May 29, 2013

• Unexpected Side Effects

    I'm weathering the most recent increase of Tetracycline fairly well. My balance is more off than usual and I'm needing to use a cane inside my very small home. Usually, I can navigate inside fairly well. After all the house is seven hundred sixty square feet in toto. And there's enough furniture for any spry senior citizen to cruise along in an effort to avoid Durable Medical Equipment to enhance ambulation. Alas I am neither Senior nor spry, and so I use my cane somewhat reluctantly because swerving into the gun cabinet and the cat box both have intolerable results. 

     But those aren't unexpected side effects. The unexpected side effects are what a friend of mine describes as "glimpses of wellness.' The first unexpected side effect was weight loss. I knew that in theory, one should lose weight on the carbohydrate sparing diet which is part of treatment. But I hadn't lost any weight for a long time. On average, I was gaining five pounds every year. After twenty years, those one hundred pounds seemed to be firmly entrenched and I had resigned myself to practicing fat acceptance. I didn't believe my doc when he told me the Nystatin would help keep the cravings down. Imagine my surprise when he was right and the cravings did not come for me in the middle of the night or during some stressful situation. My clothing became looser. I wasn't sure I liked the wattle that was replacing my double chin, but I was happy to find this unexpected weight loss. 

     A more recent unexpected side effect is that I care more about my appearance. I'm enjoying wearing clothing again that is not a t-shirt and baggy jeans. Or a t-shirt and sausage casing tight jeans. I finally have felt comfortable enough to throw away my sweat pants, much to my husband's delight.   I am currently coveting a pair of Frye boots that a friend has up for sale.  I've wanted a pair of Frye boots for a very long time. Like back to adolescence time. The price is reasonable, for a pair of these boots, but I'm still having trouble justifying the purchase. Because, after all, I do not NEED this pair of boots. I want a pair of kick-ass boots. Last night, I even dreamed I was wearing the boots. In my dream, I saw my teen-aged body, the body that was beautiful at the time, and yet I did not know it. 

     It occurs to me that the situation remains the same. I am a body that is beautiful in this time, but I do not know it.  I was at the Beauty Lounge today, having low lights put into my hair and had an opportunity to see my hair around my face,slicked back and sleek. I realized I was looking at an older, but not bad looking woman. My jaw line is less rounded and for once, I did not notice my droopy eyelids. For the first time in a long time, I could look at my face in the mirror and like how I looked. This is an unexpected side effect.

     Another unexpected side effect has been the ability to wean off the majority of my anti-depressants. As my brain is recovering, the medications I have taken for years, and expected to take for life, have become more harmful to my system than good.  I now know what brain shivers are and the hot-cold chills that accompany too much serotonin in my system.  One medication has been completely eliminated. The other medication is at one third of the dose it used to be. I was incredulous when my Lyme doc started suggesting that these medications needed to be weaned out, that they were too much. At first I put it off to his frankly stated abhorrence of one of the medications I was on. A very pricey moneymaker for the pharmaceutical company marketing it specifically for Fibromyalgia and chronic pain associated with depression. To my doc's way of thinking, my depression is from the Lyme Disease. His assertions usually are counter to conventional thinking. With trepidation I have done as he asked and been pleasantly surprised. I have hope that I can be vibrant again. Even as I'm having pain and fatigue, I feel hopeful. That is the best unexpected side effect of all.

  Blessings abound

  • 6:53 pm
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