Early December I jumped thru hoops to get my student PCP to write me a script of Amitriptyline. In the past it’s been a miracle medication for me, I’ll always be grateful for that. This time around was a bit different. I had been psych med free for over 2 years and my tolerance is apparently nonexistent. Instead of feeling better I became a total blob that couldn’t stop eating and sleeping.
I would go to bed getting 7 hours of sleep but still needing a nap during the day before work. Running errands would sometimes require more than one nap, and caffeine had no more ability to keep me awake. I passed out more than once at times where I really couldn’t afford to be napping. Where I made the mistake was continuing to take the medication for six weeks thinking that my body would eventually adjust.
Well it did not adjust but instead progressively got worse. A few days ago I decided to discontinue use. I probably should have tapered but the lower dosing has even more of a sleepiness side effect so I wasn’t willing to pay $20 to go to my student PCP and try and explain why I wanted off a med I had just fought to get back on. When I came off this medication in the past I never remember there being a detox but I also believe that each time I came off I did wean myself down, whoops.
Detox symptoms have included insane insomnia, diarrhea, and flu like symptoms. Since 6:15am yesterday (Wednesday) I’ve slept 1.75 hours and I am having horrific brain fog. Potential side effects include what’s called brain zaps? It’s been days since I’ve taken the medication though so at this point taking anymore would be going backwards in the process. I’m expecting a few more days of hell but I wanted to make sure I documented this one since all these years I’ve bragged about this medication working I had no clue this was possible.
At 1am last night I made a nice batch of edibles so I’m hoping that at some point tonight I can get some sleep from these. I discovered the hard way that the cookies aren’t an economically smart choice as the number of cookies produced from one stick of butter leads to them going stale/nasty quite quickly. I’m not running around eating a ton of cookies on a daily basis and neither is my husband so the 18-20+ cookies produced would be mini hockey pucks by day 4/5. The brownies at least last longer and can be made into smaller batch sizing and can be softened easily via a quick run in the microwave.
Cockroach Chronicles 
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