Saturday, July 30, 2016

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

In my view, when it comes to medications, it is a good idea to not check the list of side effects. I think, previewing the list of side effects can lead to believing you have them. So, in my prescription drug life, I will look up side effects once something seems to be changing.

Well, my cocktail of 5 drugs for my mental health has been going through lots of adjustments lately. A new drug, not just new to me, but newly issued, had me losing my shit worse than what it was supposed to be fixing. This was after a week of being on it. I called my prescribing nurse practitioner; left a message explaining what was changing; and, she called me back to tell me to stop immediately.

So, a few days ago, Shawn and I had an appointment with my nurse practitioner to check in on how I am doing and make some medication adjustments again. Yesterday, I really started to notice some odd changes that weren't all about my mental health. For one, my vision was getting really blurry, but mostly up close. I thought maybe I was getting to that reading-glasses age. I tried some OTC reading glasses which seemed like they were going to help, but turned out to fail. Then, I talked to Shawn, and we decided it was probably time to get an eye exam.

I also started to have shaky hands the last couple days. Thinking about that plus blurred vision, I decided it was time to look into the side effects. HOLY SHIT STAINS! The crossover from drug to drug is major. To me, it seems that with me being on 5 drugs with very similar side effect lists increases my likelihood of having some of those side effects. And, GUESS WHAT? Blurred vision and shakiness are on a few of the lists. Now, I'm going to cancel my eye appointment and call my psych nurse practitioner to tell her about the blurred vision and shaky hands.

The side effect lists for drugs can be very long and I choose to avoid the power of suggestion that can come with that.  

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