A good friend of mine, while on Wellbutrin (I think) found out that he's one of the 5% or so of people who get seizures while on it. Wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't discovered this while driving. Sooo...be careful with that, I guess.
And you could totally take up juggling instead of making your fingers bleed. The nice thing about that hobby is that, since you can always move up to a greater number of balls as you get better, you're never bored (ATM).
Or if you want a really small fiddly thing to do (with bonus sharp implements), you should totally become a netsuke carver. There's good money in that.
b-wo: I guess it's domesticated yeast. a wild yeast starter, that he fed and stuff. I can juggle three balls and that's it. anyway, my nails look great now. a few little toe scabs, but who's counting?
So, I haven't had any seizures yet, but I have experienced the "aura" twice: this is what epileptic sufferers experience before the seizures. [...] Hopefully I won't get any actual seizures, though, since having an electrical storm in your brain sounds...well, to be perfectly honest, it sounds kind of cool too, but I might fall and hit my head on something.
Well, the aura means you're already having an electrical storm in your brain. It's entirely possible to have a major seizure/electical storm and not have it affect your motor control and you remain conscious, and quite possibly remaining unaware that there's a seizure going on. It's called temporal lobe epilepsy (I believe that's the proper name; it's been awhile).
The thing where you fall over and pass out and/or speak in tongues and shit is just a really big electrical shit storm. Like being hit by lightning as opposed to the bzzt you get from sticking a fork into electrical outlit.
And the great thing is, that's also exactly what electroshock is, except even bigger and external.
Anyways, probably something most people want to avoid, and the sorta thing you kinda need to learn to want to avoid. (Or however you wanna phrase it that: Thrill Kill Cult (alas, yes, alas, but also good riddance) must go at our Giant! Going! Out! Of bidness! Sale! When it's gone, it's gone! So come on down and meat the Green Night at our bright lights! Taxes, title and destination charges not included. Not warrantied for any specific purpose. All sales final.)
The funny thing was that my dad asked my mom if I was blogging it, and she was like "can you believe he asked that? What a ridiculous question! Like you would do that!"
Well, either he truly is a self-centered bastard or he knows something mom doesn't.
different SSRI's for different folks; my dad, brother and myself love the wellbutrin, while it gave my sister psychotic episodes. mom is all about the prozac, cuz she's old school. of course, I also take old-timey tricyclics too, because I like to mix it up a little. it's like a mental illness martial art which draws from many schools. I call it "crazy tiger, hidden drinking."
Alameida: Hope you get through this without too many flesh wounds or electrical storms. Also, thanks for having the courage to share this with the internets. This is some of the most entertaining blogging I've read in a long time.
Shock treatment. Don't go anywhere near that shit. My father had it done about ten years ago and he was never the same after that. Didn't cure his depression, either.
I read some thing somewhere about how Benjamin Rush, father of American psychiatry, discovered that if you almost drowned a depressed patient, they'd feel pretty darned good for a few days afterward. I think shock works on the same principle.
the reason I have the internet in rehab is that they let me have my laptop and the wi-fi network of a neighboring office building isn't password protected.
My uncle had electroshock for manic depression, and about six years afterwards he seemed to have put his life somewhat together. Don't know if it's at all causal. He was in pretty damned rough shape directly afterwards.
And ugh, your parents. Dad wants to send yeast (yes! warm, homemade bread cures all ills! Embrace the dream of normalcy!) and Mom is worried that you'll blog it and People will Find Out. You have my sympathy. I never tell my parents anything, myself.
I have several family members and friends who work(ed) as psychiatric nurses. Most of them were i) pretty uncomfortable with the fact that ECT is still used occasionally and ii) fairly sure that in a few cases it actually works pretty well and had issues reconciling these two things. One nurse I know point blank refused to have anything to do with the administration of ECT.
I get the seizures, yo. I used to smell burnt eggs and even mildly hallucinate when a seizure was coming, which is in fact a good thing because it gives you time to lay/lie down.
If you have a full-on seizure, the following day you will feel like you've given every muscle in your body an extensive workout. Body By Epilepsy!
Well, a close family member had electroshock therapy for depression and it really did the trick. Other stuff just wasn't working. (Though this is maybe 12 years ago or so, so the drugs are probably better now.) Recipient has been absolutely fine ever since and indeed flourishing.
Yeah, my understanding from my nurse friends was that ECT, at least where they worked, was mainly used for chronic long-term major depression that was unresponsive to other forms of treatment.
I just have to chime in here to say that ECT is not barbaric. It's not a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest World. They paralyse the rest of your body, so you're not jerking around the table in apseudo grand mal seizure.
What's barbaric is letting people kill themselves, because their depression is intractable. It can be used on people who shouldn't be taking too many drugs, like nursing mothers, and it's also used to crub manic excitement. A woman in puerpereal fulminating mania will be temporarily quieted by haldol, but it could take a long time for lithium to work, and if you don't want to use depakote because of the risk of polycystic ovary syndrome, then ECT is a really good option.
Yes, there's short-term memory loss, but no medical treatment is without side-effects, and it can be life-saving.
I don't think that I've ever experienced the aura--certainly not the full-blown version, but I've definitely had times where the world looked "hyperreal and intensely, crisply tangible." Never glowy, but maybe once just a tiny bit swimmy. I think I chose to lie down in a dark room and go to sleep after that. It was too mild to qualify as actual epilepsy--even temporal lobe--but I'm now on an antidepressant which is also an anticonvulsant (lamictal), so it's all good.
It can be used on people who shouldn't be taking too many drugs, like nursing mothers
I just got an image of mom lying paralyzed, electrode-covered, and topless on the ECT table while her infant crawls over her prone form, attempting to suckle at the unresponsive teats.
It wasn't even all that long-term in itself. There was a background of years of bearing the main responsibility of caring for/ organising care for an elderly relative, which had finally come to an end, only to be followed by a major crisis in the person's workplace which resulted in massive workload increase and months of constant worrying about the problems. Then the person suffered a physical injury which had them immobilised and on major painkillers. This was when the depression kicked in and got quite severe very quickly. It wasn't really responding at all to medication after, I don't remember now exactly, maybe a couple of months, so the psychiatrist proposed ECT. We had to get over our ideas about same which as BG says were mainly derived from OFOTCN. Anyhow it was like magic, how the person was restored to themself pretty much immediately and was able to go home quite soon after.
I would just like to note that mixing tramadol and half a cyclobenzeprine is a really bad idea. One can impair breathing in high doses and the other relaxes muscles (including the ones you need to breath). On the other hand, opiates make you feel really peaceful.
So why does the doctor prescribe both at the same time? We don't know.
A good friend of mine, while on Wellbutrin (I think) found out that he's one of the 5% or so of people who get seizures while on it. Wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't discovered this while driving. Sooo...be careful with that, I guess.
And you could totally take up juggling instead of making your fingers bleed. The nice thing about that hobby is that, since you can always move up to a greater number of balls as you get better, you're never bored (ATM).
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 1:36 AM
Or if you want a really small fiddly thing to do (with bonus sharp implements), you should totally become a netsuke carver. There's good money in that.
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 1:44 AM
Kitty! Looks just like my pussy.
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 1:47 AM
If the yeast has been carefully cultivated, in what sense is it still wild?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 2:45 AM
A good friend of mine, while on Wellbutrin (I think) found out that he's one of the 5% or so of people who get seizures while on it.
BPhd knew a young woman who actually died from a Wellbutrin-induced seizure.
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 2:50 AM
Also, you're basically "lying" there. Uh, I hope you're well.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 2:54 AM
b-wo: I guess it's domesticated yeast. a wild yeast starter, that he fed and stuff. I can juggle three balls and that's it. anyway, my nails look great now. a few little toe scabs, but who's counting?
Posted by alameida | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 2:55 AM
wait, lying how?
Posted by alameida | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 2:56 AM
oh, I see. but it's my idiolect: people from south carolina are allowed to say "he was just laying there, crying like a baby", etc.
Posted by alameida | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 3:01 AM
So, I haven't had any seizures yet, but I have experienced the "aura" twice: this is what epileptic sufferers experience before the seizures. [...] Hopefully I won't get any actual seizures, though, since having an electrical storm in your brain sounds...well, to be perfectly honest, it sounds kind of cool too, but I might fall and hit my head on something.
Well, the aura means you're already having an electrical storm in your brain. It's entirely possible to have a major seizure/electical storm and not have it affect your motor control and you remain conscious, and quite possibly remaining unaware that there's a seizure going on. It's called temporal lobe epilepsy (I believe that's the proper name; it's been awhile).
The thing where you fall over and pass out and/or speak in tongues and shit is just a really big electrical shit storm. Like being hit by lightning as opposed to the bzzt you get from sticking a fork into electrical outlit.
And the great thing is, that's also exactly what electroshock is, except even bigger and external.
Anyways, probably something most people want to avoid, and the sorta thing you kinda need to learn to want to avoid. (Or however you wanna phrase it that: Thrill Kill Cult (alas, yes, alas, but also good riddance) must go at our Giant! Going! Out! Of bidness! Sale! When it's gone, it's gone! So come on down and meat the Green Night at our bright lights! Taxes, title and destination charges not included. Not warrantied for any specific purpose. All sales final.)
The funny thing was that my dad asked my mom if I was blogging it, and she was like "can you believe he asked that? What a ridiculous question! Like you would do that!"
Well, either he truly is a self-centered bastard or he knows something mom doesn't.
ash
['Possibly both.']
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 3:09 AM
0 for 2, b-wo. And I'm sure Al was feeling better.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 3:33 AM
Are you getting all of your dad's responses through your mom? If so, she is so anxious that you'd blog this.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 3:35 AM
My Dad had a terrible grand mal seizure on Zoloft. Wellbutrin was fine which I think was weird.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 5:50 AM
Crap, I've gotta run, but I meant to write, "More later." Of course, typing this is taking up a time too...
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 5:52 AM
different SSRI's for different folks; my dad, brother and myself love the wellbutrin, while it gave my sister psychotic episodes. mom is all about the prozac, cuz she's old school. of course, I also take old-timey tricyclics too, because I like to mix it up a little. it's like a mental illness martial art which draws from many schools. I call it "crazy tiger, hidden drinking."
Posted by alameida | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 6:00 AM
some paper for the girls to draw on
Your kids are in rehab with you?
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 6:26 AM
they're allowed to visit once a day. thank god.
Posted by alameida | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 6:30 AM
Alameida: Hope you get through this without too many flesh wounds or electrical storms. Also, thanks for having the courage to share this with the internets. This is some of the most entertaining blogging I've read in a long time.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 7:46 AM
Echoing 18: This might be even better than "Ogged hasn't had sex for 787 days" blogging." I'm sorry, but you can't leave* rehab.
*Unless you feel sufficiently better, in which case it would be fine to write posts pretending you're in rehab. I'm easily decieved.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 8:57 AM
So lockdown wards have internet access these days? I guess we've moved on from the 19th century model.
Posted by gonerill | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 9:10 AM
Shock treatment. Don't go anywhere near that shit. My father had it done about ten years ago and he was never the same after that. Didn't cure his depression, either.
I read some thing somewhere about how Benjamin Rush, father of American psychiatry, discovered that if you almost drowned a depressed patient, they'd feel pretty darned good for a few days afterward. I think shock works on the same principle.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 9:13 AM
the reason I have the internet in rehab is that they let me have my laptop and the wi-fi network of a neighboring office building isn't password protected.
Posted by alameida | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 9:29 AM
The fools! Muahahahaa.
Posted by gonerill | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 9:32 AM
If I remember the novel right, the next step is for you to upload yourself into the internets and disappear.
Posted by gonerill | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 9:33 AM
My uncle had electroshock for manic depression, and about six years afterwards he seemed to have put his life somewhat together. Don't know if it's at all causal. He was in pretty damned rough shape directly afterwards.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 9:40 AM
Wait, that "aura" thing isn't normal? Shit.
And ugh, your parents. Dad wants to send yeast (yes! warm, homemade bread cures all ills! Embrace the dream of normalcy!) and Mom is worried that you'll blog it and People will Find Out. You have my sympathy. I never tell my parents anything, myself.
Nothing like home manicures to stave off boredom.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 9:48 AM
Yeast. Yeah, that's a great gift for someone in rehab. You can find the sugary fluid yourself.
Yeast piss: turns juice into juice.
Yeast farts: and bubbles, can't forget the bubbles!
Posted by md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 10:25 AM
I have several family members and friends who work(ed) as psychiatric nurses. Most of them were i) pretty uncomfortable with the fact that ECT is still used occasionally and ii) fairly sure that in a few cases it actually works pretty well and had issues reconciling these two things. One nurse I know point blank refused to have anything to do with the administration of ECT.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 12:17 PM
I had a friend in high school who had ECT for schizophrenia. In the short term it seemed to help; in the long term, not so much.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 12:22 PM
I get the seizures, yo. I used to smell burnt eggs and even mildly hallucinate when a seizure was coming, which is in fact a good thing because it gives you time to lay/lie down.
If you have a full-on seizure, the following day you will feel like you've given every muscle in your body an extensive workout. Body By Epilepsy!
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 1:09 PM
giving up the valium, that's a tough one. manicures should help, though.
3: except your kitten looks insane, Anthony.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 1:31 PM
your kitten looks insane
I'm partial to this kitty.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 5:55 PM
that poor kitty. I bet no one ever rubs its tummy.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 6:21 PM
I bet Ted Junker does.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-18-06 6:25 PM
Well, a close family member had electroshock therapy for depression and it really did the trick. Other stuff just wasn't working. (Though this is maybe 12 years ago or so, so the drugs are probably better now.) Recipient has been absolutely fine ever since and indeed flourishing.
Posted by emr | Link to this comment | 06-19-06 6:26 AM
re: 35
Yeah, my understanding from my nurse friends was that ECT, at least where they worked, was mainly used for chronic long-term major depression that was unresponsive to other forms of treatment.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-19-06 8:18 AM
I just have to chime in here to say that ECT is not barbaric. It's not a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest World. They paralyse the rest of your body, so you're not jerking around the table in apseudo grand mal seizure.
What's barbaric is letting people kill themselves, because their depression is intractable. It can be used on people who shouldn't be taking too many drugs, like nursing mothers, and it's also used to crub manic excitement. A woman in puerpereal fulminating mania will be temporarily quieted by haldol, but it could take a long time for lithium to work, and if you don't want to use depakote because of the risk of polycystic ovary syndrome, then ECT is a really good option.
Yes, there's short-term memory loss, but no medical treatment is without side-effects, and it can be life-saving.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 06-19-06 9:14 AM
Re: the Aura
I don't think that I've ever experienced the aura--certainly not the full-blown version, but I've definitely had times where the world looked "hyperreal and intensely, crisply tangible." Never glowy, but maybe once just a tiny bit swimmy. I think I chose to lie down in a dark room and go to sleep after that. It was too mild to qualify as actual epilepsy--even temporal lobe--but I'm now on an antidepressant which is also an anticonvulsant (lamictal), so it's all good.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 06-19-06 9:26 AM
It can be used on people who shouldn't be taking too many drugs, like nursing mothers
I just got an image of mom lying paralyzed, electrode-covered, and topless on the ECT table while her infant crawls over her prone form, attempting to suckle at the unresponsive teats.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-19-06 9:30 AM
Re: 36
It wasn't even all that long-term in itself. There was a background of years of bearing the main responsibility of caring for/ organising care for an elderly relative, which had finally come to an end, only to be followed by a major crisis in the person's workplace which resulted in massive workload increase and months of constant worrying about the problems. Then the person suffered a physical injury which had them immobilised and on major painkillers. This was when the depression kicked in and got quite severe very quickly. It wasn't really responding at all to medication after, I don't remember now exactly, maybe a couple of months, so the psychiatrist proposed ECT. We had to get over our ideas about same which as BG says were mainly derived from OFOTCN. Anyhow it was like magic, how the person was restored to themself pretty much immediately and was able to go home quite soon after.
Posted by emr | Link to this comment | 06-19-06 9:38 AM
38. Huh. I shall have to look into this aura stuff, b/c I get those all the time. I figured it was normal.
I also get visual migraines but the headache part isn't so bad.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-19-06 9:43 AM
I would just like to note that mixing tramadol and half a cyclobenzeprine is a really bad idea. One can impair breathing in high doses and the other relaxes muscles (including the ones you need to breath). On the other hand, opiates make you feel really peaceful.
So why does the doctor prescribe both at the same time? We don't know.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-19-06 9:59 AM