The Joys of Tegretol Withdrawal (Continued)

Exactly two weeks ago yesterday—Monday, August 23rd to be exact—I woke up (or perhaps I should say came to) at 6:30 in the morning to discover my room was filled with strangers, my bed was soaked, and my tongue hurt like hell.

The strangers were paramedics, my bed was soaked because I had pissed in it, and my tongue hurt like hell because I had chewed it all to fuck.

In short, I had my first seizure in 8 goddamn years.

It took one month and two days off the Tegretol for me to have a fucking seizure, drop me into a pit of depression and near insanity, and make me wish I could snap the doctor’s neck like a toothpick.

And all of it was for nothing.

I’ll admit, I had wanted off the fucking meds…before I knew what it would do to me mentally. All those little side effects I had wished would go away—the difficulty in concentrating, the ability (occasionally even the tendency) to fall asleep suddenly and unexpectedly, the fact that Tegretol (also called carbamazepine—it’s also used for treating bi-polar disorder, which I suppose is why I took such a steep downward plunge after they took me off it even though I suffer from depression and NOT bi-polar disorder) supposedly somehow makes you even more prone to sunburn even though I already burn like a marshmallow on a fat kid’s stick over a campfire after about 30 seconds in the sun—I would gladly suffer for the rest of my life if I could just go back in time 3 months or so. And of course, the cruel fact of the matter is that I WILL suffer those things for the rest of my life, whether I get to use them as a bargaining chip with fate or not. I’m on the shit for the rest of my life; there’s nothing I can do about that.

But I had expected to be on the shit for the rest of my life anyway before Dr. fucking Ho Chi Minh had dangled hope in front of my face a couple of years back, telling me if I simply had a clean EEG that I would probably be able to get off the shit. I had never bought into that idea with the same certainty and enthusiasm that he had shown. None of it really added up to me. But he had seemed so certain, so sure of himself…and it’s not like I really had any say in the matter. If a doctor wants to take you off of something, hey…all he’s gotta do is stop writing the fucking prescriptions. It’s not like I’m in any kind of financial shape to seek a second opinion. The neurologist that I used to see, some now-retired nutcase I never particularly warmed to named Chahil (my uncle saw him once or twice about his Parkinson’s—he didn’t like him either) agreed that it was possible, and so did another neurologist (supposedly) that Dr. Ho Chi Minh (all right, his real name is Nguyen—like that’s any better) consulted before taking me off of it, so I suppose I can’t lay ALL the blame on him. But this fucking clown was so sure of himself that he didn’t even suggest that I stop driving for a few months, even though I fucking ASKED him about that, while I came off the drugs—it was sheer luck, for lack of a better word, that I was home and not behind the wheel when I had the seizure. And, of course, now I CAN’T drive for several months—even though I haven’t heard a thing from the fucking DMV yet, the hospital told me that they would be reporting it. If I want to leave this house, I can either (A) walk—as though there was anything within walking distance in this shitty little town of 10,000, or (B) take a bus—anybody that knows me knows THAT will never happen, or (C) beg a ride off of my mom.

So NOW what? I saw some other doctor the Saturday before I had the seizure (he apparently only works Saturdays, which is why I’d never seen him before, but I prefer HIM to Nguyen already) that put me on 40 mg of Prozac, 1 mg of Xanax, and 50 mg of Trazodone to help with the depression and to help me sleep, but I can’t stay on all that shit. Xanax and Prozac I take in the morning, but supposedly one (the Xanax) can reduce the effectiveness of Tegretol while the other can raise the levels of Tegretol in your blood to dangerous levels. And the other shit, the Trazodone (which was to help me sleep, as well as being an antidepressant), could make me just “forget” to breathe during the night, to use the doctor’s words—remember, I wasn’t taking the Tegretol when he originally prescribed all that shit, but now that I’m taking it again too he says I can’t continue taking all that shit, it’s too many drugs working on the brain all at once. So I quit taking the Xanax (haven’t had one since Saturday) and didn’t take a Trazodone Sunday night, although I broke down and took one last night because I didn’t sleep worth a shit the night before (he said I could take one if I absolutely felt it was necessary, but that I should try to get off of them and the Xanax) and went for some blood work this morning to test the Tegretol level in my blood, to see what the Prozac was doing to it. I may have to stop taking it, too. And considering the Tegretol worked fine by itself for eight years, that may not be such a bad thing. And there are other anti-depressants that they can try.
But considering what happened the last fucking time they tried taking me off of something, you can’t blame me for being a bit nervous of what may happen if they try taking me off of something else. Even now there are times when the depression comes back pretty strong, and times when I feel absolutely like shit both spiritually and physically. I don’t know if I can handle being that depressed for any period of time again.

But I see the therapist-dude one more time this Thursday, and finally see a real doctor next Friday over at the Mental Health department—one that can write prescriptions and (supposedly) knows all about this shit. So maybe he’ll know what he’s doing.

Fingers crossed.