Insomnia

So it’s 5 a.m., and I’ve been up for 4 and a half hours, leaving me with only three hours of sleep for the night.  A big part of the problem with my brand of mental illness is the insomnia.  I take meds to help me sleep, but it seems that the Abilify is counteracting them.  This leaves me tired, cranky, and hungry for all the wrong things.

The worst part about it is I can’t shut my brain off.  It’s running a million miles an hour about everything.  My sick kids: one with a yucky stomach bug, the other with asthma issues, not being able to sleep, why I can’t sleep, my weight, the fact that I won’t make it to the gym again because I’ll be home with two sick kids, the fact that I won’t be able to nap because I’ll be home with two sick kids…. The list goes on and on.  It’s freaking ridiculous.

I’m calling my doctor tomorrow and getting off Abilify.  It’s disrupting my life.  And I know from experience that you need to be in charge of your own mental health.

New Med

So last week, I started Abilify, and I don’t know if I’m just getting used to it or what, But I gained back t5 of the 12 pounds that I lost, though it could be water weight. It’s so frustrating because I have been doing so well on my plan. I had a cheat day Saturday and was only over by 23 calories. I was at the gym 4 times last week and two days this week and it’s only Wednesday morning. I have no idea what to do about it either.

On the plus side the hallucinations I have been having have lessened considerably, but the other problems , including insomnia, (I have been up since 2 a.m. – it’s 5 now), are worse. How much time do I give the medicine? I know we can do something about the insomnia, but if I’m going to have weight gain is it really worth it? Can I live with the hallucinations?

I realize psychiatry isn’t an exact science and everybody is different, but I wish we could find that magic cocktail that would take away the problems and let me live a normal life. I want to be healthy. I want to be functional. I want to be a size 14 again. Is that really too much to ask?

health issues

So I'm having health issues.  First it was my leg, currently in a knee brace (I go see the  orthopedic dr on Friday), now I'm being tested for Cushing's disease and diabetes, both which could have been aggravated by the seroquel.  So glad I am off that evil stuff.  I had a special blood test yesterday, and it will take three to four days for the results.  Cushing's itself can cause diabetes, but there are other more severe complications.  If I have it, I will most likely need to have my pituitary gland removed.  That's Brain surgery.  I'll say it again, BRAIN surgery.  Please keep me in your thoughts as this is really stressful.  Thanks.

You take the good, you take the bad

So after working for a better part of a year I am off Seroquel!  My doctor said the weight loss will be dramatic.  I’m just gonna keep on keepin’ on with my weight loss plan – this week I lost 2.6 lbs and couldn’t be happier.  I’m having dreams of fitting into my wedding dress on vacation and having my friend take all kinds of awesome pictures of me in my gown ten years later.

Now the bad:  I busted my left knee somehow today – that’s the knee I tore ligaments in in high school, broke when I was 29, and which has severe arthritis.  So I’m immobilized and on crutches, and made the mistake of accepting the morphine at the hospital so I have not slept at all.  But my gym offers sitting workout classes, so I will check those out when I’m okay to drive.  *sigh*.  It’s so fun being me.

Returning to my weight loss journey

After my weight loss journey ended with the lap band, I felt free, and I ate like crap.  I ended up gaining my weight back with the help of Seroquel.  About a month ago, my BFF suggested I join Myfitnesspal.com.   I joined a new gym with lots of water classes (Because of my knee and fibromyalgia water exercise is best).  And although I have not lost weight yet, I have exercised 10 times in 20 days, made new friends on the message boards that keep me motivated, and (the most exciting part) will be off Seroquel in a few weeks.  I’m so proud of myself for my change of attitude.  Stay tuned.

Food Angel Vs. Food Devil

So now I’m back to eating “real food”, which means its’ now up to me to make the right choices, since I know I won’t get sick. It’s almost a war between what I want and what is good for me.  So I bran to the grocery store at 6:30 this morning to get the chicken and nectarines were on sale as well as a newspaper for my coupons,  Then the man in front of me was checking out donuts.  In my best Homer Simpson impression, I thought “mmm, donuts”, and I went straight to the bakery and bought one for each of us.

The FD (Food devil)  side said ”Lets get the crème filled chocolate covered long john.  It’s the biggest one!”, while the FA (Food angel) Reminded me of my food journal. “You don’t really want to write down a donut do you?  (I think she sort of sounds like my mom, who was always critical of my weight.) So I compromised – ½ a circle chocolate covered crème donut.  Yes it still has to go in my food journal, but I feel by giving in a little now I stopped a huge binge later.  Isn’t balance what it’s all about?

The end of Journey with my Lap-Band

I started with such great expectations.  In 2009, the Lap-Band system for gastric banding made by Allergan was going to be my savior.  At first it was, I had the surgery March 22, 2010 and I rapidly lost about 50 pounds, feeling better than ever.  Then last August, I came to a stand-still. Despite following my diet and exercising at the Y, I stopped losing weight.  I had gone from a 30/32 on top and a 26/28 on bottom to an 18/20 on top and a 22 on the bottom.  Not exactly where I had planned to be, but doable, especially because I was going to lose more weight.  Except that I didn’t.  No, in all actuality, I gained about 10 pounds.  And nothing else had changed except for some of my psychotropic medicines that I take for my multiple mental illness diagnoses.

Then the dysphagia started.  I got the stomach flu and couldn’t keep anything down in October.  They loosened my band.  In November, I went in for an adjustment and they took more fluid out.  Of course I wasn’t losing weight without my tool.  Yes, I blamed it on that and not the holiday cookies that slid down so easy.  After the holidays, the vomiting started up again.  Every time I ate anything healthy, it came right back up.  I( was living on protein shakes, soup, and even those things didn’t always work.

That’s when I started eating slider foods (food that would break down in my mouth like cookies and crackers), because that is what was staying down.  I gained five more pounds.  Every time I tried chicken or meatloaf, I would throw up violently.  The one exception was fish.  I could always eat fish, until I couldn’t.

During this time my diet declined even further and I wasn’t even trying to eat something I couldn’t eat with a straw.  Do you know how many calories you can take in with a straw?  It was enough that I gained 3 more pounds, bringing weight lost to 38 lbs.

So I went and had my band deflated more.  Yet this time I was so blocked water didn’t make it through.  That night the heartburn started.  The lap-band is not recommended for patients with a history of heart-burn or GERD, yet this was never brought up to me when I applied for my surgery.  Had I known I may have had a RNY stomach stapling procedure.  I would wake up in the middle of the night my chest on fire.  One night it was so bad I went to the ER thinking I was having a heart attack.  There I learned that my lap-band had slipped. I saw my surgeon the next day, and he deflated me the rest of the way.  Even this did not help.  The heartburn was constant and by this point all I could keep down was water and a watered down protein shake.  Yet on this diet, I waited another week.  Then I saw my surgeon again.  I told him I wanted my lap-band out, that I was done.  It was at this moment that I felt at peace for the first time since I started having problems.  I was taking charge of my life.  I was going to eat again.  I was going to have a quality life.

This also meant that I had to be honest with myself.  The lap-band and I had failed at the “miracle” that was going to make me thin.  So I did some research, and I am astounded by some of the specifics.  The lap band has almost a 40% 5-year failure rate, with failure being either a reoperation to fix the problem (6.3% band slippage) or less than a 25% excess weight loss  (so 51.5 pounds, which I never reached, would have been my 25%).  More staggering is the only 43% 7-year success rate, with a person losing 50% of the extra weight loss (about 103 lbs for me if I had been successful.).  In fact, had I been successful, I would have still been  an obese 235.  According to the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, Gastric banding can “no longer be considered as the procedure of choice for obesity” (Obesity Surgery, July 2006).

I had the removal surgery on August 8, 2011.  I stuck to liquids for the first few days, but enjoyed a bowl of strawberries and blueberries this afternoon.  My family had pizza for dinner.  I had one slice and am satisfied.

So what is next for me?  I’m considering Weight Watchers.  I am also food and exercise journaling.  Next Thursday I meet with an endocrinologist.  Maybe she’ll have some answers.  And maybe not.  Maybe I’ll gain back  the weight I lost.  No one really knows.  However in most cases it is calories in and calories out.  A healthy life is the life I want, and now I know I am strong enough to make those choices.

Resources:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=16839478&ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum