so what’s new?

About time to do some more blogging but nothing much to write about: the world has not ended despite te predictions emanating from http://www.familyradio.com/ and pushed around the world by the twitter sphere, https://www.facebook.com/ and most of the other chaterati sites. The major news broadcasters used Donald Camping‘s earnest predictions as the joke item to close their weekend bulletins, spending their bulletins telling us all they they could not say that Ryan Giggs has had his super injunction outed by https://twitter.com/ with the secondary story that the Spanish are revolting.

Tsk tsk David for not writing and spending the the year so far being a passive mostly non-reactive watcher of TV and browser of websites – perhaps the inability to engage with Angry Birds could be considered symptomatic of something or other? Nothing much has changed; the Greeks are revolting now amid predictions of the end of the Euro. Don’t really see the reintroduction of the punt and the drachma and the other obsolete currencies: one of the surely intended consequences of the second Gulf War was to have Iraqi oil priced in USD rather EUR.

Now the government is asserting that unemployment has fallen yet those claiming has increased: how does that work? (distracts off to http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/has-unemployment-gone-up-or-down/2902).

Haven’t been completely idle – the workhorse PC is now running Windows 7 Enterprise quite nicely after some trial and error. It’s certainly quicker and more resilient then it ever was with XP Pro. At last a version of Windows that runs (better¹) with no trace of Internet Explorer! Have lost track of the number of times that I have reformatted this disk, an action that horrified a visiting mental health worker who took some convincing that such an action was not that of a confused mentalist but rather a completely sane way of maximising limited resource. Grrr, running gripe convincing people that although I might be officially mad, there are occasions when I do know what I’m talking about. The “does s/he take sugar?” syndrome seems to apply everywhere; any kind of disability seems to need an unending sense of humour

Seroquel or Quetiapine Fumarate is the most recent medication I have been prescribed for the treatment my chronic depression. This is the first time I’ve been trying one drug without the accompaniment of others, anti-psychotics such asOlanzapine. Have been researching as I best can, on the Internet and by reading of others’ experiences of the drugs they’ve been given.

The most significant factor about my current use of Seroquel is the fact that I am using it as a monotherapy i.e. on its own without accompaniment. For the first time I am able to judge effects, good , bad  and merely interesting, without having to take anything else into account. (Goes without saying that alcohol and cannabis are not part of any monotherapy, that the effect of either compromises any medication.)

So far in my mentalist career I have not suffered any notable physical side-effects. The only one of note was the double vision caused by Carbemazepine. I rang my CMHT (this link provides a very helpful definition of Community Mental Health Teams) who advised me to desist immediately; my vision was back to its slightly myopic normal within 24 hours. Phew!

Interesting dreams are a factor for me but not in any way distressing, http://www.crazyboards.org/forums/index.php/topic/4042-seroquel-dreamsnightmares/ records some of the effects that others have experienced. I suppose that if I was getting therapy from a Freud og Jung based clinician, I would keep a notebook or dictaphone at my bedside but I prefer to go back to sleep. Everyone dreams all the time; the awareness/memory of a dream comes only in the milliseconds  between sleep and consciousness.

Structure, structure, structure screams my internal editor.

Most important (side)effect is that Seroquel at 400mg a day works for me as an anti-depressant so I will tolerate almost any side-effect up to but not including death.It is such a relief to start being alive again, hooray for AstraZeneca. Boo hiss for any mention of big pharma but this particular offering is working for me, some of the products do work as intended for some of the people some of the time.

Legs: I made a call to CMHT and around the Madosphere a couple of weeks ago when my legs were dysfunctional to the extent that I could not stand without holding on to something. Still not right but that particular effect is lessening so that I can walk though I have to be careful. Northing dramatic like spasms or cramps, the effect I can best describe is that of pins and needles without any tingling.

Sleep: is generally good, I am not rendered comatose and I can wake up and function early if I must although I need a couple of hours in which to get going and depend on a complex set of twatchecks (wallet, phone, keys, satnav, glasses etc.) before I venture forth. Not absent-minded but I do have to be deliberate and make sure that I put things where I’ll find them again. Of course that may not be a medication effect, might just be early onset dementia.

Appetite: many people have reported weight gain as an undesirable side effect but I guess I have a margin for that since my metabolism seems to burn off whatever it’s given to deal with. I am not therefore too worried about the just-as-if-I-had-been-smoking-dope type munchies.

Anxiety: nothing to report, I can function socially and am confident enough to be able to make my excuses and leave if any particular social situation is not where I want to be.

Memory: still functional, short term memory is good enough to attempt and achieve complex computer tasks like completely initialising then reviving very poorly computers without having to write everything down. Beginning to have trouble remembering names of people and things but that’s probably just an age thing.

And half a year later, now down to 200mg hoping that the anhedonic sedation will ease :)