Antidepressants Day 2

Quiet day at home today.
I'm tired and sore.
Mood cycling is not fun.


Pain: all over.

Update

So here is an update. My water aerobics class went really well! It was more challenging that I thought it would be, but in a good way. It is a bit of a walk to the bus stops that go near where I live but I think it would be fine during the day.

As far as the anti-depressant...i'm mood cycling quite a bit. Not too drastically, but enough that I notice it. I'm not sure if it is from that or from that and the exercise or just from having such a busy day. We'll see what tomorrow brings :).

Pain: Arms, R knee, back, sternum, ankles (not constantly though), big toes. Woke up with my right arm quite bad but it dulled down after the prednisone and a voltarin.

I also had a weird stomach reaction this morning. Maybe from the soy milk? Odd. I'll see how tomorrow goes. Eggs seem to be fine though.

A new medicine has been added to my ongoing regime. Sertraline. Aka Zoloft. This honestly isn't very surprising, since i've been depressed and anxious off and on as long as I can remember, but the funny thing is my (wonderful, wonderful) gp put me on it to help partly with pain management. That and I told her flat out that i'm not coping very well. She took a look at the nice letter I wrote up about all my ailments and said "You've had more happen to you in the past year than I have in my life!". I <3 my gp :). She was actually very compassionate. She told me to book a double appointment and come back and we'll go over a mental health plan and get me to a therapist (mostly on the govnt's dime ;) ). What a change from the last gp who looked at my crying face while I broke down in his office and handed me a letter to go see someone else about it.

Anyway, she said sometimes when one had gone through a lot of (physical) pain problems the nerves kind of get fried and sometimes anti-depressants can help calm things down (insert brain nerve pathway science talk). She was going to put me on an older one but decided on the newer ones after talking a bit about my lack of coping and the drug interactions were slightly less on this one I think.

So, not only did she talk me through every one of my problems I had written down (it was a bit of a laundry list >.>), prescribed me some medicine we actually TALKED about, and talked about a follow up appointment, but she actually wrote me off as a short visit as opposed to a long one which saved me quite a bit of money :D. Best gp ever.

Meetups

So technically this post is nine minutes late. Today was interesting. I went to a new meetup group geared toward people with bipolar or depression. I don't think I have bipolar, but I certainly know depression quite well. Everyone was quite nice there, though i'm pretty shy as is, so sometimes it was a bit difficult to hold a conversation. I had more energy today than yesterday, but getting out of bed was very hard. I feel like even though i'm eating quite healthy, i'm gaining weight :/. Not liking prednisone.

Pain: arms, knee was bad today, big toes, R ankle, R thumb/wrist joint hurt a lot this morning. Really bad brain fog today too. I almost missed my bus stop and nearly forgot about my wallet.

Short Stack

I made another big pot of chili today. I also cut up a cantaloupe and roasted some veggies and tofu. Hopefully this all will help next time I don't feel like cooking XD. Beyond that is was a pretty quiet day here.

Pain: Hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders, R ankle, some assorted toes. Back was a bit better today. Had a little bit of an upset stomach, maybe from too much bread? 

Out and About

I was out and about most of the day today. Kind of >.>.

My morning started off with a lovely trip to the hospital physio to work on my knee. This was a different physio than my normal one, who was away having a baby, and I didn't like him as much :(. He was nice enough, but made a slightly insensitive remark about pushing through the pain of arthritis. Now, it's true that you need to keep your body moving and make sure that you don't lose your muscle strength....but right now i'm not on any long term meds, and the prednisone is not working. It is painful. And it is not the sort of pain that you can push through, it is the kind of pain that if you push, it will push back and you will be feeling it the rest of the day and the next. So i'm not sure if maybe he just didn't know or maybe thought I was just complaining? Oh well..

He also reminded me not to get a job where I have to stand. Like, ever. Thanks :/. Totally didn't know that between my foot, knee, leg, back and arthritis problems...

Anyway, after that I traveled away to Wray Organics where I got in the way of the ever-stocking shop keepers and delivery people for a while. Then off to the pharmacy to get some hypo-allergenic under taping for my knee (since my skin is now reacting to the tape). Then back home where I laid down and wallowed in pain for the rest of the day.

My back was acting up. Badly. My hands are also not very happy, especially my thumb-to-wrist joints (someday i'll look this up). Really wishing my rheumy would come back, but I have an appointment with my GP on monday to talk about some things (more back and cramp related than arthritis).

This makes me wonder how I would hold down a job :/.

On a lighter note, I got some gluten free bread. The textur is about half way between a muffin and normal bread. The taste is light, maybe a bit sweet but overall pleasant. It also have flax and chia seeds in it, yummy :). I had a slice with peanut butter for lunch and a slice with my soup for dinner.

Pain: back (coccyx), big toes, hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders, little bit of sternum. Neck muscles are tight as well, though that is likely from stress. Some cramping, but that is likely period related. A bit of stomach discomfort (also likely period related)

Elimination Diet Day 3

Day 3. This is almost as long as I lasted with my smoothie elimination diet last time >.>. I went 4 days with that.

How am I feeling? Not bad. I haven't had any real stomach issues except for today when I don't think I cooked my oatmeal long enough. Or maybe i'm sensitive to oats too...or maybe it's the prednisone I re-started yesterday...maybe I should eat my GF cereal I got....hm.

I was able to withstand pizza last night! It was dominos, so it wasn't very hard to resist temptation, but I still had to ignore the cheesy goodness of it all. They even had cheesy garlic bread, but I persevered!

I haven't noticed any lessening in the arthritis pain. My wrist is still especially sore and inflamed. Even with the prednisone and voltarin yesterday it was still sore. My back had also been a bit out of whack, most likely because I haven't been doing all of my stretches. I have made sure to be going for a walk though, I find that if I walk for at least half an hour a day it makes a huge difference. If I can do an hour than that is even better, but it also depends on my knee and how fatigued I am on any given day.

Speaking of my knee, it had been doing a bit better. It doesn't seem to be "going off track" quite as much, but is still in general achey. I need to find some hypo-allergenic tape so it wont irritate the skin around my knee.

Pain: Both arm, especially R wrist and elbow. Stomach, neck?

Re-starting salazopyrin

Edit: No i'm not. Took it earlier, now it feels like i've been punched in the stomach and my brain has fogged over. No more. Tt didn't help enough to warent this.