Culprit or Cure

So I just finished the weekly ritual.  Filling out my medications for the week.  Every week as I do this I'm just disgusted that my life requires this much stuff.  I know about chemical dependency.  Scotch was more fun.  None of these drugs are fun.  Just drugs.

Some of them are inexpensive.  On the other hand, one of those bottles contains a ninety day supply of Abilify, which in its generic form is somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,000.  Rozerem, a sleep medication, is also up there.  Thankfully there is insurance.

I struggle with the medications, though I know they are necessary and my life is manageable because of them.  The struggle is that the human body doesn't always respond well to this amount of foreign chemicals being introduced to it.

Side effects.  The small print at the bottom of the page.  Some of those are immediately apparent.  Some develop over time.  

I'm on an alternative treatment for cholesterol because the statins created so much muscle pain I would have rather died young than lived like that.  The new treatment works.

Currently I'm dealing with another series of side effects.  

Let's just say that I'm discovering all the ways to 'dysfunction'.

Every time an issue comes up there is the mysterious little debate.  Is this a new problem on its own right?  Is this being caused by one of the medications you are on?  If so, which one?  And if you have that all figured out, what are the alternatives?  And is there any insurance that the alternative is better, or at least less harmful, than the original?

This last go round, I was sure that the culprit was my antidepressant.  When I consulted with my doctor the answer was probably not, but quite likely my blood pressure medication.  So I went of the blood pressure medication, and my blood pressure went up 30 points over night.

Then I visited with my psychiatrist who said, "Well,  yes, that's quite possible.  But did the Dr. tell you that you might have to be off the Toprol XL for over a year before you see any improvement?"

So what that means is that we could go a whole year and not know if the Toprol XL was the problem or not.  It is frustrating.

In the meantime, I will likely be put back on a different class of blood pressure medication, and perhaps even a new medication to counteract the side effects of the other medication.  Who knows?  And with every change of medication there is a concern about how that effects the overall balance with all the other medications.

Better living through chemicals.  

Well, sort of-- I'm stable.  But there's a price.