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Jul. 19th, 2021 03:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckI last took clonazepam on Thursday the 15th. Friday morning, in the twilight between sleep and waking, I realized that I had spent an awful lot of money on Amazon in the preceding ten days. Four orders, mostly of things we didn't need but that I wanted. Nothing very much for each item, but 29 items and about $320.
Maybe 25% of the purchases were things I would normally buy, but each order had less that I needed and more that I wanted. Most of the items, however, were books and CDs, some for me and some for Cordelia, and none of them cost much, individually.
I usually place 1-2 Amazon orders a month, and I take at least a week to consider whether or not I actually need whatever it is. If I decide to place the order, I'll sometimes add a CD or book that's under $10.
Combining that with the worsening grogginess and constant just-bad-enough-to-notice headaches made me decide that I'd better stop taking it. My psychiatrist was on vacation last week, so I haven't talked to her yet, but I hadn't gone above the starting dose, so I just stopped. I don't think I could have quartered the 0.5 mg tablets in order to taper.
The weekend was unpleasant. I had migraines both days. I'm not sure that it's related to stopping the medication but also not sure it's not. Saturday was otherwise stressful, and Sunday I was bad about eating. How I felt Sunday night might well be due to my having not eaten between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. I also had trouble sleeping due to joint pain which always makes the pain worse and often gives me low level headaches that feel like sinus issues but are actually migraine precursors.
I know that I took clonazepam in the 90s, while I was still working, for non-specific myoclonus. That decade was so chronically groggy and headachy that it might have had that effect then and just not been obvious against the background noise. It also... I wonder if the clonazepam made me more likely to ignore things that weren't immediately urgent. The buying thing was momentary gratification without longer term planning, and I could see that explaining my issues, while working, with me just stopping tedious tasks because I couldn't feel the immediacy of them.
It cranked up my underlying anxiety to the point of collapse, but I still couldn't get myself to care about specifics in the moment when I looked at them. They had no urgency next to the desire not to have to deal with them when I could websurf or read. It wasn't helped in the least by the fact that I was alone in the office most of the time (my supervisor retired and wasn't replace for two years; it was a two person unit). I took it as anxiety inducing depression inducing greater anxiety in a nasty, nasty cycle until I collapsed under the weight of it.
I stopped taking the clonazepam almost immediately after I lost my job. The non-specific myoclonus was a minor thing, and I'd mainly been concerned about not freaking people out at work. (It would have been a problem if I'd been driving because my feet would jerk down, hard, but I didn't.) We didn't need the expense of the medication. I stopped a couple of other medications then, too, once it became clear that I wasn't ever going back to work.
Tofranil to control urinary urgency was less necessary when bathroom visits weren't interrupting work, and Neurontin had never done anything to decrease my migraines or to help with anything else. (The migraines were actually birth control related but with atypical presentation so that none of the doctors considered the possibility. They weren't tied to my cycle, after all.)
Among my Amazon purchases was a 2XL sleep shirt. It came in the middle of last week and is absolutely not an 2XL by any US standard. Most 2XL are big on me; this one was too tight in the hips and bust. Amazon claimed it ran 'true to size.' I ordered bigger than normal because I find tight sleepwear unpleasant.
It's a button front, and the gaps around the buttons across my chest were two inches (I'm impressed that the buttons held). It fits Cordelia just fine, though, and she's decided that she'll take it. At first, she wasn't interested, so I was thinking I'd wear it as a weird cardigan over my short sleeved nightgowns. She's using it as a light weight bathrobe when her fluffy one is too much
I'm just glad that I waited for this to be deeply on sale.
One CD I ordered used turned out to be out of stock. I have to find the email about it so that I can put it back on my wishlist.
For another used item, I received the wrong thing. I ordered the CD/DVD set of Steve Martin and the Steepcanyon Rangers. I got a NintendoDS game (Spider-Man 3). I was deeply upset for about fifteen minutes until I ascertained that I could return it for full refund without paying shipping. Now, I'm kind of amused at the thought that whoever ordered that game opened the package to discover that they'd received bluegrass instead.
Another used CD arrived reeking of perfume. I had to hold my breath in order to be in the same room with the cardboard case. The CD itself was washable. I'll keep the case in isolation for as long as it takes, weeks or months. I wonder if it reeked of cigarettes or something beforehand. The intensity of the scent implies deliberate application rather than environmental contamination.
Maybe 25% of the purchases were things I would normally buy, but each order had less that I needed and more that I wanted. Most of the items, however, were books and CDs, some for me and some for Cordelia, and none of them cost much, individually.
I usually place 1-2 Amazon orders a month, and I take at least a week to consider whether or not I actually need whatever it is. If I decide to place the order, I'll sometimes add a CD or book that's under $10.
Combining that with the worsening grogginess and constant just-bad-enough-to-notice headaches made me decide that I'd better stop taking it. My psychiatrist was on vacation last week, so I haven't talked to her yet, but I hadn't gone above the starting dose, so I just stopped. I don't think I could have quartered the 0.5 mg tablets in order to taper.
The weekend was unpleasant. I had migraines both days. I'm not sure that it's related to stopping the medication but also not sure it's not. Saturday was otherwise stressful, and Sunday I was bad about eating. How I felt Sunday night might well be due to my having not eaten between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. I also had trouble sleeping due to joint pain which always makes the pain worse and often gives me low level headaches that feel like sinus issues but are actually migraine precursors.
I know that I took clonazepam in the 90s, while I was still working, for non-specific myoclonus. That decade was so chronically groggy and headachy that it might have had that effect then and just not been obvious against the background noise. It also... I wonder if the clonazepam made me more likely to ignore things that weren't immediately urgent. The buying thing was momentary gratification without longer term planning, and I could see that explaining my issues, while working, with me just stopping tedious tasks because I couldn't feel the immediacy of them.
It cranked up my underlying anxiety to the point of collapse, but I still couldn't get myself to care about specifics in the moment when I looked at them. They had no urgency next to the desire not to have to deal with them when I could websurf or read. It wasn't helped in the least by the fact that I was alone in the office most of the time (my supervisor retired and wasn't replace for two years; it was a two person unit). I took it as anxiety inducing depression inducing greater anxiety in a nasty, nasty cycle until I collapsed under the weight of it.
I stopped taking the clonazepam almost immediately after I lost my job. The non-specific myoclonus was a minor thing, and I'd mainly been concerned about not freaking people out at work. (It would have been a problem if I'd been driving because my feet would jerk down, hard, but I didn't.) We didn't need the expense of the medication. I stopped a couple of other medications then, too, once it became clear that I wasn't ever going back to work.
Tofranil to control urinary urgency was less necessary when bathroom visits weren't interrupting work, and Neurontin had never done anything to decrease my migraines or to help with anything else. (The migraines were actually birth control related but with atypical presentation so that none of the doctors considered the possibility. They weren't tied to my cycle, after all.)
Among my Amazon purchases was a 2XL sleep shirt. It came in the middle of last week and is absolutely not an 2XL by any US standard. Most 2XL are big on me; this one was too tight in the hips and bust. Amazon claimed it ran 'true to size.' I ordered bigger than normal because I find tight sleepwear unpleasant.
It's a button front, and the gaps around the buttons across my chest were two inches (I'm impressed that the buttons held). It fits Cordelia just fine, though, and she's decided that she'll take it. At first, she wasn't interested, so I was thinking I'd wear it as a weird cardigan over my short sleeved nightgowns. She's using it as a light weight bathrobe when her fluffy one is too much
I'm just glad that I waited for this to be deeply on sale.
One CD I ordered used turned out to be out of stock. I have to find the email about it so that I can put it back on my wishlist.
For another used item, I received the wrong thing. I ordered the CD/DVD set of Steve Martin and the Steepcanyon Rangers. I got a NintendoDS game (Spider-Man 3). I was deeply upset for about fifteen minutes until I ascertained that I could return it for full refund without paying shipping. Now, I'm kind of amused at the thought that whoever ordered that game opened the package to discover that they'd received bluegrass instead.
Another used CD arrived reeking of perfume. I had to hold my breath in order to be in the same room with the cardboard case. The CD itself was washable. I'll keep the case in isolation for as long as it takes, weeks or months. I wonder if it reeked of cigarettes or something beforehand. The intensity of the scent implies deliberate application rather than environmental contamination.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-19 07:54 pm (UTC)I hate having purchases arrive reeking of perfume. Much sympathy!