Tuesday, May 20, 2008

If sleep was elusive night before last...

it was just plain crowded last night.

I'd instructed J not to sleep in my bed, but was a bad mother playing chat on the computer and didn't follow up. Then I went to bed and found a kid in it. I was pissed (consider this foreshadowing, excellent writer that I am), but didn't want to wake him up.

I remember lots of activity. When he was still a baby and would sleep with us, I used to comment that the Goths (and Visigoths and Huns) were invading. To be such a little human, he sure could crowd me out.

Add to that a first or at least first I know of: all four cats in the bed.

Man, it was crowded, but I was actually tickled about the cats.

Okay, add further to that, the Goths peed in my bed. Then pulled the covers up and didn't tell me until he was leaving for school. That was not one of my better mothering moments.

So, my cranky hangover from yesterday lasted all day.

Unfortunately, as I am wont to not open mail, I found a letter from my thyroid doctor from May 1. I'd wondered why they hadn't called, but it turns out they had entirely too much to say. When I was there three four weeks ago, she'd wanted some thyroid numbers and I requested cholesterol, too.

Everything was fucked up. The thyroid was high at 4.9, when 5.0 is considered high to some, while 2.0 and 3.0 are high to others. There I was, feeling good for two months, and it obviously had nothing to do with my wonky thyroid, which I was giving all the credit. She wants to raise my dosage, which will make me jittery again. It is a catch-22.

I guess this means I felt good, because I was hypomanic, which takes all the fun out of it and makes me sad.

The cholesterol front is just insulting. Remember, I've been eating right and losing weight? Exercising? Trying to live right? Taking cholesterol medicine? Evidently I forgot to inform my triglycerides (blood sugar), because it was 534, say 5 times what it should be. My trigs have always run high. I remember them over 400 before and they have been running 250-300 - double the high, but not astronomical.

However, specific to cholesterol, that was my best in almost 20 years at 203. My last one was something like 227 and I have had that well over 300 before. Damn these genetics from both sides.

The thing to my benefit is that I was not fasting when they took the blood. So I must go do fasting bloodwork; probably should have done it two three weeks ago when she sent the letter. However, she is quite concerned about diabetes, for which high trigs are sign, and is requesting an A1c blood test. It was actually one of my favorite things to run in the clinical lab, but I never thought of running it on myself.

The underlying cause of the high sugars, once again, could be a med side effect. If there's a side effect, then I'm going to get it. The Seroquel, which usually works for sleep, is in a class that raises blood sugars. It could be the culprit, although I only take 50mg when the normal dosage is 300mg.

With this domino effect of issues, I see it being put squarely at the feet of Seroquel. And even if it isn't Seroquel, I will have to go off Seroquel to find that out. As you well know, it took me years to arrive at Seroquel and have restful sleep. I do not want to lose it; that makes me panic. Further, if I am required to try to find something else to sleep, each med is good for 20lbs. That just ain't right.

It makes me want to cry, so I stayed in bed all day.

I hope tomorrow is less dark. I plan to go for the bloodwork on Thursday morning.

5 comments:

Monica Cassani said...

I'm sorry Cricket...
I know how difficult it is to deal with health problems...

Aunt Becky said...

Aw dude, that sucks. I'm sorry.

brite69 said...

I know the lack of sleep all too well right now. I knew I had to be to work at 3AM this morning, but I couldn't sleep. I've been up WELL over 24 hrs now and I still have about 4 1/2 hours left in my shift. >_<

I'm sorry to hear about the medical drama. I hope they can figure out what the crap is going on with out having to eliminate teh drugs that are helping you.

Good luck with the next blood draw!

BipolarLawyerCook said...

Hugs. I hope the fasting blood draws reveal something more controllable, w/o having to lose any drugs.

My cholesterol's always been ok, but when I went low-carb after my PCOS broke out, my trigs went way way way down, they were the only thing that was high.

Anonymous said...

May your bed be less crowded and your health problems get better.