Starting over: Medication #1

I've been on several medications for anxiety/nerves. The first was Paxil CR. It was enough to get me to school and back, but I still felt sick to my stomach going there. I wanted a baby(crazy thought at 18), so I stopped taking it out of fear of what it would do to the baby if we were to conceive. Obviously, we didn't conceive in the near future. I consider it a good thing looking back on how things were. I dealt with the anxiety un-medicated until the end of 2006 when I became completely sad/stressed over everything/life in general and decided to see a doctor.

Said doctor suggested no more trying to conceive bc of how difficult it might be to handle a pregnancy along with anxiety. He prescribed a trial of Lexapro for the next 4 weeks. Four weeks later...I get a positive pregnancy test. Of course, they want me to come in for a blood test to be sure(I took 3 pregnancy tests. Idk how that wasn't sure enough for them lol). I had to call an OB-GYN to find out about the medication and risks to a pregnancy. It wasn't a good result. I had to go off the medication. I had high-risk pregnancy due to high blood pressure and had to have regular Non-stress tests toward the final weeks of my pregnancy to make sure the high blood pressure wasn't restricting blood flow to the baby. Things turned out okay in the end.

After having Alayna, I asked my OB about anxiety medication and what was safe since I was breastfeeding. Zoloft was his answer. I had been on it from Nov 2007 until around September/October of 2008. It left me feeling zombie-ish like I didn't care if a meteor fell onto the house and burned us all to oblivion. Um, no... Didn't want to feel like that. I was also in counseling and wanted to give that a shot without any medication.

After going to see my counselor for almost 5 months, I am now trying another medication under her advisement. Due to David switching back to the CCR job, we just can't afford to go to counseling. My counselor thinks I should be on medication, especially while I'm not going to counseling, but she would also like me on it during counseling too. She thinks it would help me open up more about what is going on in this over-stuffed head of mine. Who knows what it's stuffed full, but there are a lot of thoughts in there lol! I saw a new doctor today and I was absolutely nervous. I felt shaky and my stomach was in knots, but he turned out to be okay. He asked questions about how I was feeling, what was going on in my head, made sure there were no suicidal thoughts, asked what medications had been tried before. He decided to give me a two week sample of Lexapro bc it is listed as something to help with everything I am dealing with. So I'm starting all over again. I remember feeling really tired/sleepy while on the Lexapro, but I was also in the early stages of pregnancy then and didn't even know it. I am going to take my first dose before bed tonight just in case it does make me sleepy.

This doctor introduced himself as "Jamie" and I had told him about something that happened last night. Ally was having a rough night and then when I finally went to bed, I kept hearing noises. It was probably David's stomach rumbling bc I did hear that after I turned the tv off. At the time, it sounded like someone cutting the screen off of our windows!! I woke D up and he looked outside-nothing(figures lol). After that, I fell asleep for Idk how long and ended up waking up with this feeling of fear. I just remembered him saying he saw nothing out there and went back to sleep, but I didn't sleep well. Ally woke up shortly after that and I was too tired to put her back to bed, so I told D to just bring her to me. That didn't help. She tossed and turned, kicked me in the tummy, and so on until morning. It was one of those throw the covers back over and stay in bed as long as possible mornings, but we had things to do so I had to get up.

Before we left, he made sure to ask if I needed anything to help me sleep at night. I passed on it. I figured I get at least one good night of sleep maybe every other night. I don't want to be on too many medications at one time either, so I will make do!!

GOOD NEWS: I peeked at my chart when I was checking out and I've lost 11 lbs since September 10, 2008! Might've been more if I hadn't indulged during the holidays but that is still good in my opinion. Slowly does it! I weighed in this morning and was down 2 lbs. I am now on SparkPeople putting in my food for the day. We were out for like six hours, so we got lunch at Taco Bell. Our second time eating out in a week. We HAVE to work on that!!! I at least tried not to eat too much. It helped that I got full on a chicken ranch gordita and cheesy potatoes!! We both got the box meals, so I still have some left for lunch tomorrow! I am pretty full, so I might end up having something small for supper.

I think I just wrote a mini-novel there! I consider it therapeutic anyway. Hope everyone had an okay Monday! Until next time...