Update: Adjusting to Levothyroxine, Anxiety Med Thoughts

 Miscellaneous: (Last week)

Still struggling with the levo, feel wiggy about 4 hours after I take pill in morning. Trying to hang in there, it takes 1-2 weeks to adjust to change in dosage. I’m on day 6. See Matt in 30 minutes, not in mood to be lectured about going to the gym, I’m barely hanging on here! Took my Gabapentin 30 minutes ago, not sure if that moves the needle on feeling better? Had hoped taking all the morning meds at once would help me feel better, but not noticing a change. Upset that I’ve been dealing with this for almost 3 months.

Michael is assisting as best he can. He helped me make the pharmacy transition so I could get my new Gabapentin script. He’s pretty much doing all the housework, save a few chores. I do the cooking and kitchen cleanup up. I feel guilty I don’t do more.

Feel like I’m basically slogging through life, burdened by the bipolar, anxiety disorder, and thyroid disease. I’m exhausted and sick of feeling like shit. I clearly see why some just stop taking all the medication, or resort to booze or weed to feel better. I’m in recovery, can’t reach for the substances or else I might end up hospitalized or worse. Matt tells me to write about what is going to make me happy today but it’s damn near impossible to do that.

***

(Day 10 of 112 mcg levo dose)

Feeling much better this morning! No nervousness or anxiety, don’t feel wiggy. Continue to take levo with my other morning meds. I’m anchored by the 4,800 mg/day Gabapentin for anxiety BUT I’m feeling very uncomfortable about taking such a high dose and I want to taper down on it. This is what trips me up, I get to a place where my anxiety is handled and I then want to tinker with the Gabapentin dosage. It never works well for me when I do, I get hit with crippling anxiety and have to stop taper.

I’m really tempted to call Levy to discuss the Gabapentin but he will charge a lot of money for the extra session. Oh, how I wish I could be free of all these meds but no, they keep me sane. Maybe I just lean into the fact that this morning I am feeling calm and anxiety free. My husband has insomnia and that’s affecting me but we are muddling our way through.

So the upshot is I’m feeling better on this levo and my anxiety appears to be handled. Issues to tackle include my diet/weight and getting more exercise. My husband has a lot of energy I can’t match. But I’m keeping up with my cooking duties, so there’s that. I feel guilty I can’t do all the chores my husband does. But he says he doesn’t mind cleaning. 

***

Ok so it’s after brunch, I’ve eaten and had my noontime gabapentin dose. I’m trying to do some laundry and I started feeling wiggy going up and down the stairs. Right now I’m in my recliner and drinking water, waiting to feel better. I’m still in that 2 week window for adjusting to the change in the levo dose. I’m absolutely sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. Not sure who to call. Levy? Larrimer? No one? This is so frustrating. I can’t stay in this chair forever! 

Michael says to have some fortitude; maybe I just need to grin and bear it until my appointment with my endocrinologist on April 22. I’m not good with physical discomfort. I guess I need a backbone.

Enough Is Enough

 Had yet another bad morning, waking up at 5:00 am, fretting over whether to continue to try and suffer through taking the thyroid med the new way and having anxiety and nervousness; or just to go back to my old way of taking all my morning meds together. Finally said enough is enough, got out of bed and came downstairs and swallowed my morning meds all at once. It’s how my mom takes her levo, it’s how my friend Katie’s mom takes her levo (after going through the same hell I have been!).

It really ties me up in knots to not be following Dr. Larrimer’s instructions to take the levo alone, wait 30 minutes, then take the rest of my morning meds. But I’ve been trying to do this new way and I’m a mess. Mom and Michael have cut me off from discussing my angst. I cannot be out here on my own without family support! 

***

Sent messages to Dr. Levy and Dr. Schumacher looking for green light to bundle my meds together and they said AOK! So now it’s Day 2 of swallowing all my meds together and so far I’m feeling good. I’m a little bit uncomfortable but I’m waiting for morning gabapentin to kick in. I’ll never get rid of all anxiety, gotta accept some.

Going to go to my exercise class at the pool this morning, that always feels good. Have a busy week with family gathering, lunch date, and hockey game. Sun is out but it’s still cool, it’s March in Ohio. Morning phone calls with mom are changing; she doesn’t want to discuss anxiety anymore. So I have to adapt, it’s hard but I don’t want to be a burden.

I’ll keep plugging along, I always do. Good day to be sane and sober. I’ll take that!

Thyroid Medication Challenges

So I’ve been instructed to take my thyroid med levothyroxine first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Then 30 minutes later I’m to take the rest of my morning meds, which includes the Gabapentin for anxiety, and meloxicam for arthritis. The reason you do this is the levo doesn’t absorb very well, so you want to take it alone. I didn’t realize this, apparently forgot my original dosing instruction two decades ago. I was taking all my morning meds at once. That was not correct.

 I’ve been following this new dosing schedule for 2 1/2 months, as we’ve adjusted my levo from a high of 137 mcg/day to where I am now, 112 mcg. We’ve had to keep lowering the dosage because of breakthrough anxiety I’ve been experiencing, which has been crippling. I looked it up and if you are taking too much levothyroxine you can have anxiety and nervousness.

I’m trying to remember correctly, but I don’t think my anxiety was as bad when I was taking my levothyroxine with the rest of my morning meds, all at once, not separating it out. So now I’m at a crossroads, wondering if I should go against my new dosing instruction and go back to taking all my morning meds at once, to get some relief from anxiety. I don’t think I’m going to go against doctors instructions, but dammit, I’m sick of the anxiety!

Mom and Michael are cutting discussion about my anxiety off, they’ve had enough of my fretting and worrying and fear. Therapist Matt is suggesting I call the 988 Lifeline Ohio number for support…what the hell? I’m not going to do that. He also suggested journaling when I’m having bad anxiety, and I’ve been doing that. It’s been helpful. 

Today is my third day at the lower 112 mcg levo dose and I’m not feeling particularly anxious. I’m not feeling particularly joyful either, which is concerning to me. Maybe I will end up back where we started, at the 100 mcg levo dose. That was where I was before Dr. Levy did the blood draw in December and got a 3.4 TSH result. 

Oh who knows, I will just keep trudging along, probably dealing with the anxiety myself. I know myself, I’m committed to being compliant with doctors orders, and will probably follow the new dosing schedule for another week before contacting my endocrinologist for relief. 

***

Ok so I started feeling jittery and nervous after brunch, despite taking my noon dose of Gabapentin, and I said to myself to hell with this, I’m just going to take a walk. I felt better afterwards, so maybe what I need to do is get moving when the anxiety starts to grip me. 

I think it’s up to me to use tools in addition to the Gabapentin and levo reductions to manage my anxiety. Walking, deep breathing, journaling comes to mind. Water exercise, etcetera. I’m doing my best to follow these avenues, and seeing some benefit. I also like talking to mom about my anxiety but she can no longer handle it. I’m sad about that but I’ll try and move forward.

That’s it for now. I’ll check back in with updates. Graves disease I wish I didn’t have you. 

Writing Prompt: The High Dive

 Prompt: Write about a favorite memory.

The High Dive

I wanted to write about a cool experience in my life, one that didn’t involve weed or alcohol. So to find something, I had to reach into my memory bank, going back to childhood, or in this case my early teenage years, when I sported braces and the occasional zit. It was a time when I felt fearless, invincible, and I was open to dares and challenges. 

At age 13 in the summer, you could inevitably find me at the community pool in Bexley. It was a large outdoor pool with lap lanes, and there was a roped off deep water section with a low diving board and a high diving board. I love swimming and diving, always have, and I loved those summers spending hours in the pool. 

So when I was 13 I was a tomboy, and I loved hanging with a group of boys that hung out around the diving boards at the Bexley pool. This one guy, Wade, was a particularly good friend, and he was a very good diver. Wade preferred the high dive to the lower diving board, and had no problem doing back flips off of the high dive and neatly entering the water below.

Now, I had mastered the low diving board, doing pike dives and back flips with ease. But I was itching to do what Wade and some other boys were doing: the back flips off of the high dive. I spent a lot of time watching Wade and how he did his flips. He made it look effortless and I grew determined to do it.

Eventually the day would come when I knew it was time for me to do the back flip. I can’t remember if Wade coached me on it or not, if he was there observing me. Probably he was, and there very well could have been other friends of mine gathered to watch too. 

Whatever the case, I do remember quite clearly climbing up the high diving board, walking down it to the end, and turning around. My toes held me in place as I quickly surveyed the area around me. And then I just closed my eyes, arched backwards and fell back, seeming to hang there in the air for a long time until remembering to flip my legs over me so I entered the water feet first. And viola! I did it on the first try, my very own high dive back flip. I couldn’t wait to do it again.

This is definitely a favorite memory of mine, the free fall of a slow back flip off of an outside high diving board in the summertime. Having absolutely no fear of screwing up the dive and doing a belly flop. And upon completing the back flip, I felt part of a small club of people undaunted by the high diving board. 

Therapy Assignment: Feeling Too Much vs. Feeling Too Little

 Write about feeling too much vs. feeling too little. Is there a healthy balance? Is feeling tense normal and ok? How do I feel comfortable with some normal anxiety?

Getting Comfortable With Feeling

I got an assignment from my therapist this week to write about feeling too much vs. feeling too little. Can I find a healthy balance? I admitted to him that sometimes I want to be medicated to such an extent that I don’t feel any anxiety at all; I’ve been known to beg my psychiatrist for a benzo script from time to time, which he always refuses (and thank God for that).

 Subsequently I’m trying to tease out how I can find comfort feeling some normal anxiety, accepting that sometimes feeling tense is normal and ok. My psychiatrist has told me he’s not going to knock out all my anxiety with too much medicine, so I’ve got to learn how to live with some tension. So I’m trying to do things like turning to exercise to manage my anxiety breakthroughs. I’m having some success with that. I’m also using the meditation app Insight Timer, which has proven to help.

I know I don’t want to be a zombie, I want to be feeling something. Just not feeling too much, and by that I mean not going down the rabbit hole of obsessive anxious rumination over catastrophic future scenarios. I think the anxiety medication I take now is effectively controlling my obsessive thoughts. So now I’m left with some tension which I’m beginning to realize is not a bad thing.

I think what I need to do is plan more activities into my days. That way when I’m feeling some tension I have something to distract me, or rather keep me occupied. Or maybe there’s some way I can take the tension and turn it into something positive, like a creative project of some kind. In other words, can I work with the tension, the feelings, in such a way that I get a benefit?

One thing I know is that I am an addict that likes to numb all tension and turn it into something pleasurable. So maybe I need to look at this in another way, just sitting with feelings, whether comfortable or not. Not trying to do anything to change them, rather just existing with them. Maybe that’s where some balance can be found? 

Morning Fear, Again

 Ever since waking up I’ve been contending with horrible fear about being alone and unable to cope. I feel helpless, with no one to call on. I’m trying to remember Sponsor Shawn’s lesson of write the facts underneath the fear. So here goes:

Fear: In the future, I am alone and unable to manage.

Facts: TODAY I am NOT alone. I have my husband and mother, brother and sister, nieces and nephews, friends both in and out of AA. Dr. Levy, therapist Matt, Dr. Larrimer. There are others I can call on. I can manage! I am intelligent. I am resourceful. I know how to research, I know how to communicate. I am not helpless. I am a survivor.

If I get back to the present moment, back to today, I can get a toehold and feel stronger and more capable and resilient. I must remember in the early morning my cortisol levels are high and the anxiety is spiked. I just took my morning Gabapentin and that will kick in and then I will really feel relief. I don’t like it that I’m reliant on so much medication but I’m not going to fret about that right now. 

I think a key for me is to become more self-sufficient. I’m extremely dependent on my husband and my mother. But mom is already starting to push me out on my own; she’s starting to ghost my texts, and is showing less and less compassion when I come to her with fears. Maybe she’s sick of me, or I’ve just worn her out. Anxiety is exhausting. She is putting up boundaries. I must respect them.

Ok, postscript, I just had an hour long conversation with mom and now I’m feeling so much better. Yup, I’m dependent on mom, need to do something about that. Oh well, something to tackle tomorrow.