I know you all want to know more. I too want to know more and that is why I say nothing. It is too frightening to jump to conclusions. I hope that what seems to be an exceedingly positive development will continue to hold such promise. I’ve consistently felt better, but I still have bad days. My bad days now are almost like my average days before. Yesterday after running around busy as all get out with people I’m meeting in the withdrawal community who happen to either live here or be visiting conveniently at the same time I’m here I crashed and had a really nasty afternoon. But it was only the afternoon and I had overdone it—it was terribly exciting to meet people who care about this as much as I do and who want to help people find this information if they want it. So I curled up in CNS pain yesterday for a while.
Today I was again very well.
I guess I’m just waiting. I don’t have anything to say because I don’t know what to think. My doctor says it will be like a few steps forward a few steps back for awhile. My body needs to heal while I continue to injure it with withdrawals. I still have a lot of work to do.
One of the tricky things that takes time to get results from is the hypoglycemic diet I’ve been put on. I’m severely hypoglycemic and I’ve known it for a long time. Really I’ve suspected it for a long time and it’s been confirmed. I need to eat every two hours which is no small feat. It takes an extraordinary amount of planning. But it’s already very noticeable. Before I would go five hours and start having meltdowns before I ate. It was so obvious but I didn’t control it. Now after a couple hours go by I can feel I start to feel funky. After three to six months my metabolic process should be much improved and my over all health will improve. Protein and veggies are most important with some whole grains and fruit. I find that I do best with meat and fish as much as I’d like to be a vegetarian in principle. I go as humane as possible when it comes to animals. Organic free range animals.
I keep nuts and snow peas on me at all times. At meal times I eat the meat and fish. Eggs work good too. Plain yogurt and kefir I also use for snacks but don’t find it does the meat trick. Legumes are okay some of the time as long as I have some meat during the day as well.
I’m discovering a lot about my body.
As far as the supplementation goes—it’s pretty over the top, but most of it will be cut out once the withdrawals are over and some will be cut out sooner once imbalances in nutrients are corrected.
Okay, I’ve said more than I expected. I hope I can give more substantive information sometime soon. I feel like I’m transitioning and that my life is changing in some deep sort of way, but maybe I’m mildly delusional. It feels like my life has purpose it didn’t have before. I don’t want to lose credibility if I’m all wrong. So I bare with my insecurities here and we will all see what pans out together. I keep wondering if it will all cave when I get back home. I’m happy here because I’m with my friends and in the area I spent my life in—my childhood and most of my adult life was spent here. But I miss my other home too, where my husband and pets are. My little own private space. It’s hard living out of suitcases in other people’s homes. I feel like I belong nowhere. Neither place is entirely home.
And so I deal with that existential angst as well. Life is never simple and yet I have been happy much of the time for days on end now.
I am really glad to see you use caution in what should be shared at this point in your recovery. It has been a belief of mine that a lot of problems that have occurred with psychotropic medications is the way in which people say they have had great results with such and such drug only to find a month later they have crashed. People generally don’t hear about the person crashing a week or month later. They are just left with the belief that a drug worked for someone and if they keep trying all these medications they will find the right one. It is refreshing to see others in recovery taking the same precautions!
Sally,
Your partner sounds like a classic hypoglycemic. Most do crave sugar because sugar is a quick fix, but unfortunately it makes the blood sugar drop very quickly and very hard later. All his symptoms sound classic.
What he should be eating is protein and veggies every couple of hours. A couple of pieces of fruit a day and a bit of WHOLE grains is fine too. Whole grains opposed to products made with whole grain flour is best, but occasionally bread or pasta is okay just check the ingredients—-a lot of so called whole wheat bread is not. Wall the grain products should read “whole” or they are not. A lot of time if some fraction of the bread contains whole wheat they call it whole wheat. (also if you get sprouted grain bread that is great because the whole grain is used, not flour)
I have found that now that I’ve been doing this religiously for a couple of months that I basically graze all day. I’m not gaining weight. I am not able to eat large meals at breakfast, lunch and dinner but I still eat a bit more at those meals.
And sugar, caffeine and alcohol should be cut out. they all mess with blood sugar….
exercise helps raise low blood sugar. so as usual exercise is good!
He can take Chromium too. That helps control blood sugar.
Good luck!
I would like to learn more about the hypoglycimia. My partner is ravishing hungry ever few hours. If he doesn’t eat he becomes very irritable. He doesn’t really believe all the nutrient/food effects on him. When we first got together it used to drive me nuts the way he ate. Now I prepare snacks for him because I am tired of being crabbed at. I would like to know what type of snacks and meals to prepare for him. He craves sugar. Last night he ate gum drops in bed.
And Robert and Sloopy…I just said thank you above, but really, you guys both really moved me. I’m not sure how to respond to your kind words.
thank you everyone.
Sloopy,
Neuroleptics are pretty much sure to destroy metabolic function to some degree and it is very very common that people who have been on these drugs have blood sugar problems. Certainly not just diabetes, but probably even more often, hypoglycemia. It’s probably worth trying a hypo diet and seeing if it makes you feel better. I sorta knew that I should be on one for a really long time and have only started really sticking to it in the last couple of months. (I actually started a few weeks before I came out here) I can’t wait to see what the changes will be after being on it for several months. It’s supposed to really make a difference.
I’ve talked about blood sugar problems since the beginning of this blog and also said since the beginning that many of us are subject to these problems. It’s just been highlighted with this doctor. He asks me every time I talk to him how I am eating. It’s good to have someone on me about it because I’m finally doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I’ve been eating the right foods for a long time but not in the right way. And strangely enough my doctor and now my family who I just saw for the first time today are saying I seem to be losing weight!! I have no scale but several people have said it now—that would be nice. Those neuroleptics put a lot of weight on me.
The doctor did say that when hypoglycemics eat the right way for their metabolism they lose weight.
Gianna: I could never put my sentiments as nicely as Robert has done, so I can only echo them.
You are a very eloquent writer, and your blog is doubtless an inspiration to many of us. Countless times when I’ve slumped into a depression, I’ve reflected on your words, and your optimism, to lift me out the black pit I repeatedly fall into!
You have a natural talent for sifting wheat from chaff, sorting out the minutiae and tedium that clutters so many other blogs. In part, that is what makes your blog a very special one.
And yet above all that, you somehow maintain your privacy and dignity but still provide an interesting insight, as you document the crests and the troughs of life.
I hope you never let the blog eat into your life detrimentally. Your needs always comes first.
You have such a good handle on what your body tells you, that this is probably pointless to say:
On the topic of hypoglycaemia, I am taking olanzapine (an atypical neurolepic). As a life-long adult smoker, and after much moaning from family and friends, I quit the cigarettes a couple of years back.
I’ve always been slim with no great appetite, but suddenly found myself permanently hungry with mood swings accompanying that hunger.
My reading of the situation was that the olanzapine was responsible, and that the cigs had previously suppressed that ‘side effect’ of the drug.
The atypicals are apparently notorious for causing metabolic disorders.
Since Eli Lilly has (so far) settled some 30,000 cases of olanzapine-induced diabetes, I was particularly worried I too had developed, or was developing, diabetes.
I borrowed some ketone sticks from a diabetic friend, and tested my urine over a few weeks. Fortunately, the results were negative.
That was some while back, and my appetite has since tailed off, even if the jelly belly remains! I guess I should re-test blood sugar levels.
All the Best,
Sloopy
Your remarks are honest – as always –
As encouraging and hopeful – as ever
Thank you for sharing your recovery –
I read – and feel part of it –
connected and grateful –
Duane
Whatever the result, your journey and the experiences you are going through are such an inspiration to me….like it or not, I hang on to every word you write on this blog. I’ve read every posting from all the archives, and taken extensive notes. Whether you feel well yet or not, your words are instrumental to my recovery. I’m certain others feel the same way. You are a brave leader, sharing your daily experiences with us. These daily briefings give me incredible hope that I, like you, will one day be totally free from these awful medications. Just know that you are changing people’s lives (my life). I have the deepest respect for you, and am eternally grateful.
yay! beautiful butterfly!
Emerging Butterfly!
Deborah,
that’s a nice thought. I’m certainly not the first — perhaps among the few but not the first. There have been people bravely doing this without the aid of the internet and all the support I get here, for the last 50 years.
But yes, I certainly hope I can be of help to others. I’ve got to get well first and that’s why I am trying not to jump the gun with conclusions about my treatment (and purpose) so far. I have a ways to go.
Thank you for sharing while on this journey. About the deeper purpose, I wonder, could it be that you are a pioneer, finding your way out of the psychiatric-drug maze…perhaps the trail you’re taking could be of help to others?