Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash
Is it just the time of year, or am I beginning to descend into a depression cycle?
Can I just push through this or do I need additional resources? I know that every day is different, and I should not expect rainbows and unicorns each day. Besides, where would I keep all the unicorns? I only have 5 acres of property. Of course, this would be the least of my problems if my life was that grand. I am reminded of the goal established by SMART recovery.
My plan is to lead a balanced life with my depression.
So here it is. Once again, I am back to having trouble getting out of bed. Part of this may be due to the fact that I am not getting any solid sleep until 3 or 4 AM. So, when the alarm goes off at 6:30 or 7:00 AM, I am finally in deep sleep.
I am thinking about the changes I have made in the past month or so.
This was when my getting out of bed became a noticeable issue. I have had less than idyllic sleep for years, but this is even more invasive. My goal is to be in bed around 10 PM. And this part works most of the time. Of course, the nights I am at work until 9 PM, my bedtime is pushed back. On those nights, I often get in bed between 11 PM and 11:45 PM. After up to 30 minutes of word games and solitaire, the light goes off.
And then the waking sessions begin.
These now start about 1 ½ hours after I go to bed. So my 10 PM bedtime sees me awake at 11:30, 1 PM, 2 or 2:15 AM, and finally, I wake around 4 AM. These days, after the 4 AM wake-up, I finally fall into a deeper sleep. This last until 7 or 7:30 AM.
Now it becomes a hostage negotiation situation.
My body is holding me, hostage, as I negotiate with myself. I know what my morning to-do list looks like, and this can sometimes help sway the vote, allowing me to go ahead and get up. And I always get up to go to work. I can be up at 6 AM, to be in the building at 8 AM.
However, If I am going to work at 12 noon, there is often much snooze button pushing.
And this getting out of bed problem is recent. Or at least it hasn’t happened in the past year or so. Even if I am off, I still expect to get up between 7 AM and 7:30 AM. I take my daily Wellbutrin and then head to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. If the temperature has dropped overnight, I start a fire in the wood stove. I empty the dishwasher and put all the clean dishes in their designated places. Now I can take my coffee mug and look at any text messages from work.
So, the point of this exercise is to remember that I am having more and more trouble getting out of bed in the morning.
Looking at what has changed, there are two things. First, it is now daylight savings time. We sprang ahead and lost an hour that we will not get back until November. This has made the mornings bright, and the evenings are getting markedly longer. I just don’t believe that this has anything to do with my not being able to get out of bed.
This leaves me with medication.
I had dropped from 450 mg of Wellbutrin XL every morning, to 300 mg daily. My peer advocate reminded me that this medication has a ½ life. It took a few weeks for my body to get back to operating on the 300mg. In between, I had a false sense that nothing had changed.
When I realized that things had changed, I reverted back to the 450MG, with my psychiatrist’s blessing.
So, perhaps this would have explained the morning slowness. But the timing doesn’t match up to the medicine changes. There was a bit of overlap, but I am still having sleep issues and I have been fully back on the 450 mg dose for close to two weeks.
Now I am back to door number two, my new Flomax prescription.
My GP prescribed this after I had mentioned that I have been taking Saw Palmetto every day for years. This was my GP’s recommendation when I first suggested that I was slowing down. I told him that I produce as much as I did before, it just takes me a lot longer to get it all out.
He stated that there are many products on the market for this condition, so if this wasn’t working properly, he could switch me to a different prescription. The first side effect I noticed was dizziness when I stood up. It has been many years since I experienced that and now suddenly, it’s happening sometimes two or three times a day.
The addition of a morning dose of Flomax seems to coincide with the return of my sleep issues.
My GP moved his practice to be under the umbrella of a hospital group. So to reach him, I can send a private email through “my chart.” Four days into the new medication, I emailed my doctor about the side effect. And he hasn’t gotten back to me yet.
I have called a few times since then, but my timing is off, and I have not gotten a message to him.
I do not go to work until noon tomorrow. My plan is to start calling just before they open and keep calling until I speak with my doctor or his nurse. He needs to find an alternative to what I am taking. The results of the medication are wonderful. I am back to my old self.
And even if the medication isn’t related to my sleep issues, it most certainly is causing dizzy spells when I get up.
So, I will let you know after tomorrow what happens. If I cannot resolve this on the phone, I will drive to his office to get this fixed. I wonder what the length of the ½ life of this medication is.
