Vitamin *P*

So, let's chat about my crazy again, shall we?

I'm still going to my psychiatric med doctor every 5 to 6 weeks as he continues to slowly increase my Prozac levels.  Oh, I didn't tell you I was on Prozac?  Well, now ya know.  Big news :).

I have had terrible anxiety this year.  It was one of the reason I had my extensive blood testing done - which led to a great big fat load of nothing.

Until I hauled my crazy, scared, depressed, crying self to my old counselor.  I had an awesome counselor get me through a bout of PPD after having my third child.  When I felt I had reached my limit of crazy this year, I knew just who to call.  She talked me through my options, got me in to someone for meds, and has just really been my voice of logic sometimes.  At my last visit with her I kind of "graduated" from regular counseling, but I am so grateful I have her in my back pocket to see me through a crisis, if needed.  There's probably nothing more discouraging than a bad counselor when you are really in a time of mental/emotional need, but when you have a good one...they can SAVE you.

I've digressed...I was talking about the prozac.  So, the doctor I am seeing for medication is an old Army guy.  He works mostly with other military people, because he specializes in anxiety disorders and PTSD type stuff.  It is a little humbling to walk in and talk about having the exact same physical reactions as someone who just got shot at in a war, but it also makes me feel like I am in good hands, because he could describe my feelings perfectly and exactly what was going through my head when I was feeling them.  And he let me call the shots (kind of).  He felt like Prozac was really the best thing to target the anxiety and prevent the panic attacks, once my body got to a good clinical dose.

I, however, was extremely panicky and worried (imagine that!) about taking prozac because I'd had a bad reaction once before.  He did a really good job of explaining what probably happened in my body and that we could prevent that by starting very small and increasing the dose very gradually.

It worked!  I'm still surprised.  I'm now at the dose (after 3 months of gradual increasing) that I was put on when I felt like I had a horrible reaction to it.  My diagnosis is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and he said the key word for that is CONTROL.  And that is part of everything in my life, including what medicine I take.  I want to control every part of it and I have great anxiety about every detail of it.

But, back to my point, it is really, really helping.  And for that I am thankful.  I also have a medicine to take during a panic episode and I have to take much less of that now that my prozac has increased.

So, there's the crazy update.  I titled this post Vitamin *P* because my whole vitamin question I wrote about yesterday probably coincides with this too.

Thanks for reading~!