The sh*t hit the fan

So much has gone on since the last post, it feels like dropping a bomb here to write about it. But write about it I will.

So that week after all the MRI's?
HUGE migraine on Shabbat. Was it from all the contrast agent? Could be. I am so sensitive to everything. That will be a theme here in this post....
Since I didn't have any medicinal cannabis baked into [gluten free] brownies or cookies, and I can't smoke it on Shabbat, I was out of resources beyond the over-the-counter stuff which is useless most of the time. By the time Shabbat was over, I was in **baaad** shape. We wound up in the hospital around 10 pm, after I was vomiting and could hardly see. I hadn't had a bad one like that in a very long time. Mostly because I can use the Cannabis and it usually helps. I got the steroids and Phenergan, and went home with a low-grade headache and very drowsy. Sunday I stayed in bed still nursing the remnants of the headache, like usual.

Monday I was well enough to travel the three hours up to Dov's yeshiva for his parent's evening/Chanukah celebration, and bring him home with us afterward for his vacation. It was lovely, and I was exhausted the next day, but it's good I could go. Last year at the parent's day at his yeshiva, I couldn't go, I was in far too much pain. His rabbanim were so happy to finally meet me, and I, them.

Tuesday I decided to start my migraine medicine again (Topamax). The headaches have been coming on more frequent and harder, and although I want to stay off medicines, I also want to stay out of pain. Call it self preservation. My family doctor OK'd it, but I didn't check the dosage she recommended. I had some Topamax left over from last year when I stopped it (to see if it might be a factor in my abdominal pain, which it wasn't), so I just found that bottle and started it. 50 mg, Tuesday, 50mg Wed.

On Tuesday night we had dinner with dear friends in the neighborhood. Then we watched a movie. My head was cotton-feeling, kind of dizzy, just not at all right. I thought maybe it was the new sleeping medicine I had just started.

So that new sleeping medicine-- I mentioned last time that I asked my doctor for something because the PTSD relapse has been keeping me from a good night's sleep... or sleep at all sometimes. Nightmares wake Robert up with me screaming, then he wakes me up, and then I'm up, freaked out, with nobody to process the dream with because Robert goes right back to sleep (rightfully so). So I don't get back to sleep. It happened so much that my driving was getting sloppy, and I even took off the mirror from our new van in miscalculating distance. So that was why I asked for a stronger sleeping medicine.

Although I had never heard of it, I didn't Google it, I just took it, and it gave me a wonderful night's sleep, no nightmares, the first night I took it. I was thrilled. I kept it up for a week or so, then the nightmares started returning, and therefore my wakefulness, so I took the whole pill instead of half, as per doctor's instructions.

Well, Wednesday found me early in the day in a cotton-headed strongly dizzy feeling. I needed to do an errand in Tel Aviv, so I took the train because I didn't trust my driving. I went to Tel Aviv, and got increasingly more and more depressed, even crying, alone there on the city bus on my way to where I was going. I didn't understand what was going on. People were looking at me concerned, but I tried to keep my head turned away. I did my errand, and got right back on a city bus to come home, I was in an awful state inside my head-- I felt physically awful, was moving very slowly but using a very high energy output, and my head just wasn't right. By the time I was on the train back, I started to feel a tremor coming on in my hands and legs. I thought I was cold. I was also still crying.

I got home and deteriorated rapidly.
It was Shifra's 16th birthday (!), and we were going to go out for dinner, but I couldn't do it. I thought I needed dinner immediately. I didn't eat anything my whole day traveling, and I thought I was shaking because of that. Robert kindly made me some dinner, and as I was eating, the rest of the family went out to dinner to celebrate Shifra's birthday. You *know* I had to have been feeling really bad to forgo that.

As I stayed home, I got right into bed. Things were NOT RIGHT. I started shaking uncontrollably, and crying uncontrollably. It was so unexplainable to me. I was literally having convulsions. I didn't want to get Robert back home because I didn't want to bring down Shifra's party, but I did get my doctor on a chat with me. She was kind enough to go through it with me, and try to figure out what is happening. Honestly, I thought I was having a psychotic break. I had really crazy thoughts going through my head. I was  s c a r e d. After a while in our chat, my doctor asked me to tell her everything I'd taken in the last 36-48 hours. In a shaky voice with disorganized thoughts, I left a voice note for her about what I had taken, including the new sleeping medicine at the higher dose, and the Topamax and the dose. We discovered the dose of the Topamax I started was too high (totally my mistake). Then I discovered that I had a bit of a temperature. My doctor then thought another direction, Seratonin Syndrome. Bingo. The new sleeping medicine (Trazodil) was not a good mix with the only medicine I was taking beforehand, Cymbalta. In fact, very bad combination. Potentially deadly.

Finally Robert came home and he spoke with my doctor when he saw my condition (shaking, convulsing, crying uncontrollably). We had gone through a list of what medicines do I have at home, and hit upon one that could act as an antidote. I wanted desperately to stay out of the hospital, that's not news to any of you here. So I took a Clonex, and within 20 minutes the shaking calmed down, and I could rest. A few hours later I took another Clonex to help me get to sleep, together with my regular sleeping medicine (*not* the new one) and I slept all night.

But when I woke up, as soon as I started to brush my teeth in the morning, the shaking started again. It was so scary all over again. I didn't know how long these effects would last. I took another Clonex, and it calmed my nervous system down. By this time I had of course cut out the Trazadone as well as the Topamax. I don't know if I'll go back on Topamax or not (starting at the right dose), I have to clean out my system from this huge crash that happened. Today is Sunday, and I am now no longer getting the shakes (thank G-d), but I've had a four day lingering headache through this whole thing. Low level, but persistent. I can't take Tylenol/Excedrin, all the over-the-counter things- it gets me into medicine overuse syndrome. Been there before- constant migraine.

Basically we know I am wildly sensitive to ALL drugs and medicines. I hope to stay as far away from them as possible. I need to get this PTSD problem under control. I finally have an appointment with the psychiatrist (who I saw 10 years ago at the psych hospitalization) in a week. He is a PTSD specialist, and head of the PTSD department. I'm praying he can lead me out of this. It's really the source of how all this started... the relapse, the sleeping problems and nightmares, needing more sleeping meds, getting increasing migraines.... it's all connected. Let's pray I can get this straightened out.

There are still other "fires" I have to put out and can't even get to them because of these more immediate "fires". More on those another time.

Aside from this horrendous stuff, there have been good Chanukah times with the family, Baruch Hashem. I was hoping for more, but taking into account the circumstances, I think we did pretty well. We went to an escape room today, escaped from a nuclear apocalypse. :) Then out to a beautiful dinner, the whole family together, and our wonderful nephew (my children's cousin) Noad joined us, also!
We had dinner with friends one night, and Robert & I saw a movie together in bed one night. That is also a rarity.

Only Dov, I think, knows about the shaking and convulsions.... he took me to the doctor the second day it was happening. We managed to shield the other kids from the harsh reality of what was happening to me. That's a score, considering how much they've been through regarding worrying about me. Going to the hospital for the migraine last Saturday night was hard on them.

I'm still withdrawing from the medicine mix-up, but I hope it'll get better and better within a week or so. It's been a pretty insane time, though. I'm afraid to take anything new.

Mostly, I have to get the PTSD under control. Then I can deal with my other issues. Everything at the right time.

Let's pray I can sleep tonight. Last night was pretty awful.