I put on my bipolar AF shirt today in honor of my new psychiatrist lol.
These days have been very tough for me, to say the least. To recap: I ran out of bipolar medication on Sunday. I have been trying to refill my medication all week and there is a miscommunication between my doctor and the pharmacy. When the script was finally ready at the pharmacy, they told me it would be around $300. My copay is usually $30!
After much back and forth with the doctor, pharmacy, and insurance company, it turned out that the drug was no longer covered by the insurance company, so I had to pay out of pocket. I looked it up on every discount site I could find and the cheapest I could find was around $240.
I’m frustrated, to say the least. The medication I’ve been on for the past six years has worked so well for me that I don’t want to change it. No other drug has the same formulation, so my options are either to pay the exorbitant cost out of pocket, or switch to another drug.
What’s more: my psychiatrist retired last month! Therefore, no changes can be made to my medications until I see a new doctor. I was supposed to have an appointment with him on the 18th, but since I was forced to go off my medication, I couldn’t wait that long. Office canceled at 10:00 this morning, so I gratefully accepted!
I really liked this new doctor and we had a great getting to know each other. He said none of the medications had the same formula as what I had before but he could prescribe something similar and we’ll see how it goes. I’ll go back and discuss it in a month (unless issues arise soon). He said the most important thing to watch out for was if I started showing signs of hypomania.
So maybe give me a warning if I start writing all kinds of new big, wacky plans and start a dozen new projects and never finish 😉
My weigh-in wasn’t very good today. For the past three days, I’ve been eating badly and not tracking my food or anything. I’m very nervous about my meds and not taking it makes me feel a little bummed. It’s a drug that I notice even if I miss a dose — I can tell within hours if I forgot to take it because my body has a buzzing sound. I take it with care every day.
So, I just haven’t been feeling myself. I’m not using this as an excuse to overeat, but it’s definitely a big factor in it. I’m an emotional eater and I’ve been feeling pretty emotional this week. The ratio went up – again – and I’m not happy about it – again. I really hope this trend stops.
At 144.0, I’m now at the top of my weight range in the “normal” BMI category. 11 lbs out of my “comfort” range.
It’s hard not to tell myself, “I told you – of course you’ll get it back, you always do. Why is this time any different?”. I know it’s useless to think like this, but I can’t control the thoughts that go through my head.
Now that Jerry is going to be trying to get out of his father’s body (see yesterday’s post), I figured this would help me too. It’s always easier to do it together than alone.
The hardest part for me is that I’ve worked really hard for the past year and a half to lose weight. It would be completely ridiculous if I allowed myself to get it right away. All my hard work will be in vain.
I feel like I just need a few good days to start seeing some improvement (and even if I don’t “see” improvement, I know I’ll at least feel more confident eating well). I also need to catch up on my runs – in order to hit my yearly goal of 500 miles, I need to run less than 10 miles a week. I’ve only run six miles so far this year! So I’m already behind (but it’s certainly not too late to catch up).
Now that I’ve got (at least temporarily) off my meds, I’m going to try really hard this week to lose at least the pounds I’ve gained since last week. I know I sound like a broken record, but that’s all I can say right now. At least I haven’t lost hope yet!