#med log

[fidgetninja]

Med Log: Atomoxetine 6 months in

Medication: Atomoxetine, 40mg

Long-time-no-talk! Last time I posted I was back on atomoxetine. I've found it beneficial in some ways but it's become difficult in others (the same ways that led me to come off it two years ago).

Atomoxetine by itself seems to dampen and blunt my emotions over time. It didn't matter to me when first on them because I was so desperate to get my life back in order. I'm grateful I went on it this year, I'm doing a lot better, but I'm experiencing the following:

nausea - it's nearly constant no matter what I eat (heartburn specifically I've managed to mitigate with yoghurt / big meals before taking my dose)

emotional blunting - my partner and some close friends have commented I've lost my exuberance; I'm less enthusiastic about things, I'm less interested in people, and the weirdest thing I've noticed... I don't feel anything any more when listening to music; it just feels like noise and is mildly irritating

non-existent sex drive - I have zero interest any more, including I can't 'feel' my attraction to people any more. Some would welcome this or not mind this, but this really bothers me

This is so frustrating to me; atomoxetine does help me with being more organised, calmer, less stressed... but it feels like at the cost of blunting the good about me as well as the bad. It almost feels like turning the volume down on all of me, not just the parts of my ADHD that cause me issues.

Two years ago I hated this so came off it entirely, and then was discharged due to not being on medication (hence the fight to get back on meds). This time though, I'm trying stimulants again, which I will cover in my next post.

[cryptidpop]

Aura w/no migraine

Deja vu

Sensory overload (specifically smell)

Nausea

Before menstruation

5/7/24 12.22AM

[creekfiend]

ship put up these spice rack shelves in my bedroom over the bedside table so I can have all my meds and other things!!!!

[flynniganrider]

i’m kind of so emotional about tangled the series right now because you can see how much love and effort went into it and even though it wasn’t written well constantly all the characters are so lovable and it’s actually so much fun when you don’t think about it so deeply and take the parts you like with you and ignore the rest and it’s so sweet and warm and cozy

[gomzdrawfr]

trying to get back to it

[kiran-wears-science-blues]

Things the kitten has thus far tried to steal and hide in her nest:

Keys to sports car

Birth control

Razor

Tax forms

Prescription pain killers

Knife

Sharps container full of used needles

Other, sharper knife

I think we may have a furry Al Capone on our hands, lmao

[shiverandqueeef]

okidokie friendos everyone give me (in the tags or replies) your iconic canadian tv shows that simply must be included on An Official* List of Iconically Canadian Television

*by which i mean unofficial and wildly biased and made by me (a canadian millennial)

non-canadians feel free to make a pitch i'm genuinely curious to hear from you

[ackee]

drawing is fine but writing is so uniquely embarrassing. because i am............ [trying to remember the anon telling me to be nice to myself] NOT CONFIDENT IN MY WRITING ! but all i can do is continue to subject myself to the mortifying ordeal of having my writing read ☝🏽

[frogseasons]

woah im making sakura down bad for naruto’s parents and making her suffer

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64234837/chapters/164864413

[fidgetninja]

Med Log: Atomoxetine and Equasym

Medication: Atomoxetine 40mg, Equasym (aka Metadata CD, methylphenidate) 10mg

'Combination therapy', aka taking a non-stimulant and a stimulant together to treat ADHD, has been around for a while in the US. However it's relatively unheard of in the UK. I was therefore suprised when my current ADHD nurse suggested it, and I was curious to give it a go.

So far, it's given me hope. I'm still unhappy with atomoxetine's side effects (covered in my last post), but I'm feeling beneficial effects from equasym; it's easier to start and complete tasks without getting distracted, my thoughts are clearer, I forget things less, and I'm only experiencing an occasional short-lived buzzy headache and short sleepy spells.

My hope is to reduce atomoxetine and raise equasym, and I'm hoping to either take both long-term or phase out atomoxetine completely. I think stimulants may work better for me nowadays vs 2017 due to my shift in how I see myself and my neurodivergence, but I'll save that for another post!

[malcolm-reeds-pineapple]

Being the only diagnosed and medicated member of your intensely ADHD/autism family is so fucking funny cuz it’s like

Me: hey guys what’s up?

My mom, who has been cooking lunch for three hours because she keeps forgetting that she is cooking supper because she is still hyper focused on the craft she was making before she started cooking and keeps going between the craft room and the stove, she is blasting a Facebook livestream about crafts: HELLO!!!!!! I was just researching [xyz] and i learned… wait, your glasses are filthy let me just… [takes my glasses off my face and cleans them] anyway I need your help I’m stuck on my craft [drags me to the craft room, my eyes lingering on the fucking pot that’s boiling over. I will end up cooking lunch undoubtedly]

My 80 year old nanny who was given 4 years to live 8 years ago and is baffling the medical world by continuing to live, scrolling the obits in between Wordle guesses, adding names to her “outlived list”, she has an entirely rooster themed house and if she doesn’t have lunch at exactly 12:13pm her day will be thrown off entirely, but she didn’t have all this autism stuff back in her day: Maureen died, [mom’s name] do you remember Maureen Smith? She was the church secretary in 1973? She died, the funeral is on Wednesday.

My brother, who has been making feats of engineering in Minecraft for the last 6 hours, coming in from his daily wake and bake he does to self-medicate for “whatever’s wrong with him”, the same man who built his first PC entirely from YouTube tutorials at age 13: [Infordumps at me about Warhammer lore or Minecraft while I pick up where mom left off making lunch while the chaos unfolds]

My dead Grampy who was a civil engineer who collected hobbies and hoarded building supplies and Weird Shit like it was a full time job who also could not cook without dirtying every single dish in the house, haunting the house he built as a fucking side quest in 1993: [dirties a pot from the beyond somehow]

My dad, 4 hours away who started a business because he was so fucking bored after he retired who used to call me out of school if my grades were good so we could hang out and collect rocks at the beach: [texting] hey this is the red hot chilli peppers song I was talking about a month ago, also, here is a link to a video about space that I thought was really really cool that I want you to watch so you can also think it’s cool! Also just finished season 6 of Stargate, was hoping to call to discuss after work.

My step mom, 4 hours away: [knitting a the sweater The Dude in the Big Lobowski wears without a pattern at lightning speed because my dad mentioned, in passing, that he has a cool sweater this morning. It will be done by 3pm. She is also monitoring a dashboard she coded to link up her numerous excel spreadsheets that run an entire city on her iPad while she knits. She is avoiding making a phone call. She has invited me to join a social media platform exclusively for knitters to share projects and patterns. I do not knit but she is god to me so I join. She is an influencer on the platform]

Me: yeah don’t know what I expected

[imwritesometimes]

AU where I have the time, energy, creative drive, interest, and enthusiasm to work on my WIP

[victusinveritas]

Since starting new meds to help with nightmares (prazosin), I've noticed something: I'm still dealing with nightmare scenarios in my brain but now I'm trying to solve them rather than just fight them--for instance, an aswang (Filipino vampire-adjacent monster) was tormenting the house, and rather than panic about it as I would in a normal nightmare, I find my sister and we get sharpened shovels to dig up the alley and look for the aswang during the day and break it up (which won't kill it, but will hurt it a hell of a lot and make it fuck off for a while so it can heal). After this, we go for a drive to the local zoo (there actually is a local zoo, it's nice) to find out that the polar bears and lions have been released for the eclipse. Rather than confront either the polar bears or lions, I simply peek through the zoo's gate and decide to lock it and find a rotary phone to call the zoo's chief animal handler, not the cops because I don't want the animals or handlers to be murdered. Anyway, after decades of night terrors, it is weird to still have strange and sometimes prophetic (not these dreams, but it does happen from time to time) but not wake up in a cold sweat and just kind of go "well, that happened."

[yorkiegregg]

So essentially my appointment was delayed (:/), so I only had 30 minutes to meet the psychiatrist. I wasn’t able to say much but I talked about the voices I experience and the hallucinations. I wasn’t able to go into detail but yeah. I was suggested shots for my Schizophrenia at first, but I said I don’t want to do shots so now I’m on a new regular medication for my voices that’ll also help me sleep and have a more soothing affect. This is going to be accompanied by my normal antipsychotics and my anxiety medication so hopefully things get more in place. This is basically a test run because it’s my first appointment, so very low dosage, but we’ll see how I deal with this. I’m so tired now augh

[kiran-wears-science-blues]

Looks like I'm likely on miscarriage number two, but I still have work today which is terribly stupid and unfair.

[pierswife]

Born from an inside joke between my wifesband and I, now brought to you