Generally improved

Now that my cold has gone I have to confess that things are better. I'm still not sure this is the optimum dose but I can't complain that it's not working at all. I'm still managing to organise myself better, although a broken car meant that I couldn't get my prescription before I ran out so I had a couple of days without any medication.

Those two days I was more weary, less enthusiastic and definitely more anxious. It was definitely a good experience though to make myself aware of the changes.

I've managed to get some college work done which has made me feel better, I am ready to do the first assignment but I still suspect it will be an all nighter rather than an organised day job. I've never been able to study properly before about 8pm and certainly study best after midnight, even if I don't actually make it to bed.  I guess we'll soon find out how that goes and I'll update the blog with my result as well. I usually do alright at assignments once I get started but find it impossible to start them at all. Exams are more my strength, I'm pretty good at cramming the night before!

Right, off to sort dinner, just wanted to make sure you all knew things were on the up!

A little disappointed

So here I am after a few days of taking 52mg per day and I'm a little disappointed that there hasn't been a return to the initial burst of clarity and energy. I do feel a little better, but it's quite up and down during the day, I am starting to get a bit more organised again but not in the same way. I don't know what the maximum dose would be but I get the feeling this isn't it, I just hope that this isn't the best it can do! I now have the next five or six weeks until my next appointment so the long term effects will be interesting.

I suppose if being mildly better during the day is a long term thing rather than having a couple of weeks of great and then not even noticing it then it's something to be grateful for.

Interestingly I'm just getting over another cold. The day after the dose went up I got hit, again, by a full blown head cold. Whether it's coincidence that the same thing happened when I started taking it or whether somehow my defences were altered with the dose change, and of course that doesn't help how the last week has gone. I've generally felt rubbish anyway, so maybe now that it's clearing up my concentration will too.

I've also had a car break down and the bus routes don't work out for my old house. I'm trying to get work done to sell it, and my Doctors is still over there so I can't put in the prescription until the car is fixed, hopefully today, so there's been a frustration over the last few days too. I think ADHD does not help matters, I find when there's 'too much to do' I can't forget about the things I can't do anything about and I end up doing nothing at all. I'm trying to plan a 70th Birthday buffet on Saturday, get the house back on the market and catch up with school work yet facebook games have crept back into my life and are draining my days away.

I've also had lots of appointments recently, not just for me but for my children. My son has had a blood test for microarray analysis as he's diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder but I have this nagging feeling that there could be something else so they're kindly obliging me with that. I had a meeting to talk about family history a couple of days after that, with my middle daughter being diagnosed with Asperger's and my eldest ADHD there's clearly something genetically which would show up with my son, but I also feel it led to the diagnoses of ASD almost without considering other options. My Pediatrician really hates Google, I went in comparing my sons traits with a rare condition and you could see her wanting to go home! Still they're looking into it so that a good thing.

Anyway, it seems I gone into waffle mode so I will leave it there. Thank you for dropping by, feel free to ask me questions!

My second appointment

I've just returned from my second appointment, it was with a Specialist Nurse and she explained that the appointments will be roughly every six weeks with her and the consultant alternately.

As expected in my previous post, which I note was written longer ago than I thought, the effects of the Concerta XL continued to be less obvious. I still didn't nap in the middle of the day but everything else had come back pretty much to how I was before by this last weekend. I was feeling stressed at little things, disorganised, weary and irritable, I haven't been to the gym in two weeks, I forgot to order my tax disc until the middle of last night, I was snacking constantly and not eating lunch properly, I'm completely addicted to flapjacks, lots of things that just feel like normal and is very disappointing.

However...

It turns out that my experience is extremely common with this medication and it's actually very good news. The fact is that the Concerta XL worked, it helped me function and be a better parent. The nurse said that the dose of 34mg is just too low for an adult with my height and weight and now it's all a matter of trial and error. My dose starting tomorrow will be 52mg and I will continue with that until my next appointment in six weeks time. If the same thing happens, if I'm great for a few weeks and then feel it's not working by the end the dose will go up again, if it works and stays working it will stay there and if there's any weird side effects we'll cut it back down and think again about treatment but I should in no way be disheartened. She was very positive that once the dose is right, it will work effectively.

So if anyone out there is like me, has started a few weeks ago and feels like it's stopped working after it was going great don't give up, just keep going and be honest when you have your next appointment.

Higher Dose?

I'm just back from a lovely holiday in York where we had lots of fun at the National Railway Museum during Wizard Week, riding on the Hogwarts Express and all that and I have to say I feel quite weary today! I've felt over the last few days that the effects of the Concerta XL have been less than in the initial few weeks. I'm not falling asleep in the middle of the day or anything, but my 'can't be bothered' feelings are seeming ever more prevalent and I feel like I'm slipping into old ways.

Today in particular has been very up and down. Some moments I just want to sit with a cup of tea and eat crisps and then I seem to be getting bursts of energy to put the washing on, tidy a corner or do something else vaguely useful, but it is a bit odd. I'm quite achey as well, which may be down to sleeping on a different bed or general aches and pains after an unusual schedule over the holiday but even now when I'm typing my left hand has already started to ache after just these couple of paragraphs, it's like a general lethargy.

I'm having a review soon, I think it's next week, and if things continue to be up and down I'll definitely discuss it with the doctor. I know that the 'honeymoon' period is over and in all fairness you'd probably pop if you stayed at that level of energy and enthusiasm but if this is the level now that my body is used to it I wonder if I need a higher dose.

I've just noticed I'm a little shaky too and I was last night so it could also be that I'm coming down with a bug, my daughter was off school just before the holiday with 'flu' symptoms but it only last a couple of days so with any luck that's what's going on now and the Concerta is masking the full impact of it. I guess I'll find out tonight, but seeing as my parents have my three little ones for Valentine's Day I still intend to enjoy it!

Right, time to get back to my latest hobby, learning to use a sewing machine! No sofa is safe from additional cushions at the moment and sadly my spending is still evident in the crazy amount of random fabric lying around, ho hum, can't have everything!

Settled down

I would say everything has settled down nicely but there have been a couple of mornings where I forgot to take the tablets first thing and it definitely affects my ability to sleep. It's was 12 o'clock before I took them one morning and I was up until around 2.30am completely awake and busy messing around on the computer.

Not sure how to get around the remembering to take them problem, once they've kicked in my mind is clear and my memory is much better but it doesn't help the morning problem! I might try having them by the bed with a glass of water to take as soon as I wake up, at the moment they're in a cupboard above the kettle and if I'm in a rush I don't necessarily have a cup of tea.

I found my mood was a little off as well on the days where I took them late, and again a little headachy so consistency is clearly important to my body.

I hope someone out there is finding this useful, and if there's someone just starting down the same road I hope you find it helps you the way it's helping me. My house actually looks very different, it's not that I'm tidier necessarily, it's that I've tackled big jobs that have been bugging me for ages, there are some fairly dramatic changes in the lounge, bathroom, playroom and the kids rooms have been sorted, clothes taken to the charity shop etc, it's pretty cool. I think soon I'll be at the point where I can look at the day to day tidying and then we'll see what kind of difference it makes. It would be lovely if a month or two from now I'm actually happy to invite people over!

I'm off now as it's my 8th Wedding Anniversary and we're going to go out for the afternoon! Until next time...

Joined a gym and everything!

Checking in again today, I'd say any negative side effects have completely gone now so I'm very pleased, I've got an appointment for review in a couple of weeks but I'll need to request a repeat prescription before then so I'm hoping my GP won't have an issue with that. The dose seems okay, I don't feel particularly different but I'm still managing to achieve more than usual so I think that's a good thing!

I joined a gym over the weekend after a free day on Friday and so far I managed to go on Monday afternoon and this morning and still have time to get the other things on my To Do list. I find I'm making a list every day, usually the night before and it really takes the pressure off. I'm also able to cope with the idea that there may be something I need to do that can wait a couple of days until it's a sensible time to do it, whereas usually I'd just have to get it done even if it was way out of my way, or would make me late for something.

The gym is great, I've got a little 20 minute playlist on my iPod shuffle which is perfect for the treadmill and stops me pushing things to far too fast as my level of fitness is not great. I tried a Pilates class this morning and it wasn't the beginner one, I feel perhaps that may have been too ambitious and I clearly need to try much harder at getting my stomach muscles to work!

The housework is coming on too, still just little changes in most cases but I have plans which is a good start and there are subtle differences around the house that join with the big occasional changes. I'm also enjoying playing with the kids more, and I'm not stressing about school assemblies and other random things that come up as I am remembering things much better.

I will keep posting here to update you all but there's no need to do it daily unless anything happens, what was important was to give an honest overview of starting medication which I hope I've done. We're only two weeks in so there's plenty of time to find that it stops working or that I need a higher dose etc but for now, I'm feeling very positive about the experience.

A busy weekend!

I haven't posted over the weekend, partly because there's not much to report and partly because I've been really busy converting the playroom from a small rubbish heap to a useable play area which actually has things stored in their own places!

My wonderful husband fought with an uneven carpet and a Billy corner combination and then I stayed up very late on Saturday, carrying on after breakfast to get all the 'stuff' sorted. It was a really great job, we got rid of loads of rubbish and the room looks pretty awesome. One room down...

Healthwise I've been pretty good, nothing serious in the headache department, certainly not bad enough for painkillers and sleep has been pretty average. I somehow need to get to bed earlier, the medication obviously wears off well before bedtime and I find night time is the usual barrage of, 'I'll just do this' situations and without fail, midnight passes and I realise I've done it again! That being said I don't think I'm too awake to sleep because of the medication which would be disastrous.

The main thing that the Concerta seems to be doing is removing the 'I really can't be bothered' feeling, that slight feeling of dread of starting a job or going out to the shops. Now I'm happily typing this up in the playroom with my little one playing trains and watching Thomas and I'm not stressed over what I haven't done yet, I'm okay with the fact that I might not be able to do all the little jobs I want to do today. That's a very different feeling for me, I would usually get quite worked up trying to do everything and end up making mistakes or forgetting things.

I'm off for a cup of tea!