Bipolar Disorder & Hair Care

[Lady S]

*subtle understated bump*

 

[SmilingElephant]

I feel SO much better.....a little drowsy but better.....i had my "Italian Nite" last nite....i ordered take out from the Olive Garden and bought a nice bottle of wine and had a nite to myself....and just chilled and i washed and DC my hair.

I just got finished moisturizing and unmatting my hair...the mattes are annoying but i'm trying to find ways to make them much more less of a problem during my transition.....the fluffiness of my newgrowth has a soothing quality as well

 

[Mz.MoMo5235]

i washed my hair... i both love and hate wash days lol

my hair is nice and soft. minimal breakage going on. but the fact that my hair feels so thin irritates me. i just wish it was thicker.

you ever do that? wish you can change something about your self that you cant really change so much that it upsets you? lmao like its silly. its not like i'm balding or my hair is thinning, its just the way my hair is you know. but some how it just randomly depresses me you know. i dunno... i could just be in a mood lol

 

[SmilingElephant]

i washed my hair... i both love and hate wash days lol

my hair is nice and soft. minimal breakage going on. but the fact that my hair feels so thin irritates me. i just wish it was thicker.

you ever do that? wish you can change something about your self that you cant really change so much that it upsets you? lmao like its silly. its not like i'm balding or my hair is thinning, its just the way my hair is you know. but some how it just randomly depresses me you know. i dunno... i could just be in a mood lol

There's a lot of things on me physically that i hate but i'm still learning to love them and just accept it. It sometimes frustrates me that really nothing about me is normal....bc if you're normal ppl don't really pay too much attn to u like they do to freaks of nature like me.

But then its nice to feel like i'm really part of the X-Men....maybe i'll watch that movie tonite....thats just the way i feel...like a mutant. But a good mutant...like Storm

 

[jupitermoon]

i washed my hair... i both love and hate wash days lol

my hair is nice and soft. minimal breakage going on. but the fact that my hair feels so thin irritates me. i just wish it was thicker.

you ever do that? wish you can change something about your self that you cant really change so much that it upsets you? lmao like its silly. its not like i'm balding or my hair is thinning, its just the way my hair is you know. but some how it just randomly depresses me you know. i dunno... i could just be in a mood lol

I can relate. There have been times that I've totally disgusted myself and sometimes I avoid looking at myself in the mirror because I dislike how I look; I'm full of physical flaws. I can really disappoint myself. I just try to ignore it. Somethings you just can't change about yourself and must accept..

 

[Lady S]

i washed my hair... i both love and hate wash days lol

my hair is nice and soft. minimal breakage going on. but the fact that my hair feels so thin irritates me. i just wish it was thicker.

you ever do that? wish you can change something about your self that you cant really change so much that it upsets you? lmao like its silly. its not like i'm balding or my hair is thinning, its just the way my hair is you know. but some how it just randomly depresses me you know. i dunno... i could just be in a mood lol

Oh yes. I do that with past events a lot. I think that's why I went on a hair dye rampage in high school. I couldn't control my mom's cancer (she's fine now, by the way), but I could control the color of my hair. Add a dash of no impulse control & my hair got JACKED UP! Seriously, not a great idea to dye hair every two seconds WHILE being relaxed and using mostly heat styling. Good times. I don't know why my hair broke off twice.

Right now my mood is crashing, so I really don't feel like doing anything. I know it would be a good idea to do a protein treatment & retwist my hair, but I really don't feel like it. I hoping some caffeine will help. *sigh*

 

[tapioca_pudding]

Been manic all weekend, got a fuggin speeding ticket today. And i kept laughing like a psycho at the officer.

 

[Lady S]

Been manic all weekend, got a fuggin speeding ticket today. And i kept laughing like a psycho at the officer.

Ouch. How fast were you going?

I'm slowly getting out of my funk. Slowly. Does anyone else have to call off every two seconds or is it just me?

 

[chrisanddonniesmommy]

What do you mean by call off? Do you mean spend time alone or count to five? If so, I do both A LOT, lol. My mania varies. I can be a kitten or a full-grown lioness.

 

[Lady S]

What do you mean by call off? Do you mean spend time alone or count to five? If so, I do both A LOT, lol. My mania varies. I can be a kitten or a full-grown lioness.

I mean calling off from work. Calling off sick. If I'm too manic, I get a lot of work done, BUT I have no profanity filter. If I'm too depressed, I can't focus on anything and I get nothing done. I work in a call center, so being off the phone while tons of people calling isn't a good look.

I have FMLA, but I'm scared I'll use it all up and I feel guilty, because I'm not there.

I need an e-hug. And someone to do my hair, because I'm really not in the mood to deal with it.

 

[CherryCherryBoomBoom]

If anything, looking after my hair now is really aggravating my depression, because of the thoughts of having started this hair journey with lots of optimism, and then going downhill with the many failures occurred so far . Sorry for the downer, but that's how I feel right now, I'm failing too many things at the moment in life, and I'm not sure I can be bothered with my hair anymore

 

[SmilingElephant]

Okay I have been really out of character for days now. Yesterday it was really bad. I made myself go to work....but i was running late....and then when i was working i felt like i weighed 500 pounds. I kept finding little hiding spots so i could cry a little bit.....i just couldn't move as fast as i usually do. I'm pretty sure my managers are picking up that there's something wrong bc i've been feeling like this for over a week now.

My hair? I just put it in a lazy lookin french twist and a headband to look half decent. I came home after stopping to the pharmacy to pick up my Ativan bc i have been feeling so irritated with the whole world....road rage, speeding, think really violent thoughts with urges to do them....i got SO mad the day before i threw my AO HSR bottle at the wall and the cap shattered and it let a dent in the wall. And then yesterday i wasn't feeling like that...just sad and down and slow...so along with the 2 Ativans i took the infamous AD my doctor gave me (celexa)....then i took a one a day vitamin, then 2 fish oil supplements, and then i took my Seroquel XR later on in the evening.....it really helped me calm down and i slept pretty good

Today i'm not doing anything....i don't care who likes it or not.

 

[SmilingElephant]

For all the ladies in here who are going through a downward spiral....just remember the mood will soon change...thats why they call it Bi----polar Disorder......we will be happy again. Just do what you can to keep yourself calm and surround yourself with cheerful energy....even if its watching Spongebob Squarepants(he ALWAYS cheers me up no matter what )......i find sometimes i have to do what children do....like coloring(on PAPER)...or getting a bowl of Fruit Loops and watch some cartoons.....bc everyday adult life can really suck your energy like a huge drain.

I got some crayons and paper and pencils the other day when i was feeling violent....i just started drawing and coloring in the pictures....i drew little doodles of what i felt symbolized my mania and my depression....and colored them in....and then on another paper i got tired of drawing and my irritability flared back up so i just wrote all the words that came to mind at the time since i'm in a mixed mood and i used the color of the crayons to emulate what the words meant to me and i just overlapped all the words bc it shows how frustrated i was.

Its easy to tell ppl you feel irritated....but they don't understand that you mean you're so irritated and you feel so violent you could just stab somebody and not feel bad about it at all. That's the difference between regular irritabilty and Bipolar irritabilty.....at least for me. I know most ppl say they're iritated or annoyed with something or someone and they just need time to calm down. Me? I not only need time to calm down....i also need a pill to calm me down and a few days to pass....i mean NOTHING was calming me down...not a shower, not a cup of tea....nothing

 

[Lady S]

I wonder if we're all going to start syncing are moods. You know, like how when a bunch of women get together and their periods start matching up?

I'm feeling better today. I'm actually doing my hair and it's not irritating me. I do think I am going to have to try to increase the lamictal. My doctor wants me to consider lithium, but I'm really not feeling that.

 

[jupitermoon]

To those of you on medication do you find that you have a lot of side effects? Is weight gain a big problem? I find I can't handle taking psychotropic meds at all. They cause so many side effects and make me feel numb.

 

[SmilingElephant]

I have a few side effects....weight gain, facial ticks sometimes, speech ticks(embarrassing)....and they always make me sleepy. The ones i'm on now anyway. Oh yeah and 4D dreams!

 

[Lady S]

To those of you on medication do you find that you have a lot of side effects? Is weight gain a big problem? I find I can't handle taking psychotropic meds at all. They cause so many side effects and make me feel numb.

Take the most rare side effect of a medication & that's the one I'll get. Take Effexor XR. It made me manic all the time. And I gained weight (but since I was super confident from the mania, I didn't care) and I have a never ending period.

I have to go really slow titrating up or down or my body will go " you" and go haywire. I tried to jump from 350mg to 400mg of lamictal. That didn't go so well. I had the most intense vertigo and it was a hot mess.

If you don't mind me asking, what have you been on? I will not lie, I'm still trying to find that cocktail of meds that work for me. Another problem is with meds, even though technical generic has the same active ingredients as the name brand, it can vary with the other filler stuff. With some meds, I've noticed that the generic doesn't work as well as the brand name OR vice versa.

 

[chrisanddonniesmommy]

I have a few side effects....weight gain, facial ticks sometimes, speech ticks(embarrassing)....and they always make me sleepy. The ones i'm on now anyway. Oh yeah and 4D dreams!

I get body ticks (though they come only when I change dosage), no weight gain (thankfully), sleepiness (but I take my meds at bedtime), vivid dreams (the sexual ones are awesome and the downer ones not so much), and I'm very...ahem...regular.

LadyS, I'm on Lamictal (300) and Zoloft (50) myself. I might up the Zoloft, though.

 

[Lady S]

I get body ticks (though they come only when I change dosage), no weight gain (thankfully), sleepiness (but I take my meds at bedtime), vivid dreams (the sexual ones are awesome and the downer ones not so much), and I'm very...ahem...regular.

LadyS, I'm on Lamictal (350) and Zoloft (50) myself. I might up the Zoloft, though.

Let me correct myself, my dumb butt tried to jump from 300mg to 400mg (had to go to mood tracker to relook up my medication record). Sooo, I go see my psychiatrist in two weeks and we'll talk about slowly raising it I'm on 75 of zoloft.

When I'm titrating, I can sometimes get those little brain ticks. You know, where it kinda feel like there's an electric shock going through your head. Or is that just me? I used to get really cool dreams, but not anymore. I liked them, even the crazy ones, because they would be insight to what I was thinking and feeling in my subconscious.

 

[chrisanddonniesmommy]

Let me correct myself, my dumb butt tried to jump from 300mg to 400mg (had to go to mood tracker to relook up my medication record). Sooo, I go see my psychiatrist in two weeks and we'll talk about slowly raising it I'm on 75 of zoloft.

When I'm titrating, I can sometimes get those little brain ticks. You know, where it kinda feel like there's an electric shock going through your head. Or is that just me? I used to get really cool dreams, but not anymore. I liked them, even the crazy ones, because they would be insight to what I was thinking and feeling in my subconscious.

Definitely take it slowly. My doctor had me on 25 mg of Zoloft for a good while before I upped it to 50. But, I think up it to 100, he'll resist it since he wants me off the Zoloft to either be completely on Lamictal or that and something else. But, I want to be upped simply because I don't think 50 alone helps me.

Yeah, the ticks are a pain sometimes because I'll have them in the most awkward times (e.g. around people that don't know I'm on meds); so, I'll have to play it off. Sometimes I'll spontaneously shout or say something as though I have Tourette's Syndrome (which I don't) and have to say "oh, I'm thinking out loud" to shake it off. As for periods, they've lightened; but, they tend to come much earlier than usual. I don't know if it's due to the meds or my exercising.

 

[jupitermoon]

Take the most rare side effect of a medication & that's the one I'll get. Take Effexor XR. It made me manic all the time. And I gained weight (but since I was super confident from the mania, I didn't care) and I have a never ending period.

I have to go really slow titrating up or down or my body will go " you" and go haywire. I tried to jump from 350mg to 400mg of lamictal. That didn't go so well. I had the most intense vertigo and it was a hot mess.

If you don't mind me asking, what have you been on? I will not lie, I'm still trying to find that cocktail of meds that work for me. Another problem is with meds, even though technical generic has the same active ingredients as the name brand, it can vary with the other filler stuff. With some meds, I've noticed that the generic doesn't work as well as the brand name OR vice versa.

I was on meds mostly as a teenager. The doctors tried different things. Paxil, Zoloft, and Lithium are some that I remember. The lithium made me so darn thirsty. Huge weight gain was a problem too. I also developed really bad acne, had missed periods, and my boobs grew and I started lactating. I had hand and leg tremors and I was so very sleepy all the time. I had Gi issues like diarrhea and urinated a lot too. My dreams were also strange and vivid. I found it hard to concentrate too.

I felt really bad earlier this year and was given Prozac and Xanax. This was the first time I'd taken anything since my teen years. After taking them I just felt so numb and restless. I am the type of person that feels deeply but after taking these meds I felt nothing; like things that usually make me cry didn't affect me. I couldn't even cry. I didn't feel particularly happy either, but more like apathy. That's why I decided not to take them and threw them away.

At this point in my life I'd rather feel including the sadness and fear than to feel so numb and not like myself. I'm happy to see that some of you ladies have found something that works. My body just can't tolerate the meds. I tend to get the rare unusual side effects too; I mean lactation isn't a very common side effect but I got it. The lithium also gave me a "butterfly rash" across my face. This is another rare side effect.

 

[SmilingElephant]

I am currently mainly on Seroquel XR 150mg(i take this in the evening only), and recently Citalopram 20mg(the antidepressant...since i have been feeling depressed lately)....i also take Ativan 0.5mg for my anxiety.....the citalopram is completely new.

 

[Mz.MoMo5235]

I mean calling off from work. Calling off sick. If I'm too manic, I get a lot of work done, BUT I have no profanity filter. If I'm too depressed, I can't focus on anything and I get nothing done. I work in a call center, so being off the phone while tons of people calling isn't a good look.

I have FMLA, but I'm scared I'll use it all up and I feel guilty, because I'm not there.

I need an e-hug. And someone to do my hair, because I'm really not in the mood to deal with it.

i work in a call center too and yes i would have to call off work too when i was too far in the hole. i would actually be so depressed or my anxiety would be so high that i would actually vomit non-stop and couldnt come in.

happily i'm able to say that since being on meds i have not had to call in to work at all. i however do have to be careful because i have found that me meds kind of hinder my common sense a bit. like usually in situation where i'm over conscientious i'm now maybe not conscientious enough... i wont go into much detail but last week i did something i would have never done before the meds and i have now done it. so i have to make sure i thoroughly think about what i'm doing and making sure its something i would do cause of me or something i'm doing because my guard is down and "it sounds like fun" right now

 

[Mz.MoMo5235]

also, since i was a child i've always had very vivid dreams. but since being on the meds my dreams are more like, i guess normal people dreams lol. its weird actually

i'm take generic paxil for depression and generic xanax for my depression. almost 2mos on the pills but i'm worried that the xanax isnt working any more. my insomnia is slowly coming back. i notice i lay in bed longer and longer every nite trying to fall asleep.

my brother left for rehab today so i was in a funk because i'm worried about him... but i think the pills have really helped me keep things in control. i just hope his schizophrenia doesnt hit while he's there

also, do any of you go to NAMI (national alliance on mental illnesses) meetings? i used to go as a family member (they have meetings for those for family members with mental illnesses and there's a meeting for those with the illness). it really helped me deal when my brother got sick but i never went to the other meetings when i realized my own issues were getting worse. then i just stopped. but for those who dont have a support system, there may be meetings in your area that could be helpful.

 

[tapioca_pudding]

I'm off my meds due to insurance issues but I'll be back on them in Oct. Was on a nice lil cocktail of Lamactil, Wellbutrin and Ambien.

I honestly can't wait to get back on my meds. I'm a hot steaming mess.

Re: hair and bpd - Today my afro is flat on one side...

 

[Janet']

ladies!!!

 

[SmilingElephant]

I'm off my meds due to insurance issues but I'll be back on them in Oct. Was on a nice lil cocktail of Lamactil, Wellbutrin and Ambien.

I honestly can't wait to get back on my meds. I'm a hot steaming mess.

Re: hair and bpd - Today my afro is flat on one side...

Have you tried any assistance programs that you can get your meds for free? Right now i get my Seroquel free through AstraZeneca's AZandMe program. I have to pay for everything else but even those are cheap bc i get generic forms of meds like my Ativan...(Lorazepam is the generic name which i have...thats some GOOD stuff)

 

[tapioca_pudding]

^^ I was getting assistance from a mental health clinic for patients with out insurance, but I make too much money, so they cut me off. I've been off my meds for months, since like Feb. But my new job is offering bennies, they start Oct 1st. So I just have to survive this month without doing anything too damaging.


Thank you for the suggestion tho! I'll have to look into AZandMe...

 

[SmilingElephant]

^^ I was getting assistance from a mental health clinic for patients with out insurance, but I make too much money, so they cut me off. I've been off my meds for months, since like Feb. But my new job is offering bennies, they start Oct 1st. So I just have to survive this month without doing anything too damaging.


Thank you for the suggestion tho! I'll have to look into AZandMe...

Girl i hope you make it through ....i know how it is when you don't have access to your meds for a WHOLE month....i can't even go a week before i start actin up....i hope you find something to help keep the moods a little bit in check.

Let me know if you need any help finding assistance programs. My mom used to get her diabetic meds through needymeds.com for free and then she got medicaid which i'm thinking about trying to get for myself since i don't make a whole lot of money myself.

In the meantime....i tried this stuff called Rescue....there's a whole line of this stuff....but i got these gummibear like candies and i bought them from the vitamin shoppe...they really help take the edge off....they're natural. I got the reference from BpBabble and they do help some...not how your meds would...but they do help...i'm tryin to think how i can help you out bc thats gonna be a long scary month

 

[tapioca_pudding]

Girl i hope you make it through ....i know how it is when you don't have access to your meds for a WHOLE month....i can't even go a week before i start actin up....i hope you find something to help keep the moods a little bit in check.

Let me know if you need any help finding assistance programs. My mom used to get her diabetic meds through needymeds.com for free and then she got medicaid which i'm thinking about trying to get for myself since i don't make a whole lot of money myself.

In the meantime....i tried this stuff called Rescue....there's a whole line of this stuff....but i got these gummibear like candies and i bought them from the vitamin shoppe...they really help take the edge off....they're natural. I got the reference from BpBabble and they do help some...not how your meds would...but they do help...i'm tryin to think how i can help you out bc thats gonna be a long scary month

You're so freakin sweet.

I been off my meds since Feb, so it's been a scary year, plus I lost both my grandparents in death 5 weeks apart, then my mom moved to another state, plus other drama. It hurts in my chest to have to wake up every morning.

Im gonna go check out needymeds, thank you so much. And Im going to the Vitamin Shoppe on lunch to get some Rescue, I don't even have to google it lol. I never knew there was anything available that would help take the edge off (except crack rocks). I'll OD on those for the month of Sept to get me thru.