Med reduction, Phase 2
Having recently written a
post about my journey to come of my medication I felt that
the best way for me to ensure I continue on a positive path is to document this
journey and being me and the lover of writing that I am I felt it best to
document it on my blog.
Having spent just about
three weeks on the lower dose of 150 mg I have been feeling great. The first
three-four days of the reduction had me feeling very tired and I was initially
experiencing many headaches something which I expected in many ways as I would
have reacted in a similar way when my meds were increased some time ago.
Despite the rough start and feeling physically crap for the first couple of
days it wasn't long before I was fighting fit and back to myself once I had
adjusted to 150 mg.
So as a result of this
positive reaction to the lower dose, my appetite improves and fining I had a
lot more energy at times I decided that while everything is going great and
with the support of my GP I would take the next step and reduce my meds even
further to 100 mg. Having only recently started on this dose I have had pretty
much the same response, having started on Wednesday I think I'm just about over
the tiredness and headaches but again I'm expecting maybe one more day of it
but after that I reckon I should be doing just fine. With another two weeks or
just under two weeks to go on this dose I'm feeling pretty optimistic about
coming off my meds and while I know that this time two weeks from now I may not
be ready to go down another 50 mg I am hopeful and positive about this new
journey which I have embarked on.
I have to say that I have
been very surprised by my reaction overall with this medication reduction after
all I have been taking them for about 3 years or more so it had become
something which was part of my daily routine and was at times the only constant
thing in my life. Since I have started my medication reduction I can't recall
having any extremely bad days, something which has been really positive and
uplifting, I haven't engaged in any acts of self-harm making sure that my time
without self-harm is almost reaching 4 whole months and what’s even better is
the intrusive thoughts and obsessions regarding self-harm which I would often
get are becoming less intrusive and less obsessive something which may or may
not be related to my med reduction but is something which I am grateful for all
the same.
I am still taking things
day by day and it is something which I intend to do not only during my med
reduction but for life because at the end of the day there is no point in
assuming I'm not going to have bad days, that I'm going to have good days or
that I am going to never self-harm again, it is something which I need to do to
ensure I continue on my road to recovery so for now and the foreseeable future
I am living my life one day at a time. I am aware that I may not be ready to
reduce my medication further in the time frame which has been put into place
but again it is not soothing I am focusing on or worry about because I am
taking my life day by day but having a plan, having something written down that
I can look at, having a log of my response to my med reduction to date makes me
just that little bit more positive about coming off my meds, something which I
have wanted to do for a while now but only now is actually possible.
This journey has shown me one thing; one thing that I always struggled to believe but is something that I now truly believe in and this is that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!