(no subject)

My doctor recommended wrapping my foot/ankle to give my Achille’s tendon support, so I tried that last night when we went to Expo. At first, it helped the tendon but made other bits of my ankle and foot hurt. Once we got to the school, we discovered that the presentations were being done as stations that we were supposed to walk around and then stand while listening. I couldn’t do that because things hurt too much. By the time I got home, the tendon hurt a fair amount.

Cordelia’s materials science project was a group thing that talked about trying to use 3D printing for food and that somehow (I never caught all of this part) involved photosynthesis. Scott did visit a lot of the stations, and his main takeaway from the utopian visions project was that a lot of kids had very dystopian visions of what the world should be like. One of Cordelia’s friends, for example, had the idea that rigid scheduling was a necessary part of utopia. I don’t remember the other specifics that Scott mentioned.

Scott looked around the outside of the house yesterday before it got dark to see if he could spot a place where the bird could have gotten in. Right now, he's firmly of the opinion that it got in when someone opened the door and just didn't make a fuss for a long time thereafter. I don't actually buy it.

The sleep disorders clinic called me this morning to schedule my initial consult with them. That will be in January. I assume that the actual sleep study will be months later.

I’m starting to wonder if I’m allergic to the new conditioner that Scott bought a couple of weeks back. I wear my hair up most of the time, but when I wear it down, I’m having itchy throat problems that make me cough. Mostly, that’s at night, in bed, so I was thinking maybe I’d developed an allergy to something in there, but I really suspect at this point that it’s my hair. Usually, I put it up within ten minutes of getting out of bed, but I haven’t yet today, and I’m itching and coughing.

Of course, that leaves me with a dilemma— I want to shower this morning, but I don’t want to shower without using conditioner on my hair, and we don’t have any other kind. My hair takes long enough to dry that I don’t want to wash it today and then again after we get different conditioner.

I’m a little peeved with Scott right now. He brought the laundry that I washed earlier this week upstairs last night, but he didn’t realize that the stuff still in the basket was dirty, so now I need to wash it all again, and I really don’t want to. I guess that shirts and nightgowns that don’t smell or show visible dirt may not need washing, whether or not they’ve already been washed. All socks and underwear are getting washed and probably the three pairs of my pants that I’m not sure of.

( Today’s to do list )

(no subject)

Just got the report for the genetic testing for how I’m affected by psychiatric meds. Apparently it’s not just that I’ve had bad luck with SSRIs and need to try another. I actually shouldn’t be using them at all because I don’t metabolize them right and have a higher risk of side effects than normal. Specifically:

SLC6A4: "This patient is homozygous for the short promoter polymorphism of the serotonin transporter gene. The short promoter allele is reported to decrease expression of the serotonin transporter compared to the homozygous long promoter allele. The patient may have a decreased likelihood of response to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors due to the presence of the short form of the gene and may benefit from medications with an alternative mechanism of action."

HTR2A: "This individual is homozygous variant for the G allele of the -1438G>A polymorphism for the Serotonin Receptor Type 2A. They carry two copies of the G allele. This genotype has been associated with an increased risk of adverse drug reactions with certain selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors."

I apparently have 'reduced folic acid conversion,' so my psychiatrist wants me to start supplementing that immediately. "This individual is heterozygous for the C677T polymorphism in the MTHFR gene. This genotype is associated with reduced folic acid metabolism, moderately decreased serum folate levels, and moderately increased homocysteine levels."

And there’s something about me being a poor metabolizer of medications that 'go through the CYP2C9 enzyme system' without an actual explanation of what that means. Is that related to the SSRI thing? I can’t actually tell from the report or my doctor’s comments on it. I suppose that’s for Dr Google… Just maybe not today.

There are a couple of medications listed as okay for me that I had huge problems with, specifically Elavil and Effexor. Elavil just dropped my blood pressure from low normal to too low to stand up without something to lean on. Effexor made me actively suicidal and kind of knife obsessed. I only took that for about three days.

Valium (a bad experience) and Ambien (never tried it) are both listed as 'moderate' problems in as much as I’m likely to end up with higher serum levels than most people would. Ativan is listed as fine which, well, if the report had said it was bad, I’d have assumed the report was wrong.