Taking pills 10 times a day, literally

May 17, 2013

I wrote once about how much time I spend on health stuff. I wrote about lawyers and insurance and doctors… those are the things that you’d expect to be both time consuming and mentally consuming. As I was trying to work out a new pill schedule the other day, it occurred to me that most people probably have no idea just how time consuming, not to mention mentally consuming, it can be to take pills!

A “healthy” person might not take any pills. Or they swallow an occasional multivitamin or birth control pill. I’ve been trying to remember when I last had a day without pills and my guess is that it was probably around 1996 or so. Then for years my pills were simple: a birth control pill, then a BCP and a thyroid pill, then a BCP and the thyroid one and a multivitamin…. and then it got worse.

I miss the days of simply taking a pill or two with meals. Now, everything has to be timed out so carefully. There are the pills that must be taken with food. There are the pills that must be taken away from food. There are pills that must be taken away from each other. There are pills that need to be taken at specific times of day.

Oh, and when I say “pills,” that includes liquid meds as well.

It’s taken a lot of mental energy and help from my naturopath, but I finally have a working schedule (until the next addition or subtraction, that is):

  • 8am: thyroid pill – 1 pill
  • 8:30: adrenal support, dhea – 5 pills
  • after breakfast: a whole bunch – 9 pills and 8 sets of drops, and a cream
  • 2 hours after breakfast: fiber – 2 pills
  • after lunch: another bunch – 5 pills and 7 sets of drops
  • 2pm: adrenal support, dhea, calcium – 4 pills
  • 4pm: fiber – 2 pills
  • before dinner: calcium – 1 pill
  • after dinner: another bunch – 7 pills and 8 sets of drops
  • 9pm: bedtime stuff – 4 pills

Wow, this looks even worse written out than it did in my head. Actually, the original title for this post had “9 times a day” written, because that’s how I’d counted it. Then as I wrote it out, I realized I’d missed one. It’s a lot to keep track of. The thyroid pill has to be an hour before meals. The adrenal support has to be 15 minutes before eating and at specific times of day. The fiber has to be 2 hours after and 1/2 hour before eating. Some of the mealtime pills are taken then because they have to be taken with food. The multivitamin has extra iron, and the iron and calcium have to be taken at least 1/2 hour apart. In fact, I should be taking calcium 3 times per day but I’m only taking it 2 times per day because I can’t figure out where else to squeeze it in! The drops don’t have to be taken at specific times, but they’re hard to carry around, so I need to take them at home. That means that sometimes I only take them 2 times per day, but that’s ok, as long as I at least take the drops for vitamin D. Some of the pills, though, can’t be missed. Like, they really, seriously, can’t be missed. Like, if it’s really late and I don’t want to deal with driving and so my parents say I can just stay the night, I can’t. Because I have to get home. I have to get home to where the pills are. Because I really can’t skip those morning pills, or even take them late. Some don’t seem too important, but they are. I tried cutting the fiber back to 2 times per day instead of 3 and the effects were horrendous. I’m not about to try that again any time soon!

So you may be wondering what my point is? I have three points:

  1. For those who are in a similar situation, you’re not alone. I get it. Lots of us get it.
  2. For those who complain when they have to take a single pill for a cold, or even for something daily, tell it to someone else. I don’t want to listen.
  3. If you think that by not working I just sit around all day and have fun, and you haven’t figured out yet that that’s not how it works, just imagine trying to keep track of all of this. Imagine how long it takes me to fill my pill boxes each week. And since the drops can’t be prepared in batch in advance, I have to deal with those three times, every single day. Trust me, it would be easier to work a job.

And on that note, I’m off to get some sleep. I hope. Because there’s no more sleeping in for me – I have to be up early to take those pills!

4 Comments | Educating, Frustration, Healthcare, Medication, Rants, Symptoms | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

Can’t seem to charge my (adrenal) battery

May 15, 2013

A lot of us struggle to describe how we’re feeling. Somehow, the English language, and probably other languages too, just doesn’t have the right words to describe how I feel. Instead of stumbling around using the words I’ve got, I try to use analogies.

That’s how I found myself telling my naturopath yesterday that my energy levels were like a rechargeable battery that just wouldn’t recharge. It’s not that it charged and then wouldn’t hold the charge. No, it’s that my energy battery wouldn’t recharge completely in the first place.

Charging my adrenal battery

The other day my cell phone battery got dangerously low. It went from 100% when I woke up (I plug it in overnight) to 82% after reading the news and Twitter to 56% after random use. Then before I knew it, it was as 27% then 24% then 10%. I usually don’t need to plug my phone in during the day, but this day was different, so I plugged it right in. But then I needed to leave my apartment, and of course I brought my phone with me, so I unplugged the poor thing, even though it was at 80%. It had been serving me well all day, but I didn’t give it a chance to fully recharge. And my body fares even worse.

My energy doesn’t start out at 100%, of course. If 100% is how a “healthy” 30-something should feel after a good night’s sleep, then let’s say I start out at 40%. I give myself adrenal support via supplements, I sit in front of a blue light, and I eat a healthy breakfast. Now I’m up to 60%. Before I know it, though, I’m back down to 50%. I take a shower and suddenly I’m at 25%. I lie down for a while. I take more supplements, eat more food. Getting back to 50% feels like a good accomplishment. I take a walk and feel great while I’m doing it, but when I get home I’m at 35%. I rest for a while, and boost myself back up to 42%. Then I have to cook dinner, but I rest while I eat, and then rest for a while afterwards before doing dishes, so I manage to hover around 40%. My energy drains as I continue through the evening, until I’m hovering around 20%, at which point I drag myself off to bed, hoping to waking up feeling energized, but somehow never seeming to fully regain my charge. The battery (my adrenal system, as it turns out) just won’t juice up like it’s supposed to.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get up to 100% again. My naturopath says I will. My traditional doctors say I won’t. I just don’t know. But right now, 75% would feel pretty fucking awesome! So I have a new goal……

5 Comments | Expectations, Fatigue, Frustration, Limitations, Raves, Unpredictable | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

You put orange juice in this?!?

May 13, 2013

I appreciate when people try to accommodate my food restrictions. They go out of their way to make sure I can eat their food, and it means a lot.

Unfortunately, some people don’t take it as seriously as they need to.

Here’s the thing: some allergies kill, some don’t. But all allergens need to be avoided.

So sure, eating beets or peanuts won’t kill me. But I’ll be pretty damn miserable for a week or more. I could have increased pain and increased fatigue, and I’ll definitely have all sorts of horrible digestive problems. So even though I’ll survive, that’s still some pretty rotten stuff that I’d rather avoid.

I’ve done pretty well in restaurants. I don’t go out to eat often and when I do, I make sure the waiter really understands my needs. So far, so good. Unfortunately, eating the food that friends and relatives prepare hasn’t gone as well. In fact, I’ve gotten sick several times. There have also been a few near misses.

A good example of a near miss was this weekend. We were having a lovely family meal. B had gone to great effort to prepare everything. He told me all of the ingredients, to be sure I could eat it. It all sounded fine except for one sauce, which he kept separate. I was thrilled. Later, as he was getting it all ready, I asked him again about the ingredients. Again, it sounded fine. Then while we were eating, someone else asked how he made it so they could copy it themselves. He ran through the preparation, and then mentioned what made it so great – the orange juice used at the end. Wait a minute, he didn’t tell me about any orange juice! I froze with food on a fork halfway to my mouth. I must have said something, because everyone looked at me. I’d already eaten several bites. Oh crap. He shook it off with, “It’s only orange juice.” I was horrified! As it turns out, it was a freshly squeezed orange, so I was ok. Store-bought orange juice would have been a problem. But he didn’t know that. He just assumed it was fine for some crazy reason. Or maybe he’d forgotten it earlier and he was trying to cover his tracks. Either way, I was really insulted. Here I thought he cared enough to work around my food allergies, and he’d left out an entire ingredient that didn’t seem important to him. This is the second time he’s done this. Once could have been a fluke, but twice is the start of a pattern that I don’t want to continue. I know he’ll be insulted when I don’t eat his food anymore, but my health is more important then his feelings.

I think that’s the important thing that so many people don’t seem to understand. My health is more important than their feelings. So if they suddenly realize they’ve forgotten to tell me about an ingredient, I’d rather they just say it than to wait and hope it’s ok. That’s happened with others who’ve cooked food that I’ve eaten. And it’s not ok. And if I say I can’t eat it, that’s not a comment on your cooking ability. It’s that I’d rather not spend the night doubled over in pain because I chose to eat something with a peanut sauce in order to keep you happy. Why is this so hard to understand?

Some of these incidents have turned out badly. I’m just thankful this last one was ok. I’m in the middle (or hopefully beyond the middle) of a bad downturn, and it’s kicking my ass. I’m pretty sure that eating the wrong foods right now would be a very, very bad move. Which is why for a while at least, I won’t be eating anyone else’s cooking.

2 Comments | Decisions, Educating, Expectations, Frustration, Gastrointestinal, Kindness, Rants, Support, Symptoms, Thoughtfulness | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

Welcome back, brain!

May 9, 2013

As bad as the physical symptoms are, it’s the cognitive symptoms that I have the most trouble with.

Last week I started on a downward spiral. It was slow at first, then I thought I was improving, and then it really took a dive. After the dive, I spent two days at home barely moving. Then I went to a medical appointment and the grocery store in the same day and could barely move that night. By yesterday, I was as fatigued as I’ve ever been, and I could tell that whatever was wrong, it wasn’t going to fix itself. I emailed my naturopath. She called back with a list of dosage increases for various supplements I was already on. Extra vitamin D, extra Isocort, etc. seemed like it might help. I took the pills and drops and then went back to watching tv, since I couldn’t do much else. I didn’t even have any interest in reading, which really isn’t normal for me.

Amazingly, I started to feel better almost immediately. I wasn’t sure if it would last, but this morning, I felt almost “normal,” whatever that means. It’s incredible! Thank goodness for that naturopath!

Now, I knew I wasn’t thinking well this week. My thoughts were fuzzy and took way too much effort. I didn’t even want to read. And my emails with a friend just weren’t right. She gets bored at work so we email back and forth most days, talking about her kid, my family, her family, her job, my insurance issues, tv shows, politics, and whatever else comes to mind. Yesterday we were debating the effects of language assimilation on cultural preservation. Part of the time I couldn’t get my thoughts to come out right in the emails. The rest of the time I couldn’t get my thoughts to get out right in my own head! I couldn’t seem to get a handle on what I wanted to say. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t realize how bad it was until I looked at those emails this morning and realized how poorly I was communicating. Today I could organize my thoughts. Today I knew the argument I wanted to make. For the first time in days I could think clearly. What a relief!

I won’t pretend that I have my cognitive abilities back completely; at least, not to the level they were at before I got so ill. But I’m sure grateful to have whatever I have right now. It was a short time, but I really missed being able to think. I’m so glad to have my brain back!

3 Comments | Expectations, Fatigue, Frustration, Isolation, Limitations, Rants, Raves, Symptoms, Unpredictable | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

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