#Haven't taken my blood pressure meds for a week and my blood pressure was only slightly elevated at my group

[tretaaysel]

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[enbymaths]

Life update/vent/stress in academia

I'd like to preface this with the following two points:

1. this is going to be some kind of explanation for my hiatus and it's going to be pretty heavy so please watch out for TW drvg use/anxi3ty/depr3ssion

2. if anyone who knows me IRL sees this, I implore you not to approach about any of this stuff, I don't want to make all of this some soppy story about poor little me

Since the beginning of 2024. I've been sick on and off every couple of weeks, my nose'd be runny for like a week or so and then I'd be fine for a couple of days and that cycle would repeat itself every couple of weeks until I got really bad stomachaches that lasted for 8 weeks until I got some antibiotics.

Those 8 weeks were a complete hell for me. One does sacrifice a lot of their life in order to succeed in academia, but health? That's scary.

So I decided to try and not to stress myself out about my upcoming exams, keep in mind the fact that I'm in my last year of undergrad. After those 8 weeks have passed along with additional 2 weeks full of doctor exams, I went back to studying for the upcoming exam season which was now in a couple of weeks.

My college isn't the most organized one, and that exam season was stretched out over the course of two months and now I had only 4 weeks to prepare myself for the upcoming exam season and I was stressing out really badly. My health has been on a decline for about two years, and all the doctors have been saying that it is due to stress, not trying to do anything about it actually and they'd prescribe me some b3nzodiazepines and beta blockers.

The thing that they didn't take into account is the fact that I was prescribed b3nzos for my insomnia along with melatonin for the past 4 years. I'd take them pretty much every night because I just wasn't able to sleep.

And my exam season came along, and I failed pretty much all of my exams, miserably. I was hoping that I'd be able to finish my degree in time despite my declining health, and no, I wasn't able to pull off such thing. Life happens.

After that and a cardiac episode that I had on my birthday, I was sent to a psychiatrist for evaluation because of my blood pressure going sky high and random muscle twitching. I thought I did pretty fine, but the psychiatrist told me that I should 'worry less', 'go out more' etc. and sent me on my way home merrily with a prescription for 5 drugs, two of which were add1ctive.

Now that one month has passed, I can say that I haven't taken any of those meds, primarily because I believed that I can beat this on my own terms and I was scared of taking more add1ctive meds-at the end of the day, I was taking b3nzos for the

last four years

for my insomnia.

And I was kinda successful, up until today. Last couple of days I tried to go to sleep without taking my nightly b3nzo and I was able to pull it off!

For 3 days.

And I'd sleep!

Poorly.

And finally, I had a mental breakdown where I realized that I was really depressed, I had all kinds of thoughts flying through ny head and I couldn't calm myself down. And what did I do? Well yes, I popped a x4nny. And I became a completely different person. No more dark thoughts, no more sewer slide ideations, life had meaning again and then it hit me-unbeknownst to me, I have developed a b3nzo add1ction.

Then I tried to google a couple of articles about long-term b3nzo abvse and I came across this one article on

where they talked about people feeling a sudden decline in their health after years of taking b3nzos and it hit me.

I wasn't depressed.

I went through withdrawal symptoms. I am addicted.

So the next step? I'm going to talk about my b3nzos problem with my psychiatrist this monday and take the right course of action, maybe ask for a second opinion, to ask them to reconsider my diagnosis and delegate me to another clinic if necessary. My problem may be very much real, and I have caused it.

All of the symptoms and diagnoses that were listed on the site above as misdiagnoses for long-term b3nzo abvse were all once considered as diagnoses for me in this past year. Immensely weakened immune system can be explained by prolonged b3nzo abvse. And the scariest thing about all of this?

I wasn't aware that I couldn't make it without my body aching for meds.

All of this stress, all the worries about my grades, academia and my future and I wasn't even aware that I was add1cted to my meds. Just because I didn't take care of my well-being and didn't notice that I wasn't able to stop taking my meds.

The point is that health comes first and academia will always be second. Do not sacrifice yourself for academia, and if you're going through similar things right now, I hope that you know that we're making it out of this b

[firespirited]

Migraine update:

first day since starting to take the diclofenac that the back of the head pain was gone. Haven't felt that in 50 days. It was odd constantly reaching for the back of my head and pressing like maybe there might be a bruise, nope.

I'm not looking for triggers at this point but doing a solid 7 days uninterrupted, no testing, no nonsense to see if we can fully get that inflammation down and gone-gone.

However I did something stupid and had chocolate, a possible trigger/possible pro-drome craving for the half head 8h migraine type during a forgetful moment. It did nothing. 😁

Also needed to test caffeine at a recent night blood pressure drop. Since I now know bp drops are a trigger, it could have been that not the caffeine remedy. I staggered the caffeine and monitored carefully at the 25-30 minute marks. I need the sleep caffeine can offer (6h half life vs meds 3h). Not ideal but caffeine is off the trigger list if taken in staggered form. I won't test taking all 400mg at once (the equivalent of two coffees) for a while just in case.

🌸Crafts today were drilling tiny holes, using acetone goop and pins to fix broken limbs.

🌸Also realised that I'm very low on pale tshirts/tops. I basically have 2 for going out. 1 for lily's 20 minute walk that can be worn twice. But my load of washing is done weekly and I've got physio twice a week now. So I went to aliexpress and got two novelty t-shirts and two blouses following bust size measurements. They might only last two summers or less but wading through the ugly plus size sections of mail order catalogues didn't seem appealing. After I was done I got an ad for sheincurvy, I would have been all over that two days ago! Maybe it's for the best.

[enouement-x]

After the fear has worn down about if I'd have to put my sweet Figgy down or not, I have been filled with such blinding rage. Her symptoms Thursday were due to extremely severe hypertension and most likely a stroke because of hypertension - something I tried to get taken care of back in October.

She's my elderly girl with lots of "special features" (health issues) already so I am very hypervigilante with her. I tried to get my regular vet to check her blood pressure in Oct because of her symptoms. The receptionist said they didn't have the right size cuff, but the vet would call me to figure something out. The vet never called. I called back a few days later, the vet was supposed to still call, she never did.

So then I was just like, fine, I will schedule an appointment with her specialist vet (where she had surgery before and got her IBD taken care of) two hours away to get her blood pressure checked- he was booked till February.

Now, my sweet Figgy most likely had a stroke and her blindness is due to hypertension that could have been taken care of in fucking October. I don't understand why regular vets do not normally check cat's blood pressure. Figgy has chronic kidney disease which is fairly common in elderly cats, and around 3/4 of them develop hypertension. So why? Why don't they check? Our specialist vet showed me how to check (when we went for a follow up today) and you just use a regular human blood pressure monitor and the cuff size is less than $10.

I am so deeply enraged that what she just went through could have been prevented that I can hardly stand it. She also might not fully recover and I just feel like reigning hell fire on earth if she doesn't because I tried to prevent this and because I am so fiercely protective of my two cats. She and I spend so much time monitoring and caring for her chronic issues. She needs subcutaneous fluids at least twice a week, 3-4 meds every day, depending (she is actually great with these things), I cannot not come home for a day because she has to have these meds, I have to schedule my life around caring for her. I don't mind this at all, I am so incredibly honored to give her this care and she returns the favor with the utmost love and companionship. But, we do all this, and her vet could not just order a very cheap cuff or even call me back to tell me if she could take care of her blood pressure. Also, her hypertension is what has caused her blindness which may not get any better even with the blood pressure meds she's now received.

Anyway, it is rare that I feel such fierce protective rage coursing through my body but once the fear went away of having to consider putting Figgy down before I knew what was wrong, this is what filled me. She is my sweet girl who trusts me and only me, and my days are spent making sure she has the best and longest, loving life after an awful one on the streets. To give her so much care only to know that I tried to prevent this, yet was met with negligence, really fucking floors me.

If anyone is wondering, Capital Veterinary Specialists absolutely works wonders and they are the true epitome of caring veterinary practice. Lastly, please send nice thoughts to my sweet girl. I haven't even had her two years yet since I found her and she's already gone through so much - but she always shows me she is still determined to keep loving and being loved.

[sassypotatoe1]

Things that have decided to be bone deep exhausting for no good reason, an incomplete list:

Asking for a morning off to go to the doctor because I can't afford pathology and screening if I do it through a private hospital so I need to go to the state clinic and the doctor and pathologists are only there on weekday mornings.

Practicing my stance, cue action and triangle break for pool for 2 hours and then sleeping for 3.

Saying goodbye to people. It takes a ridiculous amount of concentration and focus I hate it let me just mysteriously disappear once my business is done like batman please.

Having my blood pressure taken. It's 141/72 by the way and it always hurts like hell, it's not supposed to, no I don't know why it does.

Trying to say "I'm exhausted all the time everything hurts and I cannot think or do my job I want a referral to do some pathology and scans" to several different people, and it coming out as "I'm here for a doctor, I need a referral and some tests I'm tired".

Getting out of bed in the morning.

Talking to people over the phone or in noisy environments. I can't hear you, you're in a hurry and get annoyed when I ask you to repeat yourself, please be nice to me I have auditory processing disorder.

Getting my articles right. I have to check with everyone the article is about but I'm not allowed to share proprietary information, and I have to wait for every party to confirm the facts but I have a tight deadline, and I need to give everyone a 24 hour right to reply but when they only reply a week later and I'd already published I should have given them more time. But don't forget the deadline.

Yes I know my chore is the dishes you don't need to tell me with that passive aggressive tone to do the dishes as I am starting to do the dishes, I'm literally doing them right now in front of you.

Making appointments to see the doctor to adjust my meds, I haven't done it yet.

[drtanner]

SO. I have an update to this post, following my first night on meds.

DO NOT TAKE THIS SHIT LATE. DO NOT TAKE IT LATE EVER.

Trying to sleep when this stuff is still in your system is uniquely awful in ways I can only attempt to explain to you. I'm sure at least some of what I'm about to describe is down to my only just having started on the drug and my brain absolutely not being adjusted to it yet, but suffice to say, I have learned my fucking lesson.

So. Some of you may know that I have an anxiety disorder, which has certainly taken a back seat since I started my transition in earnest but is still very much present. I also have, at the time of my writing this, a minor injury to my left shoulder that I suspect to be a pinched nerve, which I got a few weeks ago by punching above my weight with some new dumbbells. Just the left shoulder. The right is fine, but the left shoulder is a little stiff and I sometimes get some slight numbness in my arm and hand. This is an easily reproducible thing, in fact, that I can deliberately cause by pressing just so on the cap of my shoulder! Additionally, part of being on these meds is regular check-ins with the psychiatrist who prescribes them, during which I'll be giving them blood pressure readings because it's fucking amphetamines and if your blood pressure is too high you can do yourself some serious mischief with them. So that's how I'm doing currently, that's the context for what I'm about to tell you.

I expected, since I'd taken the meds late in the day that I would have some difficulty falling asleep, but that wouldn't be any different to any other night because I always sleep like shit and at this point I've made peace with lying in bed and relaxing with my eyes closed, which is almost as good as getting real sleep and certainly better than nothing. However. About 12 hours after I'd taken my first dose of vyvanse, right about the time wherein the psychiatrist explained it ought to be winding down and wearing off, despite being totally calm and comfortable and relaxed, out of the blue I started having panic attack symptoms, which, if you've ever had a panic attack, you know how terrible they can be, even when you're used to them.

If you've never had a panic attack, let me try to break it down for you as best I can. It's not easy to describe in ways that you will really, fully understand but I'm gonna give it my best shot.

First and foremost, you will be deeply, keenly afraid. You may not necessarily be afraid of anything in particular, which makes it hard to rationalise the fear away. It is often just a thing that is happening to you without an obvious reason, and therefore without an obvious solution. So going into this, even if you're used to panic attacks, it's still very difficult to cope with. It will feel, in many cases, very intensely and very sincerely, as if you are going to die. Your heart races and often feels like it's beating irregularly, and everything that feels like a skipped beat will put the fear of god into you in a way that I genuinely hope that those of you who haven't experienced it for yourselves never have to go through, and all of this will be punctuated by a very physical fear reaction that you will feel in your chest as a kind of intense flushing sensation. It's terrible!

At the same time as this is starting up, I also get some fierce heartburn, which I used to be very accustomed to due to my sleep apnoea but haven't had at all since I got my CPAP machine a few years ago. You know what heartburn feels like, it causes burning chest pain that tends to start under your breastbone, where your oesophagus meets your stomach, and that travels up into your throat. If I hadn't been so out of practice I'm sure I would have had an easier time identifying it for what it was, but given that I was wearing my CPAP mask and thus had no logical reason to have heartburn, it was a lot harder to parse in the middle of a panic attack. After lying on my back and grappling with this for a while, I reach for my phone and press my shoulder awkwardly against the pillow. My left arm and hand promptly begin to ache and tingle and go numb.

So that's, you know. That's where we were at around 7-8am this morning. I'm lying in bed, my heart's racing, I'm getting a kind of chest pain that I'm no longer familiar with and my left arm is numb, all while I'm primed to think I'm dying, lmao. You might imagine where my mind went! It was a bad time!

After spending a while googling how to tell the difference between a heart attack and heartburn, whether vyvanse can cause panic attacks and the types of shoulder injuries that can cause the whole arm to go numb while really doing my best to just step back and rationalise everything ("I just started taking these meds and we know now that anxiety is a common symptom when vyvanse leaves your system so given that you already had an anxiety disorder that used to cause you to have panic attacks in bed all the time, this seems very par for the course; remember what happened when you tried anti-depressants years ago?" and "You can feel the pain in your oesophagus, it is very clearly heartburn, which you used to get all the time." and "You have an existing injury to your left shoulder that you know is there and that you can reliably manipulate to cause this exact sensation. You know what this is."), I did eventually manage to convince myself decently enough that I was just having Anxiety Problems™ due to the New Meds™ to get up and go to the bathroom and eat 20mg's worth of melatonin gummies in an attempt to knock myself out and get some fucking sleep, which I eventually did. I'm running on about five hours' sleep right now and I absolutely do not feel right still, but I took my meds much earlier today and I'm hoping they'll level out over the next few weeks. I have learned my fucking lesson. Never again, lmao.

So, I'm not dead, I'm not dying, I took a blood pressure reading just now and it's a little high but still close to my normal, especially given that I've just eaten a fairly fatty meal for breakfast and my body is doubtless working on that. The heartburn and the issue with my arm/shoulder are still giving me some lingering anxiety as well, which I'm sure can't help my blood pressure at all.

I really hope this levels out soon, lmao. I can't be doing this every night.

So before I hit the sack tonight I want to gush for a just a second, just this one time, because I finally got my ADHD meds today and took them for the first time and jesus fucking christ, it's been wild. I didn't know what to expect going into this at all, but I'm over the moon with my first experience of it, lmao.

I'm on the elvanse/vyvanse, or lisdexamfetamine if you fancy trying to say that five times fast, because apparently that one lasts Long and I would like to have to remember to take pills as infrequently as possible. I had one (1) Real Adult Human Job to do today, which was to tidy and dust my coffee table. I am going to tell you how I got on with it, about an hour and twenty minutes after I took my first dose.

I will preface this by saying that the state of my coffee table was very much exemplary of my ADHD issues. It had become the dumping ground for anything I couldn't immediately decide what to do with or how to deal with, which is a lot of things given that one of the major problems my ADHD gives me is decision paralysis! If the answer isn't immediately obvious, my brain just checks out and the decision just ends up getting abandoned; the coffee table was piled high with all kinds of shit that had fallen victim to this phenomenon, letters and tools and knick-knacks and what have you that had no immediately obvious home or that needed something doing with them before they could be used or put away, all of them gathering dust for having remained there, wholly untouched, for so long, and because there was so much of it, I would then get decision paralysis about where to start chipping away at it as well and the problem just had no solution at all. It was, to make no bones about it, a fucking shitshow.

But suddenly I just sort of knew what to do with things? Every time I picked something up off the coffee table, it was suddenly just very, very easy to decide where it should go? It wasn't tiring or difficult or anything, it was just me, starting at the top of the pile without even thinking about it, grabbing shit and going OH, THIS NEEDS TO GO IN THE DRAWER. THIS NEEDS TO GO IN MY FILE. THIS NEEDS TO GO IN THE BIN and so on like it was the simplest and most obvious thing in the fucking world. Suddenly I just knew what to do, which I realise implies in some way that previously I didn't know what to do, and of course I did, of course I knew what to do, but I guess it's a lot like it is when you're trying to have conversations about things you're knowledgeable about when you have ADHD in that the information is absolutely there in your brain, but you can never seem to recall it when you actually need it.

But yeah, no. I found permanent homes for all kinds of little bits and pieces, I fixed things that needed fixing and cleaned everything that needed cleaning and it was, for the first time in my life, blessedly easy to do. I found letters from fucking 2019 at the bottom of the heap, for fucks sake. There was a fucking dried leaf in there. A leaf, from a fucking tree. The skipping rope I'd been putting off using because the (adjustable!!) cable rope was too long has now been adjusted and put in a proper place, ready to be used. My set of hand grippers all have a permanent, tidy place to live and are ready to go as well. Everything's clean and like, still cluttered, but in a nice and intentional way rather than the objectively awful way it was before. It is fucking insane how quick and easy all of this was to achieve. I'm still reeling, honestly. Is this how it is for NTs? Is this how life is supposed to feel? I guess it must be. Fucking wild.

Also I actually had conversations with a couple of my neighbours and I could, like, hear everything they said? Because I was listening?? It doesn't usually work like that! Usually when I'm having a spoken conversation with someone I lose fully half of what they say and I have to kind of piece it together from the context of the other half that I actually do catch and make my best guess, which is not a fun way to have conversations, to say the least. But again, having a conversation was easy, listening was easy, remembering what I was talking about and going back to it when we got a little sidetracked was easy. I stumbled over my words less, my knowledge came to the front of my mind when I needed it, I didn't forget what I was going to say a half-second before I got to say it. To say that I could stand to get used to this is a gross understatement.

The only downside I've had so far is that about five or so hours after I took that first dose, I got a very, very mild headache and straight away thought OH, I BET THAT'LL GO AWAY IF I EAT SOMETHING LOL, so I did, and it did, and that was it! I took it pretty late and, again, it lasts Long, so I'm anticipating that I might have some issues getting to sleep tonight, but that'd be no different from normal honestly so I'm not too torn up about it.

I really hope this keeps up. I might actually be able to get this book written before I fucking die if I keep getting results like this, lmao.