Posted by Blue Cheer1 on June 12, 2002, at 23:59:41
Please be careful if you're using Provigil or any other stimulant. I started Provigil around mid-May (400 mg. - 200 mg. early in A.M and another 200 mg. before 2:00 in the afternoon). I could only tolerate 400 mg/day for about 5 days (too stimulating, insomnia and spaced-out/unable to focus attention), then moving it down to 200 mg/day for another couple of days, then just 100 mg/day (sleeping alright on that dose) only as necessary. It was keeping me from having a total breakdown -- only. (Although, I did feel its "up" effects briefly.) It was the last drug I was trying before ECT. Now, I have to wait for cardiac clearance for that.
I've been in a severe bipolar depression for 15 months now, and my doctors have been urging me to have ECT for the past year or so. I've been nearly bed-ridden during that time (missing important app'ts., etc.). Last week, I woke up in the middle of the night and noticed I had no (zero) feeling in my left arm. I thought it might be diabetic neuropathy (I get a little of that in hands and arms at times). I reached over to grab my left hand with my right hand to see what it felt like, and I grabbed my left wrist instead, because I had no feeling in my left arm and wasn't sure where it was, I guess. I pulled the left arm way up with my right hand, but when I let go, I had no control over it and it fell down. I thought that maybe my glucose was so high (at least right then - I'd eaten a lot before going to sleep) it was like it was when first diagnosed with diabetes on 1/11/99 -- 540 b/c I made the mistake of drinking orange juice for a weekend when increased thirst symptom appeared. I haven't taken my glucose level since around April (during inositol STEP-BD refractory depression pathway (around April - no energy to do it, don't want to see it, don't care whatever - *depression*), and missed app't with diabetologist and nephrologist in May). Finally, days later, it dawned on me that it could be stroke symptoms. (My wife had thought it might be circulatory from lying in bed.) I'd been reading posts here about elevated BP and heart rate, and had a "baseline" of those done about two days after I started it -- at my family doctor. I was feeling overstimulated at that time. Anyway, I read another post about a lady winding up in the hospital, and then I went to the ER. I got a CT scan, EKG, etc., and dx was "Transient Ischemic Attack", and ER physician recommended a Doppler and follow-up with family doc, who's also a cardiologist. I have Type II diabetes and hypertension (well-controlled), but have gained about 20 lbs. from being inactive so long. So, I'm having ECT as soon as I get a Doppler. There's some confusion right now about whether or not the psychiatric hospital can give it to me there, but I'm sure as hell not having ECT without the Doppler first. I'll have to go up on Valium, I guess (to avert "nervous, breakdown-feeling in stomach, etc.) Plus, I'm still taking Trileptal 750 mg h.s. and Lamictal 250 mg. h.s. !!I need ECT, but I don't want to have a cardiac arrest in the middle of it, you know?
Don't let yourself deteriorate from depression as long as I did, and be careful using stimulants when you're in such a state.
Blue
poster:Blue Cheer1
thread:109656
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020609/msgs/109656.html