One pill forward, two pills back

I have been trying to manage my chronic pain in ways that don't leave me zonked out 24/7. I've tried a specific old-school antidepressant that helps pain sometimes. I'm already on a couple other meds to manage my mental health so it had to be a balanced add-on since it could go toxic on me. As we increased the dose some of my nerve pain did go away. Great, right? Everything comes with a price. The last increase has made 3 hour afternoon naps a regular thing (along with a full night sleep) and it has become very obvious that it has increased my appetite, making my binge eating disorder more difficult to control. Fab. Just as I was thinking this med wasn't quite balancing out on the pro/con sheet I got a mildly frantic message from my doctor's office. Getting a mildly frantic message from your doctor's office...ON YOUR BIRTHDAY...is no way to round out the day. After a little phone tag I was told that my levels were too high on my last blood test and that the med could be moving into toxic levels. I needed to decrease today. Great. The thing about antidepressants is you can't just stop taking them. You need to slowly decrease. So I'm slowly stepping down off this med and my nerve pain is showing up again. To be extra whiny about this I will say that with the returning nerve pain I also still have the negative side effects of taking the med.

I hurt, I am sleepy all afternoon, I can't seem to CBT* my way out of the Halloween candy, and I have no idea if my blood levels are still high enough to be toxic. Fan-fucking-tastic.

All whining aside, I know that I have plenty of other good options to try. I have great support from my household and have learned how to deal with my pain in other ways. I see my doctor this week and we will discuss what else is available to me. I actually feel positive about trying something new. But you got to get the whining out somewhere and the interwebs are a vast space in which to dump all that whine!

*CBT: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. A type of behavior modification that has proven effective in dealing with any unwanted behavior...like emotional eating.