Managing Bipolar 1

[greenpea]

@Dadcaringalone Good morning Dadcaringalone 😄 so good to 'see' you back as you were missed my dear friend. How is your son going? Have there been improvements in his condition. My son2 has a new psychiatrist who is slightly changing his medications to help with weight gain. I can already see a difference in his appetite as he is not eating as much.which is a good thing.

He likes his new psychiatrist (hoping this lasts). The psychiatrist is softly spoken and calm which is perfect for my son2. I have been nagging at my psychiatrist about decreasing my meds due to weight gain but she wont have a bar of it 😞 so it sounds like better food and more exercise is on the table :).

Other than that everything has been rollling along nicely. and nothing has really changed that much since you left for your holiday. Cannot believe we are so close to Christmas 😮 Have you got anything planned? I haven't thought of anything yet to do with son2.

Again good to have you back

Love greenpea xxx

[Dadcaringalone]

Morning @greenpea

Beautiful to receive a morning message from you! Gotta get up my son soon to drive him to his GP about his rash which hasn’t improved much. He’s got a morning appointment then he needs to do a blood test for the mood stabilizer so the results are ready for his psychiatrist he’s seeing late next week. He’s pretty scared about driving after his second prang in 2 months so I have reverted to becoming the resident taxi service which I don’t mind because I enjoy driving and his company. He had a bit of an anger burst yesterday but after I apologized for using words he doesn’t like me mentioning such as try to stay balanced and your not going manic when he said he was just happy. He thinks that now he’s on his mood stabilizer that all moods are automatically stabilized by this magic pill, that’s not what I am experiencing though, but that ok because after my Bali break I have the personal strength to stay stable and in control.

No plans for Christmas but will just kick back with my son. My daughter is going to Japan with her new boyfriend which I am happy for her about but it’s bit of a stretch to financially support this but have almost managed this. Her leg is recovering excellently with her regularly completing her physio ordered exercises.

I lost quite a lot of weight in Bali because I was cutting down the carbs, eating just salads and going to the gym. Have almost lost my beer gut, even though I don’t drink beer. I find you have a lot more energy when you are carying less “love-handles” around with you! The challenge is to keep up the momentum now that I’m back home. Will also make my son a gym buddy because he wants to loose residual weight gain from the meds he was previously on, there are now some great new ones which don’t have the weight gain, might be worth asking your psychiatrist about this. Back to caring, slowly trying to get the house back in order. Threw out the rubbish and recycling yesterday and did a big load of washing. Cleaned the bath with the ring that appears each time after my son has his weekly baths. Will keep truck’n over the next few days and then things should slowly get back in control. It’s great to be home and there is a really nice cool breeze blowing in the window at present. The small things are what counts! Have an awesome day xxx

[greenpea]

@Dadcaringalone You have an awesome day too 🙂 xxx

[eth]

Welcome back @Dadcaringalone.  So glad you had a proper break from everything and have returned feeling like a 'new person'.  Wonderful!  Look forward to hearing about your holiday - it was in Bali wasn't it?

[Mazarita]

Another welcome back, @Dadcaringalone. Great to hear your break has refreshed and rejuvinated you. Have thought about you in your absence, uncertain about whether you would return here to the forum, as you were a bit over it before you left.

Did you sort out the issues with getting too many email notifications? I know that feeling, as I became really annoyed with that when I first joined the forum, until I worked out how to get control of it. As @eth mentioned before you left, the answer lies in the settings part of your profile. If you haven't already found that, and need any tech support to get there, tag me and I'll help.

Glad to see you have decided to keep on posting and receiving and giving support here! As you probably know by now, we have appreciated having you with us! Hope to catch up more over time. 

[Dadcaringalone]

@Mazarita

Great to hear from you! Would love a hand getting my email notifications under control. In short, would love to know how to just receive emails from forum members who are replying to me specifically. Thanks 

[Dadcaringalone]

Thanks @eth

Yes, it was in Bali! Here is a photo which demonstrates why I’m feeling like a new person!Beautiful sunset in Bali

[Mazarita]

@Dadcaringalone, not sure how you use the forum, whether on a desktop or laptop computer, or on mobile. Maybe like me, you use both. If that's the case, I'd suggest getting on the computer to do this, as it's easier to explain it to you that way.

I'll describe how to do it from the computer. I'm not sure, but the instructions may even translate okay to mobile, if that's the only means you have to access.

• near the top right of the screen you will see a little icon with your profile photo and your member name underneath. Click on that and a drop down menu will appear. Select 'settings'.
• on that new page, there will be a number of tabs near the top, with various options. Click 'subscriptions and notifications'.
• on this page, you will see more of those tabs near the top, again with different options. Click 'notification settings'.
• scroll down the page until you find the heading 'email notifications'.
• under there you will find some option boxes that you can change to suit your preferences. I have the first three marked 'never' (which I was able to select by clicking on the drop down menus).
• the next option down, I've left on the default settings, which means I will get email notifications for posts I am tagged in.
• if you prefer not to be notified by email of 'supports' on your posts, the next option down should also be 'never'.
• hit the 'save' button near the bottom of the page and you are done.

Let me know if you have any trouble with this. 

[Dadcaringalone]

@Mazarita

Not getting all the notifications anymore. Thanks for all your kind suggestions about how to change these preferences, it seems to be working really well now. So well that I don’t get any notifications anymore!

How’s things @eth and my good friend @greenpea ?

Things have been pretty stable with me and my son since I returned from Bali. Having another break late next week for 2 weeks with my daughter who’s now traveling very well with her new boyfriend and she’s already reenroled for uni next year. Really happy for her.

My son is still sometimes having bipolar anger bursts but they have now got to the stage of having absolutely no trigger. It always someone else’s fault even though I am the only person left in his life and some days it a continuous walking on eggshells to make sure nothing is said which has previously triggered him. I manage it much better now after the break. He doesn’t think he’s bipolar 1 even though his specialist thinks he is because this can also have psychotic symptoms with bipolar but he thinks he’s got schizo affective with bipolar type. I find that diagnosis in mental health is not an exact science. He’s now on a new antipsychotic without the weight gain and the old tried and tested mood stabilizer. The most recent blood test for the mood stabilizer indicated that he’s now low range outside the range where it has optimal mood stabilizing affects. He’s obviously forgetting sometimes to take it because it sedates him so he’s not getting the optimal dose for it to work effectively. He might need to try another one if we can’t get this right. We have both now worked out a way of taking it where he doesn’t get get headaches anymore. I have noticed that since he’s on these medications that his moods ie the anger type of mood have a type of chemically induced feel to them. This doesn’t happen all the time. To try and decribe this here, it’s like he wasn’t exhibiting this type of angry behavior previously before he was on these medications. Because this anger relates to a type of medication side affect it’s difficult to treat with ongoing therapy and know the triggers. Presently we are trying to get him on to a primary health care access + provider because the mental health plan is rather limited in providing ongoing therapy. I deal with these type of manic anger bursts by getting out of his way when he gets like this, removing myself until things have calmed down and continuous mindfulness meditation, but then he often screams at me while I’m meditating because he thinks I’m not listening and don’t engage. Its tough when you don’t engage to calm things down and then the person you are caring for wants to engage...In general things are almost back to normal after the continuous hospitalizations this year. It’s like a type of early Christmas present 🎁🎄a bit of calm for a change. Gotta drive him to see his gp soon that’s why I’m already awake. Hope I don’t wake anyone else up. 

Hope you are all also calm and pea’ceful in your lives.

[frog]

Hi @Dadcaringalone

Just wanted to say your son is lucky to have you in his corner.

My son has ASD and a mood disorder (too early to be sure whether bipolar) and it's exhausting for both of us. It feels like I'm managing his, as well as my own illness (Bipolar 1, anxiety, well treated but still a battle).

Wishing you well for the appointment, and some small (at least!) wins today.

Hello and peace @eth @Mazarita @greenpea @Elin