Musical brain meds

The Lamictal/Zofran combo did not work. In fact, I ended up so stopped up that it took me a week (and 4 days in a row of using laxatives) to get back to some semblance of normality. In the meantime, I saw my shrink again on 12/21. She had two ideas for new mood swing meds for me -- a melatonin agonist called agomelatin and Abilify, an antipsychotic that seems to help some people with mood swings when they take it at low doses -- and also prescribed Klonopin for my sleep problems. Of the two mood swing options, we decided to try the Abilify first.

I decided to try the Klonopin and the Abilify on separate days, so that if I had any side effects I could tell what was causing them. I took 0.5 mg of Klonopin on 12/22, half an hour before I wanted to go to bed, as suggested. After 90 minutes, it had had no effect. By that time it was 1:00 AM, so I took my regular dose of Lunesta and was asleep by 1:30. I woke up at noon Thursday with a horrible hangover -- very sedated, dizzy, stumbling. I continued to feel drugged for the next three days. I didn't take any more Klonopin.

I ended up waiting until last night to try the Abilify -- wanted to be free of the side effects from the Lamictal/Zofran/Klonopin first, and then I wanted to avoid overlap with my first dose of Malarone on Sunday.

Things did not go well. I took 2 mg of Abilify along with my bedtime meds at 10 PM, as I have noticed that my sleeping pill is taking 2 hours to kick in. I was asleep by midnight, but had a horrific nightmare early in the night about someone beating someone else to death in front of me. I woke up terrified and couldn't get back to sleep for a long time. Unfortunately, I also was very itchy last night and had a hard time waking up this morning. I don't feel good...having a hard time thinking straight, dull brain. My plan is to give myself a day off, then try 1 mg on Wednesday to see if that works better.

(Note from next day: also had some coordination problems and exacerbation of depression -- weird, it was like an overlay on top of my own neutral mood, but I kept starting to cry for no reason)

I called my insurance company last week to see about coverage for agomelatine, and they hadn't heard of it. This morning I thought to look it up in the 2011 Medicare formulary, and it's not listed. So, it looks like agomelatine is not going to be an option for me.

One other thing I forgot to mention -- I'm back to taking Ambien CR instead of Lunesta. I tried it again on Sunday, and it worked. The onset is delayed 2 hours, as it was when I stopped using it, but after that it is working better than the Lunesta was.

This whole process is so bewildering.