Wednesday, May 28, 2008

5:32 a.m. Lack of Sleep & Meds

Tried for an early night last night (10 p.m.), but I was up at 1 a.m., now again at 5:30 a.m. I'm not all that tired, considering I'm running on about 5 hours of sleep a night. I don't know if this is the Lamictal affecting my sleep, which it can, or evidence of a low hypomania because of the move.

On a bad note, I forgot to take my meds last night. I'd been doing so well, too, but I got caught up in watching Firefly (why Fox ever canceled it's one decent show, I'll never understand), among other things, and simply forgot. As for the sleeping, I think I may switch from taking 100MG x 2 tablets of Lamictal in the morning to 100MG in the morning and then another 100MG at night, which is how it was initially prescribed, though the psychiatric nurse practitioner told me to take 200MG in the morning if it messed with my sleep.

Somehow, it may be messing with my sleep in the wrong way. At the same time, they halved my Remeron to 15MG down from 30MG. Remeron's known to have a sedative effect. So it could be the Remeron moving out of my system. And while I was sleeping far too much before on the higher dose of Remeron, now I'm not sleeping enough. And sleep is part of the stabilization game. So many patients with mental health problems swear that they need 8 hours of sleep and a set schedule to keep themselves on the up-and-up.

Edit: According to Crazy Meds, "Another not-so-common effect [of Lamictal] is a type of insomnia where you're tired, but you can't sleep." Hm.

By the by, I've found Crazy Meds to be an excellent resource for looking up a medication's side effects, and often, I find the collection of patients' experiences with the medication a better indicator of side effects than what my psych doesn't tell me. On the other hand, I've been sore all week, but I've also been cleaning and packing a good deal, so I'm not going to attribute that to Lamictal right away. If it keeps up after the move, it may make me more thoughtful.

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