I’ve been doing my appointments with my therapist virtually for a while. It’s been a great setup for me because I don’t have to deal with driving in traffic or paying for parking. I know there are some rules about my therapist needing to see me every so often, but I believe that the video chat appointments fill that requirement.
But with all the issues with COVID-19, I was even more grateful for being able to do my appointment at home. I don’t want to be around people when I don’t need to. And it turns out that they have been converting all the in-person appointments to virtual ones, so even if I had a regular appointment originally scheduled I would have had a virtual one.
Most of my therapy appointments are about checking in with how I feel on my medications. It’s not as much about talking things out as it used to be (or as some people think therapy is all about). I’m not saying those things aren’t valuable or what therapy should be about, it’s just not what my current appointments are about. I’ve done a ton of talking things out, now we are working through finding a solution.
I’ve been doing pretty ok with Vyvanse for a long time, but lately, I’ve noticed it not taking the edge off the same way it used to. It’s something that I’ve become more aware of and I’ve been tracking it knowing I could discuss it at this appointment. And I did bring that up to my therapist this time. I said that I didn’t know if my body was getting used to the dosage but that I didn’t necessarily want to increase it. And she agreed with me because I am toward the top dosage that has been studied. There are people taking double what I take, but that’s not recommended nor are there a lot of things known about the long-term effects of doing that.
So my therapist recommended that I should consider trying adding another medication to my plan. I’m definitely open to doing that, but I also am hesitant about that. The last time I added a new medication, it didn’t go well. But I also know that I’ve added medications several times with no issues so I can’t just think about the rare times that it wasn’t so good. And we did go over some of the medications that I’ve taken before and how I reacted to them.
There have been a few studies about different medications that people take for anxiety or depression that can help with getting into recovery from an eating disorder. I have taken some of these medications with no success or causing some bad side effects. So those were immediately removed from consideration. What I will be adding will be a different medication that is also a mood stabilizer. The idea of taking a mood stabilizer is that it can increase patience and reduce impulsive behavior. Both of those things could be good in multiple aspects of my life, but it makes a lot of sense with my eating disorder. So I agreed to try out this medication to see if it helps.
I’m going to starting taking a half dose for a week before moving on to the full dose my therapist wants me to be on. And after 2 months, I’ll be doing another virtual appointment to check in and see if it’s helping me. Of course, if I have bad side effects as I did on the last medication, I can message her and we will create a plan for me to go off of it. But I’m trying to stay positive and hope for the best. I want there to be no bad side effects and only the positive side effects that I want to help me.
This medication isn’t as strong as the last one I tried so it might take a while for me to see any results or side effects. That’s why my appointment is set for 2 months from now. Most people don’t notice a change for almost a month, so that gives me a month to see any changes and a month to decide if I like those changes. I’m not thinking that this is going to be a miracle medication and make everything better, but anything that helps would be so amazing.
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