The Continuing Saga

For those of you keeping up a few days ago I had called my family doctor to get in to see him and the receptionist said she would try to get me in that day or the day after. Well they never called so when I called back on Thursday I found out the office was closed for the next week. So I decided I would just live with the sore tooth. Last night I kept repeatedly waking up as when the one tooth was hit the pain would jar me back awake. I found a walk in clinic and after a two hour wait saw the doctor on staff who after a brief examination declared the tooth was infected. Great another problem and yet another med to add to the list. On a positive note the walk in doctor was friendly and professional.

A steady traffic is coming in from Entrecard, nothing overly massive but enough to encourage me to keep dropping off more cards plus my subscription number has been steadily increasing which is always a bonus. The majority of my traffic is still from stumbleupon but that is really not a surprise.

Well I need to go back to bed but will try to come up with something for later on today. If anyone has questions or a comment just drop them off below and it could be the topic later on today. Oh please stumble me if you have enjoyed this blog as every thumbs up counts. Thanks. Take care

The Dental Adventures Continues

So my tooth is infected or at least I think it is infected. Called the dental office and no chance of getting in today so I went by a number of different walk in clinics and they were all booked solid with three to four hour waits. Not a good mental day to be sitting around a crowded waiting room so I returned home. Called my family doctor, who I have not seen in years, and they are fiddling around with the schedule trying to get me in. They still like me so I am hoping the phone is going to ring soon to say come on it.

I would imagine along with the prescription I want, amoxicillin, he is going to offer a pain killer which I normally avoid at all costs but it is tempting.

When I was in my early twenties I came off a snowboard jump and landed the wrong way which sent a lightning bolt of pain to my brain. Turns out I blew out two lower discs and came darn close to severing the sciatic nerve. The choice came down to surgery or a long course of physical therapy so I took the latter as the odds of a successful operation where not that good. This also lead to an assortment of painkillers for the next six months or so then a battle to get off these particular meds which was not a lot of fun so I tend to avoid them at all costs from then on. In case you are wondering I have disc degeneration disease, another wonderful genetic present, so I have the back of a really old man. The fact that I snowboarded and skateboarded for over a decade probably did not help any. I have figured out that as long as I keep my weight in a respectable range, keep my abs as strong as possible plus avoid rather injury prone sports my back is pretty much okay. The neurosurgeon predicted a major surgery would be necessary by thirty but I am a few weeks from thirty four and it has been quite some time since any flare ups so there I go again proving another doctor wrong.

Anyway back to the family doctor. When I first became ill he was my first step and very quickly he took me off of work then prescribed Celexa which turned out to be useless but he also had me moved up the list so it only took a month and a half to get in to see the psych doc when normally it would have been four to six months. The family doctor is a great guy and is probably the best doctor I have ever dealt with mind you a lot of other people think the same way so it can be very tricky to get in to see him.

Part of my plan a few months ago when I left the hospital was to get a complete physical done as it has been years but I lost patience trying to get through to his office so that plan was thrown out. My first psych admission they did what they called a physical but it was just a couple of questions then taking notes on the variety of scars on my body so it doesn't really count. You would think a mandatory physical would take place at every psych ward admission but I guess that makes too much sense.

So now I am waiting for the phone to ring and hoping they find an opening in the schedule or else I will have to figure out another plan. Take care.

Dentist Aftermath

I am sitting here with my face finally completely thawed out, missing one tooth and beginning to feel where the needles entered the inside of my mouth. I was sitting in the dental chair and I was thinking of my grand plan of delaying the Seroquel dosage until right before I left for the appointment. At the time this made sense except for one little part which is Seroquel is an anti psychotic not an anti anxiety, crap. There I am waiting for the doctor and the damn med is kicking in so I am struggling to stay alert till at least the dentist arrives before I go into the Seroquel zone commonly referred to as zombie land. I swear at one point I thought my brain was trying to leave my head as I kept having this weird floating sensation. I can't remember the last time I went through a form of dissociation and actually realized it was happening. Guess my brain was remembering some rather painful past dental experiences and wanted no part of another one that or my meds really need to be adjusted.

The dental staff were amazing and kept asking to make sure that I was okay. They know part of my mental situation such as the depression and anxiety diagnosis plus the meds I am taking. I didn't disclose the borderline personality aspect but it is very rare that I actually do as it is not worth the bother. My son also goes to the same clinic and my ex wife has had nothing but praise for the dentists and their staff plus they have no problem with treating people on ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program) which unfortunately is an issue in a lot of other dental offices.

Speaking of ODSP the workers had a day of action yesterday that was featured on the local news. It seems they want sixty million dollars from the government but here is the switch as they do not want a bigger paycheck but want to be able to hire more people to better serve their clients as the caseloads are too high right now. Now it is a wait and see game to see how the government responds. Maybe this is a route that more government organizations need to take and maybe if enough people call attention to it then the process of rebuilding the health care system can happen.

Dentist = Anxiety

A little over a month ago I made the decision to stop taking the antidepressant Nardil for the reason being I needed dental work done. Nardil is an MAOI which is a powerful med but it is also picky ........ very picky. Along with the benefits of this wonderful med you get to follow a fairly strict diet where basically everything has to be fresh or your asking for trouble. The diet was not too bad after the wonderful people over at crazyboards explained the in and outs of it until it actually made sense. The other side to Nardil is it does not get along with other drugs you know the little ones like pain killers, flu medicines and a variety of mental health drugs. So what happens when you combine Nardil with the wrong food or drug? Good question! Your blood pressure may spike and in some cases causing strokes and possibly death. Needless to say a lot of people do not go near this antidepressant class.

Anyway back to the story. A month ago my teeth hurt and I knew a lot of work was on the horizon. So I made an appointment with a new dentist who advertised cutting edge technology and pain free dentistry. Went for the initial meeting and they were not happy with the Nardil interactions so I left the dental office and a moment later decided that Nardil needed to go and I have not taken it since. I called my mental doc and told the secretary to pass on a message that I had stopped this med. Went out for a while and when I returned home there was a message waiting from the doctor to call them immediately. I returned their call and was told to immediately come in for an appointment. So I went there and told the doctor the situation and he just nodded his head. Then I asked him about any withdrawal problems associated with this drug to which he replied you may feel a little ill for a couple of days. Two weeks later I was still fighting the withdrawal process when I went back in for another appointment to which he tried to act surprise that my brain was pissed that the antidepressant was gone so he reacted by increasing my Seroquel and that we would readdress the antidepressant issue after the dental work was completed.

Well I went through the basic checkup at the dentist a couple of weeks ago where the plan was created to do the real work early March as this way the Nardil was completely out of my system and no longer an issue. Today is the day. A month of sore teeth, Nardil withdrawal that seemed to go on forever and the day that I have been waiting for is finally here except for one little problem an anxiety rate that has been climbing since the moment I woke up.

The main problem is I do not like people touching me and I am really not that crazy when it involves pain or at least potential pain. Someone out there is thinking you have a twenty year self harm history so I would think pain is not an issue. See when I am in the process of self harm I control when it starts and more importantly when it stops that and three quarters of the time I don't feel it anyway. Back to the story. I am putting my plan into motion that I am hoping will get me through the appointment.

1. Delaying my Seroquel dosage till right before the appointment which is a good plan except for right now my brain is racing and making mountains out of mole hills. Plus it seems to be showing through on this post as my typing is struggling to keep up with the racing thoughts.

2. Getting my other reality story ready for when I am in the dentist chair. Remember those stories you created when your a kid about living as someone else. Well I still do it to distract my brain from other areas. I told my doctor once about this imaginary world and he told me to write a book. Complete biography of a person who does not exist including interviews with magazines and other media outlets because he happens to be famous. Not really sure whether or not this is healthy but I figure as long as I remember that I am me and not the fantasy character I really do not see the harm plus it tends to keep my anxiety level down. How that for justifying.

3. Trying to focus on the positive which is a little bit of pain will hopefully mean that the day in and day out pain will finally disappear. This one is not going so well.

Ready for a completely irrational thought. When I was three or so I went to the dentist for the first time. This nice man stuck his finger in my mouth and I bit down as hard as I could. So now I have this "thought" that this story has followed me around since, jumping from dentist to dentist, province to province and every dental professional is out to get revenge for their colleague. Just a little bit irrational but what can you do.

Two hours to the appointment so I better get to work.

Wrong Choice Equals Another Painful Lesson Earned

I have had a sore tooth for a while now that has become more and more painful as times has gone by so I did what I thought was the logical step which was to find a dentist that would treat me which is not as easy as it sounds for a lot of dental "professionals" will not treat people on ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program) for they do not get paid as much. Anyway I found a dental clinic that would see me and I showed up for my appointment while I was there I informed the dental hygienist that I was taking Nardil, a drug that turns out they were not familiar with. I explained that the wrong drug interaction could cause a spike in my blood pressure with the possibility of setting off a stroke, the lady excused her self then returned ten minutes later saying they were unable to treat me as they were not familiar with this med so they could not take the chance. What they wanted me to do was call my doctor who is in charge of my meds then explain to him the situation where I need major work done and then he is to call the dental clinic which will then follow his orders regarding the med. I called my doctor once I arrived back home but as my luck would have it he was not there so I detailed the message to the receptionist who promised to pass it on tomorrow when he was back in the office. The thing with Nardil is that it takes two weeks to clear your blood once you stop taking it then it is okay for other drugs to be used so I took the logical step and stopped taking it to speed up the process ..... without the consent of my doctor. So technically I am not taking anything for my depression at the moment so the next couple of weeks or so are going to be really interesting but I doubt in a very pleasurable way. There is a chance I will not be effected what so ever by the loss of this med and there is a chance the lack of an antidepressant will send me screaming to the edge of sanity. I am wondering what my doctor will say if he calls me tomorrow and I wonder if his options are pointing at another hospitalization as that is one of the main reasons for my last admission as he does not feel that I am safe in the community without an antidepressant but maybe his viewpoint has changed in the last few months plus I am still on Seroquel through out the day and Temazapam at night so I still have some chemical assistance.

I have very little respect for my own safety or anything that happens to me most days so I tend to make decisions that support this. Right now all I can see is getting the dental work done to make the pain go away and since they are there they can take the majority of my teeth as well for any work they do will just have the band aid effect so might as well go straight to the denture option. I know I am putting myself in harms way by coming off a med in the fashion that I have but that does not mean much as that darn tooth that is making my life unpleasant. I will worry about tomorrow when I get there right now all that counts is today which is such a Borderline statement which I recognize but I can not argue against at the moment. The part of my brain that thinks long term is thinking your doctors appointment was moved up by a week and a half and when I am there the doctor will say what to do then I need to spend two weeks after that to clean my blood so I am looking at mid to late March before I go back to the dentist, the other part of my brain that Borderline fuels is saying your tooth hurts today and it is going to keep hurting until it is treated so the sooner the better which is apparently all the logic I need to stop taking Nardil. The few people that I have told and know me well are more then a little bit concerned and if the past is any sort of measuring stick they have every right but like I said the only thing that matters to me is that my tooth hurts and I want it to stop if it means a trip back through hell then so be it as long as my mouth feels fine.

Nurses and therapists would talk about suicide with me then are taken a back when I speak of it with no emotion and without blinking. Suicide means nothing to me for most days I do not believe my life is worth saving or fighting for. The reasons I continue to breathe is I worry about how it is going to effect other people in my life and most importantly my child. I know that parents who commit suicide are setting up their children for a basket full of mental issues and more then likely there life will end in similar fashion so for this reason alone I continue to fight but I don't go to war for myself but to make sure that my child does not have too. People believe when you are borderline you are incapable of love which is utter horse crap along with most of the theories that society believe but I am willing to live in a constant hell where I fight for every square inch so not to effect my child's life in a negative fashion and if that is not love then I don't have a clue what is.

Am I doing the right thing by yanking on of my meds? Ah probably not and I will end up paying for it again but that is pretty typical of my life. I would love to see tomorrow but today keeps getting in the way.