatments for hyperhidrosis and proper treatments are hard to get covered. I have bigger things to deal with anyway, hyperhidrosis just makes them harder to deal with.

I have an appointment with my primary care doctor monday. I didn't get a new one. I know she will have problems refering me to someone because she is in the Mount Auburn system. But, I can't motivate myself to go through an intake process right now, and she'll at the very least be able to tell me if my conserns are something I really need to take action on. Right now I have no idea what's going on with several different things. The dizzy spells are an obvious consern, but they seem to be waning. The strange inch and a half long shallow linear bump on the underside of my elbow is conserning as it seems to be slowly growing over months and not going away. But, while my mind can think of nightmare scenarios, it may also be a mundane issues. I would ask about my issues with my lower gastrointestinal tract. I've been putting this off for far to long. I don't need to be worrying about things that might turn out to be nothing.

I missed my appointment with my primary care doc this morning. But I made my other two. The first one I made it to was my endocrinologist. We discussed the regular hormone issues and she did an examination. We also talked about diabetes. I have a family history of diabetes and am on Geodon, which increases my risk. She is concerned that my increased weight is a unnecessary additional risk factor. She wants me to see a dietician and lose some weight. I don't know if I want to see a dietician, but I will try to follow her orders about weight loss. One thing she wants me to do is exercise, so every day I'm going to try taking a half hour walk. Furthermore, I'm going to start Project Three Meals again, that's three reasonable meals and a healthy snack. I think I'm going to include the exercise as a part of my third attempt at Project Three Meals. This means no more junk food for me.

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Robin (my therapist) and I went through my record. First she read me Sonali's notes (a therapist I saw 2 years ago). I've improved greatly since then. The difference between then and now made me smile, because if I continue to improve at the same rate, I can imagine where I'll be at in another 2 years.

Next we went over Fatima's notes (my therapist before Robin and after Sonali). There was a shock in there. Fatima thought that I may have "factitious disorder", which means she though I might be faking my symptoms. I'm shocked, because she never said anything about those suspicions to me. Robin said she didn't think I was faking my symptoms and told me that she believe Fatima's assessment was caused by her inexperience. But regardless, it threw me for a loop. I've always worried "what if I'm making this all up?", "what if I'm faking it, even to myself?". I've come to the conclusion that I'm not faking it, but I still worry sometimes. It's a natural fear, because so many people don't believe in dissociation. I don't like that fear, and it hit me right in the face when the notes were read to me. I'm happy I have Robin as my therapist now, who seems to understand these things better.

I have three appointments on Monday. At 8:45 I see my primary care physician. At 1:00 I see my endocrinologist. And at 4:15 I see my therapist. Busy day.

I've been avoiding making an appointment with my primary care doctor for my reflux problem, because I owe the Mount Auburn system over $1000 and she is part of it. But today I'm going to find out if she will accept an appointment from me. My reflux is just too bad. I'm painfully burping uncontrollably at times. It's very crude sounding, but I can't help it. It's my own fault, it is caused by my former problem with bulimia. I did the damage myself, now I'm paying for it. OTC rememdies are just not cutting it. Hopefully I can get some Prevacid. It helped before, but my three months of samples ran out. I need to get this taken care of, it's making me miserable.

Went to the chocolate party tonight. My taste buds had a lot of fun. However my stomach is does not agree with my taste buds on the joyousness of the evening. I feel hot and ill. I'm only have one Prevacid left so I took some ranitidine and am waiting for it to kick in. Hopefully I'll feel better enough to get some sleep. I need to get myself to the doctor to get more Prevacid, but that involves dealing with overdue medical bills that I don't feel like dealing with at this time, so I'll probably put it off and suffer. It's too bad there's not a black market for Prevacid, because I'd definitely purchase some.

I saw my pdoc today. She hadn't gotten my message about having to get pre-approval on my Celexa because she's been out sick. So I still haven't gotten my Celexa. I still haven't gotten my prescription antacid as well, need to call my primary care doctor and see what's up with the pre-approval on that. Today my pdoc gave me a prescription for Provigil. Something I really need as my other meds sap my energy. Well, as it turns out, under Romney Masshealth won't cover my prescription for Provigil, period. Pre-approval or not. And I can't afford to get it on my own. I hate Mitt Romney so much right now. He just squeaked by in a very close election. We're stuck with him for another 2 years.

I just got back from seeing my doctor. Got a flu shot. I have to go back tomorrow for some bloodwork as the phlebotomist was out today. If I test negative for hep B shot, I'm going to get a hep B. I also have a referral to a neurologist for my dizzy spells/seizures.

I know I had some drinks earlier, but I haven't had a drink in over 4 hours and I'm feeling worse and worse. I'm definitely not drunk any longer. I'm hot and cold at once. I feel stuffed up. My stomach is nauseous. In short, I think I'm coming down with something. I don't think trudging back and forth in the snow helped much, either. I'm going to take my meds and go to bed. I have an appointment with my doctor at noon. If I still feel bad, hopefully she can give me something.

My blood work came back from when I was admitted. Apparently, I have a low red blood cell count. Which means I may be anemic. Which may explain why my dizzy spells have gotten worse lately. They're running more tests on my blood and want me to go to my primary care physican about this when I get out. Of course, the blood cell count could just be an anomaly.

The psychologist on the green team here (all the staff are divided into the blue team and the green team and the patients are put into one of the teams) says they're shooting for Thursday as my release date. She said shorter stays work best for people like me (whatever that means). And that longer stays can actually make it harder for people like me to readjust to daily life.

posted by purpleglitter

I wish this damn reflux would go away already. I think I'm going to set myself up with a doctor's appointment today and get some medication for it.

I just ate a bowl and a half of beans and tofu pups. I know that I shouldn't feel guilty, but I do. I'm not going to purge. They were good for me. I need to learn to escape guilt. That's what drives me to purge. I'm going to try. It's hard. I know I'm not "fat". I know I'm not at my "ideal" weight, but it's ok. I know I look good, and even if I didn't it wouldn't or shouldn't matter. It's the guilt. I don't plan on. I want it to go away. I hate it.

I'm doing good today. My new plan is to stop the unhealthy calorie count and start an extra daily walk with Lake, in order to try to alleviate the guilt. I'll try to dance more, too. I know this won't eliminate the guilt, but hopefully it will make it easier to deal with.

I know I need counseling on this. But, most psychiatric people I've seen seem to think it's the least of my problems. My primary care physician thinks it's a big problem, but can't really offer me any help other then talking to psychiatric professionals.

I'm trying to stop it myself (with some help from Lake), but it's hard.