Thursday, May 19, 2011

Medication updates

So, four weeks ago (a day after my psychiatrist had increased my Lithium and decreased my Cymbalta) my primary doctor put me on Metformin. Basically, it is a medication usually given to people who have type 2 diabetes. I do not have diabetes, but I have PCOS and therefore, high blood sugar. The medicine is supposed to help control the amount of glucose (sugar) in my blood, decrease the amount of glucose I absorb from my food and the amount of glucose made by my liver, as well as increase my body's response to insulin.

Well, my doctor mentioned ever so briefly that I should watch my diet and eat healthy. She really could have been more specific. Like, for instance, she could have specified that I really need to limit the starches I eat. That would have been helpful. See, for at least 2 weeks I was so unbelievably sick. Felt sick to my stomach, intestinal issues, headaches... in short, I felt like crap. If I ate, I felt sick. If I didn't eat, I felt sick. Then finally my sister in law, who is an EMT, told me to avoid starches. It's amazing how much of a difference that made. I mean, I was eating healthy, but I was still eating starches too.

Turns out, that there are a lot of starchy foods that I would normally eat. Bread, pasta, rice, cereal, potatoes, corn, to name a few. It took a few days after cutting almost all starches out until I started to feel better, but I am so glad it worked. I feel a ton better! I just hope that this medicine does its job.

And thankfully, the Lithium seems to be doing its job quite well. I am no longer hypomanic. And I haven't gone into depression again. I have, though, been kind of irritable and my patience seems to be running short, but I could think of a reason or two why that might be, which I won't even get into. But anyways, despite that, I actually feel kind of "normal", if there even is such a thing. And it feels great to just feel relatively happy. I haven't felt like this in so very long. I like it. But I know it will not last forever. I know sooner or later I will go towards an extreme, either high or low. It's inevitable. I just hope it is later than sooner...