So I publicly wrote that I was throwing my agency at my problems this year, here’s an interim update:
Attempted to send some longitudinal biosamples[1] to a research label, but shipping was delayed and dry-ice ran out, so they thawed and I lost the batch. Recollecting and trying again.
Nearly weaned off Lexapro. It relieved a certain kind of anxious feeling but didn’t address primary anticipatory insomnia, and had side effects I didn’t like.
Tried ketamine (sublingual, dose matched to clinical anti-depression 40-minute IV dose, then divide by four to account for my impaired drug metabolism). Resulted in heavy sedation/dizziness + elevated mood, long-lasting – unpleasant but it did abort the bipolar down-state (possibly even swung a bit into elevated mood. I’ll probably try again when I next have a bipolar downstate, but with half the dose again.
Tried Gabapentin once for anticipatory insomnia (pre-motorsport event). Low-dose, seemingly effective and sufficiently out of my system by morning. (Gabapentin is excreted renally and bypasses my weird hepatic drug metabolism.
I’m now regularly taking fish oil, vitamin D3, and magnesium. Just started on NAC today.
Gabapentin and ketamine seem promising. Lexapro was information but not a long-term solution in and of itself. The recent period has been pretty stable, but hard to attribute to e.g. supplements at this time.
I might be forgetting some other stuff, and also I don’t think I gave the list of everything else from earlier in this year, e.g. parasympathetic activation interventions (vagus nerve stimulation, HRV biofeedback), bright light in mornings, blue-blocking glasses for the evening, and other stuff.
So I publicly wrote that I was throwing my agency at my problems this year, here’s an interim update:
Attempted to send some longitudinal biosamples[1] to a research label, but shipping was delayed and dry-ice ran out, so they thawed and I lost the batch. Recollecting and trying again.
Nearly weaned off Lexapro. It relieved a certain kind of anxious feeling but didn’t address primary anticipatory insomnia, and had side effects I didn’t like.
Tried ketamine (sublingual, dose matched to clinical anti-depression 40-minute IV dose, then divide by four to account for my impaired drug metabolism). Resulted in heavy sedation/dizziness + elevated mood, long-lasting – unpleasant but it did abort the bipolar down-state (possibly even swung a bit into elevated mood. I’ll probably try again when I next have a bipolar downstate, but with half the dose again.
Tried Gabapentin once for anticipatory insomnia (pre-motorsport event). Low-dose, seemingly effective and sufficiently out of my system by morning. (Gabapentin is excreted renally and bypasses my weird hepatic drug metabolism.
I’m now regularly taking fish oil, vitamin D3, and magnesium. Just started on NAC today.
Gabapentin and ketamine seem promising. Lexapro was information but not a long-term solution in and of itself. The recent period has been pretty stable, but hard to attribute to e.g. supplements at this time.
I might be forgetting some other stuff, and also I don’t think I gave the list of everything else from earlier in this year, e.g. parasympathetic activation interventions (vagus nerve stimulation, HRV biofeedback), bright light in mornings, blue-blocking glasses for the evening, and other stuff.
I’m not going to give more detail.