The latest developments (revised)

Today I weighed 184.4 pounds. That means I've lost 15 pounds since November. Oddly enough, my clothing size hasn't changed at all. Still solidly a 16W. More important than that, though, is the validating truth about Lyrica. It did make me gain a lot of weight. My diet never changed before or after--only my weight.

Medication: I'm down to Seasonique (Pill), 4.5 mg of EMSAM (I cut a patch in half), 100mg of Lamictal and 600mg of lithium. The Lamictal and lithium are at a fraction of what was prescribed. My goal is to get the three mental health drugs down to much lower amounts--just enough so there is some still in my system so that if I need those meds again, I won't be starting from zero and I can get therapeutic value in a hurry.

May is a genius.

Acupuncture--still not doing anything. I don't see what people get out of it. It's having no effect on me whatsoever.

I'm pretty sure I never had true bipolar disorder. The more I learn and the more I look back, I think I was predisposed, and I had a mental meltdown fueled by an SSRI. It appears that I am one of those people who is made irritable, restless, and suicidal by SSRIs. Unfortunately, the idiot who prescribed it didn't know about this hazard of SSRIs, and so it just went on way too long. Maybe I have BP now, but it's pretty much dormant. I'm not sure that's the drugs. I'm more confident it's due to all of the really hard work I did to get my brain and my life back.

Still no friends within 800 miles.

Finally tired and going to bed.

Addendum: After thinking about what I wrote here, I'm coming back to say that I think it should be illegal for primary care physicians to practice anything that even hints of psychiatry. After having read the Rolling Stone article about Zyprexa and how psych meds are presented to PCPs like an act of seduction, I'm even more convinced that mood-mending is so specialized, it should require a separate medical license. I'm just sayin'...