It's Alive....It's ALIIIIIIIEEEEVE!!

I wrote a couple of posts ago that a fantastic resource I'd just found, CrazyMeds, had been taken over by a bottom feeder domain squatter, so I thought it only appropriate that I post its resurrection. Not only is the original wealth of information back online, but the forums, an essential adjunct of the site, is back online as well.

A little background information on the entire sordid story.

Kansas City Shuffle

Reason I'm in town...case you're wondering...is 'cause of a Kansas City Shuffle.
What's a Kansas City Shuffle?
A Kansas City Shuffle is when everybody looks right...you go left
-Bruce Willis as Mr Goodcat, Lucky Number Slevin

I'm finding that a lot of the work of managing depression is finding ways to constantly keep my brain going left...away from whatever depression thought pockets are to the right. Working at art is a reliable base, but I need something else while I'm doing artwork; something going on in the background that is interesting enough to constantly tug my mind sideways, but not so interesting that I'm torn between working a piece and attending to that thing.

TV/movie DVDs work well, but not every movie or tv show works. I'm still trial-and-erroring different DVDs, but I believe I'm discovering a pattern for the kind that will work for me. Basically, the movie and or tv show must a) not be overly dramatic and b) must be heavy on the dialogue and/or c) have a commentary track. Also, unfortunately, it must be relatively new; I can't watch the same DVD over and over because after a while I'll know it enough to tune it out. The elements that tugged my brain fade away.

For those who want to test this theory (or are looking for an alternative depression solution), a list of what's worked for me so far.

1. Lucky Number Slevin. Sharp dialogue and two commentary tracks.
2. The Usual Suspects: See above re: dialogue. Only one commentary track but bonus features with lots of talking heads.
3. The Office, Season Three: Heavy on the funny. The link is to deepdiscountdvds, but I'm not sure if it's the one that comes in the fake paper bag. You want that one; it has a bonus fifth DVD containing a roundtable discussion with all of the actors from The Office. That disc alone makes up for the lack of episode commentary.
4. Arrested Development (any season): This one is a little on the edge as its focused on a family, a trigger point for some, but the dialogue is sharp and there's lots of it. Also, funny as hell.
5. Garden State: Once again kind of borderline (see #4 above about family) but lots of talking and two commentaries both of which are kind of funny.
6. Raines: Ignore this link, get it in iTunes. Jeff Goldblum corners the market on interesting talk and this is an entire series with him as the main star. Unfortunately it only lasted one season.

Feel free to post selections not included above in the comments section; my recent picks (Raines, Bones, both Season One) are starting to get old.

More Mood Enhancers

Puppies. The guaranteed smile-inducer

The Wide World Of Prescription Drugs

I found this while trying to figure out exactly what kind of pill the pharmacy-of-the-week dispensed to me. Normally I would head on over to CrazyMeds to suss out what the pill was, but since they're currently (and hopefully temporarily) offline, I had to hit up Google and one of their results was Epocrates Online which will do nicely.

At least until CrazyMeds comes back. Soon, hopefully.

More Mood Enhancers

This American Life had a wonderful episode last week called "In Dog We Trust". The last story in this weekly trifecta was a fictional piece about a man, his brother and an armadillo. It's also about other, deeper issues, but I was particularly fascinated by the armadillo...so much so that the anxiety/depression cocktail that usually hits me in the morning, didn't.

Then, this YouTube video sealed the deal.



(If it doesn't show up right away, give me several hours. I'm off to do my therapeutic artwork to get me through the wait for my meds to kick in period. Here's a picture of an armadillo until then)

Getting Drugs To Fight Depression Isn't Supposed To Make You Depressed, Is It?

Here's what I did in order to get my script, for the depression meds I have to have to keep sane, filled last month.

1. Drove from 6000 South to 4800 North to visit my psychiatrist for a check in and a paper prescription.



Tedious Back Story The First: Part of my cocktail of meds is Adderall XR...which is a Schedule II medication. Prescriptions for Schedule II medications cannot be called in. The patient must present a paper prescription to the pharmacy, and that paper prescription expires within five days of the written date on said prescription. Also, pharmacies cannot dispense part of a Schedule II medication prescription; they have to fill the entire prescription or not fill it at all. So if I have a script with two Schedule II medications on it, they have to fill both medications; they cannot fill one, give it to me, and then fill the other when they receive it.

2. Drove back home (roughly 6300 South) to call the list of pharmacies on record that accept my health insurance to see if they have the quantities of each medication in stock.

Tedious Back Story The Second: My health insurance gives prescription benefits that can only be used, at least within the city of Chicago, at Osco Drug stores. CVS bought out all of the free standing Osco Drugs about a year ago but, in an extraordinary display of narrow-mindedness, did not extend Osco Drug prescription covereage to all of their other CVS stores. Adding injury to insult, CVS apparently does not keep a working stock of the particular medication I take to combat depression. Unlike, say, Walgreens, where I used to fill my scripts; they never had a problem with insufficient quantities. Long story short, in order to get a script filled, I have to pull up a list of CVS pharmacies that accept Humana, then call each pharmacy and ask if they have the quantities I need in stock. If I'm lucky, I spend 2 minutes making 1 phone call.

3. Had the husband swing by the lucky CVS and drop off the script (he was running errands anyway). I think he was headed back out when the pharmacist called him back and told him that Humana was asking for prior authorization.



Tedious Back Story The Third: My insurance doesn't automatically cover the quantities of AdderallXR and Adderall that I require each month. In order to get coverage, I have to contact said insurance, have them fax my doctor a prior authorization form for him to fill out, which he does and faxes back (and charges me for taking the time to deal with them). 72 hours later, I'm able to get my meds.

4. Since I was completely out of Adderall XR, I had to bend over and take what Humana would cover, which was a third less than my usual supply. I called Humana and found out that my prior authorization had expired and that I would need to go through the aforementioned process (see Tedious Back Story The First directly above) all over again. Next day I called back, gave the rep I spoke to yesterday (getting names and numbers of insurance people is a necessity, not an option, in this case) my doc's fax, she got him a form, he filled it out, faxed it back, and the rep called to let me know she'd gotten it. About a week or so later I called back to make sure that the prior auth. had been approved.
5. Around the last week of October I ran out of Adderall, since I'd only received 2/3 my normal supply at the beginning of the month. After a couple of missed calls and crossed wires over the weekend, I got a paper script from my doctor (long drive north, equally so back south) and dropped it off at the pharmacy. I didn't write it down, but I'm fairly sure I called the pharmacy, my insurance, and possibly both, to make sure that this mid month remainder script wouldn't screw things up come November.
6. November 1st, lather, rinse, repeat on the long drive thing. Once home, I pulled up the list (see Tedious Back Story One) and started the calling. This time? 30 minutes and 5 phone calls before I found a CVS that would both take my insurance and had the quantities I needed. Husband went to drop off the script at the winning pharmacy.
7. Got a call from the husand from the pharmacy. Once again, Humana wouldn't fill the script, only this time their lame excuse was that it was too soon after the last submitted script. Remember the calls I'm pretty sure made, back up around list item number 5? Insignificant. Called Humana, but since it was after 5pm CST, they were closed. Meanwhile the pharmacist put in a call to the higher level pharmacy helpdesk in order to override Humana's decision; they told her they would get back to her and assured her that they were open until 9pm. Which was a big, fat lie; the pharmacist called the desk again after some time had past and got a recorded message that they closed at 6pm.
8. Back on my end, I called Humana, went through the numbered menu to the after hours nurse desk in desperate hopes of talking to a live person. I did, but she told me that, according to her manager, she couldn't do anything. I told her that I'd wait for her manager, which I did for about an hour, then listened as she told me that I should call back during normal business hours. I told her that I had called during normal business hours...several times in fact...and was told my particular problem was taken care of. Unfortunately I didn't find out it hadn't been fixed until after business hours, so I was talking to her now.
   

   Needless to say, she couldn't help, and, to make a long, painful story even longer and more excruciating, we forked over a little more than $500 so that I could get the meds that keep me from spiralling downwards. Unfortunately, given the events detailed above, plus a few other added stresses, I was pretty much already headed that way.

Eventually things got sorted and we got most of our money back but not after I'd peeled paint from our walls and scared our dog out of the room, what with the yelling and the cursing.

It's funny: Humana has all of this crap on their website about preventative maintenance...health tips, personal care charts, calculators...so that you'll stay well (and not spend their money), but they drive your mental health into the ground and your stress through the stratosphere (and consequently your physical well being into the toilet) with their bureaucratic stupidity.

Murphy's Law: Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way

I found the best, in my opinion, website and related forum for depression medication; it's a witty, dry-humored site combining clinical information with ancedotal evidence. Of which the second is the most important to me since the micro-text package insert that companies call information is generally useless.

I actually found it a while ago, meant to sign up but never did. I changed that on Monday; I signed up and made my introductory post with the intention of making another at a later date. Today, I went back to do so and found this:


CRAZYMEDS.ORG

This domain may be for sale by its owner!


I'm really hoping this is the result of some random redirect but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's my Murphy's Law field at work.

More Mood Enhancers

Since I could really use a couple as I'm spending the majority of my day ridding my house of fleas, a process which involves lots of vacumning, tossing of dog toys and bedding and infinite loads of laundry.

It's not the cleaning that is getting me down, it's R. looking at the spot where his bed used to be (tossed, got a new one, waiting for the flea pill to kick in) and then at me with those sad Boston Terrier eyes.

This video, starring a very rhythmic bird, helped a little.

sometimes i hate this so much

Every rare once in a while I realize exactly how complicated maintaining a functioning life has become...taking multiple doses of medicine multiple times throughout the day, remembering what I can and cannot casually say about my outside life at work, keeping at the exercise and artwork that is a vital support to my mental health, regulating how much time I spend running around during the weekend...and I despair of getting through the rest of it without ending it early.

Usually I just do what is needed without thinking much about it. About 98% of the time. But every now and then that 2% rolls around and I just want to lay down and suspend my life for a long, long, long time.

Liminal State

For me: the moment between the time my first Adderall XR dose starts to take effect and after it starts to take effect. A brief moment; when I sat down at my laptop I was in the before and when I actually started this post, after making a detour to GoogleMap directions to where I'm having brunch today, I was in the after.

I was scared when I opened my laptop, scared that I would feel this way for the rest of the day. 'This way' being an extremely uncomfortable state of anxiety, the same felt before giving a speech, going into an interview, starting a race, meeting with a date for the first time.

Round and Round and Round Again

One of the symptoms or traits of depression is an overly rumniative mind. Basically a brain that turns thoughts, ideas, various bits and pieces over and over and over. I definitely posess this trait in spades and it wasn't helped much by my stint in a Christian type cult. I belonged for about 14 years and even though it's been about three years (overgeneral autobiographical memory another marker of depression) since I've attended I still find traces of that thinking throughout my mind.

That particular trip has also left me with an abundance of ideas to turn over and over. Hell and all of the associated theories being number one in the pile. Today for the first time in a long time, I googled 'hell', 'annihilationist' and 'theory' and went through the results.

I don't believe I got any further towards any sort of conclusion but I did find this post, Epicjourneys » The Last Word and The Word After That which led me towards this book The Last Word and the Word after That. I'm leaning towards buying it; I have a feeling that it may provide me with helpful information.

Just as an FYI...here's the other links I looked over:

Am I going to hell? a question posted on the TheologyOnline Forums.
Christians, has anybody you've known gone to hell? a question posted on the Why Won't God Heal Amputees? website forum.
Does Hell Exist? a blog (as near as I can tell)

Short Interval

It's been a while for reasons I'd rather not go into right now. More drama, additional complications, etc. But I do want to provide some warm and fuzzy for those who need a boost.

TamanduaGirl Pictures
TamanduaGirl keeps, well tamanduas. Pua and Stewie...two adorable, charismatic creatures. Although you may want to skip it for a time until Pua has recovered.

Dog Tickling Baby

Uplifting...to see a dog making a baby laugh. Especially one so big.

Dog vs. Moose

Even though the odds are 1000 to 1 against you, it's still possible to come out on top. Witness the little guy here.

Octopus

Can change color AND texture on the fly and is smart enough to sneak out of a tank and escape over the side of a boat. Definitely will jolt your brain out of a funk

Touched By Fire

"Great wits are sure to madness near allied And thin partitions do their bounds divide." - John Dryde

I woke today at ten to four in the morning and headed straight for my workspace, pausing only to take my meds. I was interrupted by a text message from a server, but that's besides the point which is that even though I was half asleep I needed to finish the painting that I'd started.

The thing that disquiets me is not that I was compelled to the easel in spite of the early hour and lack of sleep, but that the desire to finish came from a backlog of images in my head...images that I needed to get onto some sort of surface before I lost them.

I have a small sketchbook I keep on me at all times for that reason, but it doesn't quite get rid of the anxious need. That only goes away after I've translated the sketch into the final medium, whatever it is.

Kay Jamieson came to mind, which led to a Google, which led to this article and the excellent quote at the beginning of this post. I couldn't put my thoughts about this phenomenon into words better than the writer of this piece, plus he includes links to the books I'd been looking for.


Side note: The post title is shamefully stolen from the title of one of Kay Jamieson's many thoughtful books.

Self Talk

I hate that phrase. It reeks of motivational speaker, up with people, positivism crap that annoys me to no end. Using self-talk when depressed is like the Dutch boy and the dyke; one finger isn't going to hold back the entire ocean.

That being said, I have to say that, when combined with the right medication cocktail, self-talk is an effective measure. If you can find the right combination of words. You'll know when you've found them when something clicks in your head when you say them out loud.

Here are a few that click for me:

"I'm doing the best I can with what I have right now."

"I will make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. That is the nature of life."

"Failure is okay. It is good soil for the next try."

How Am I Not An Addict?

It's been a while for a number of reasons, none of which I'm prepared to go into at this point in time.

The main question that has been on my mind as of late is in the post title. More and more I've been wondering this, especially at times like now when I'm sitting here waiting for the meds *cough*Adderall*cough* to kick in and stop this pain.

It doesn't help that I have to take more Adderall XR than most for it to be effective. According to my pdoc, most of his patients can get by for an entire day on a single 30mg pill. That same dose in my system would get me, at most, 3 maybe 4 hours of decent functioning. As it is, I take 60mg of the XR variety plus 10mg of the plain in the morning, and another 30mg booster at noon. For those without a calculator, that's 100mg total: 90mg of the XR and 10mg of the plain.

It also doesn't help that first thing in the morning I feel like crap until the drugs kick in and right around elevenses I can feel the stuff wearing off. Add to that the possibility that I may need to boost the noon doseage and how am I not an addict again?

Depression Vitamins

It's raining informative articles today; I found this helpful blurb from the same website as the last post. This supplement goes on my grocery list yesterday.

More Good News

This article is both vindicating and sobering. Vindicating, because I've been supposing to my therapist for a while now about the possibility that there is something structurally wrong with my brain because I'm depressed, and sobering because of information like this:

• The newest evidence indicates that recurrent depression is in fact a neurodegenerative disorder, disrupting the structure and function of brain cells, destroying nerve cell connections, even killing certain brain cells, and precipitating cognitive decline. At the very least, depression sets up neural roadblocks to the processing of information and keeps us from responding to life's challenges.
  
• Human emotions take shape in a neural circuit involving several key brain structures, including the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex. In depression, faulty circuitry fails both in generating positive feelings and inhibiting disruptive negative ones.
  

Emphasis mine.

Fascinating, yet scary.

Smelly Stuff

As part of my personal war against depression, I've started to expermiment with aromatherapy.

I did have a favorite smell; Whole Foods sells an essential oil mix called Black Opium that was warm, spicy and sweet, but also a little musky. But my body rebelled against the stuff and wearing it anywhere...even a little bit dabbed on my jeans...made my neck develop a strange sort of invisible rash; the skin itched like crazy but the skin showed no bumps, discoloration or raised skin that anyone could see.

I went back to Whole Foods to find something; the bonus of going there is that they will always have someone who is an expert on whatever alternative therapy you're looking to dabble in. The nice lady who I talked to gave me the helpful tip that the Black Opium I had to give up was composed of synthetic fragrance, a possible reason for the invisible rash.

She pointed me towards the essential oils section which would have been great had it not been the week before my period. Handy tip for all you women depressives out there: your "nose" changes around that time of the month. After smelling lots of things that should've appealed to me...Whole Foods sells a number of brands, Aura Cacia, Nature's Remedy among them...and didn't, I found a yummy tangerine grapefruit scent in a mister by Aura Cacia. In an odd sort of synthesis, its the same scent and brand that makes the oil I put in my hair.

Origins has the only other essential oil/fragrance that has stopped me in my tracks and made me want to wrap myself up in it...and I swear I'm not an employee or a sales rep for their company. It's their Ginger Collection...specifically the Ginger Body Souffle. The tin it comes in is a little too big and a little too pricy for a purse carry, but they have the scent in what I think is the only way smell should be packaged: a convenient, no spill, quick-apply roll on which they call an "Intensified Fragrance Rollerball". I got one the other day and applied some just now to test allergic reaction.

Let's just say I'm really, really, really hoping I'm NOT allergic to this stuff because it is the olfactory equvilant of a warm, comfy, soft sweater that someone close lent to you so it smells like them.

Technorati : Aura Cacia, Origins, Whole Foods, aromatherapy, depression, ginger, smell

So Not True

I don't have much to say about this articleexcept that hopefully it will help someone else out there because in my case, its purported solution is completely untrue.

Whatever thoughts give rise to feelings of impending doom and disaster when the days start getting shorter are buried well below my conscious mind, unavailable to be written down on paper. And while I don't use a light box (keep forgetting to look into buying one) I do keep up with all my summer activities during the winter...to no effect.

Sucker!

My memory is fuzzy due to several reasons, depression being just one of them, but I'm pretty sure I was excited when I heard, a couple of years ago, about the STAR*D study being done by NIMH. This was going to be the end all, be all study, the mother and father of all studies done ever on depression.

Shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.

From what I can see, the best news to come out of this comprehensive study is that genetic variation is a factor in treatment resistant depression. Most of the articles indicate the results as sobering; I could tell you more about them but I stopped reading after the word 'sobering' which in most cases means I quit after the first sentence.

The O magazine issue that first clued me in to the study results (which, FYI, isn't up on their website yet) had the best punchline:

"No one in this field is satisfied with the status quo...we know we need better treatments but we still have to identify the brain patterns and genetic markers that will help us get there."

In other words, we still can't help you. Or, as someone said

"If there are many treatments for a disease, you can be sure there is no cure."

Technorati : STAR*D, depression, research, study, treatments

Exciting Article....But Wait, Not Really

I was excited when I read the headline of this article but it quickly curdled as I read the story which, much to my aggravation, does not contain any details except for this one:

For instance, during the midfollicular phase, which comes four to eight days after menstrual bleeding starts, the orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala of the brain were more active.

As someone who's depression meds take a sudden nose dive a week before the period starts, I was hoping for more information about how exactly each phase of the cycle impacts the female brain.

Bittersweet Humor

This New York Times story is the only online write up that included the saddest, funniest quote I've heard in a long time...which is this:

''If you're black, America is like the uncle that paid your way through college but molested you.''

More mood lifting humour can be found here