It's that time of year again!

Nope, it's not the holidays.  It's not someone's birthday or anniversary.  It's not time for my annual physical (well, it is, but that's not what I'm referring to).  It's not even the crazy time of year at work where stress oozes from everywhere and mounds of paper are just waiting to eat me alive (well, it is that too -- our unofficial work motto is "Death to trees!" -- but again, that's not it).  It's.... it's....

It's that time of year when I start to wonder if I really need to be taking all these prescription meds.*

I take four prescription meds which are directly responsible for either preventing my death or the death of others.  (I take a fifth for that common affliction of really pale-skinned white chicks like me, rosacea, but I consider that one optional.)   On those rare occasions when I've forgotten to renew a prescription in time, or to go pick them up, I end up off them (since they tend to run out all at the same time) for a day or two.  That's when I start to think that maybe I really don't need them. 

The irony of this is that two of them keep me mentally healthy.**  It's like the people who take the serious psych meds; they feel better so they stop taking what is making them feel better.  When you're just minorly mentally ill like me (the chronic depression), you don't really realize that you are sick until you get really, really, really sick.  That's generally where the death of others or my own death comes in.  I used to laugh at the people who talked about suicide.  I wasn't laughing out loud or anything.  Usually.  I'm talking about the teenagey angst talk of suicide.  "Oh, he didn't ask me to the dance.  I should just go kill myself."  Or "Perky cheerleader tits was sooo mean to me, she told all this personal stuff and he was listening!  I should just go kill myself!"  That kind of stuff.  Not the real thing.  That I wouldn't laugh at.  Although I would have shared my personal feelings against suicide, which are:  Don't kill yourself; stick around, make life a living hell for everyone you know. 

It was when I started thinking seriously about suicide that I sought help.  That's when you're sick.  And what was my point again?  Oh yes, when you take the meds that make you feel like you're worth drawing breath every day, you tend to forget why you need those meds in the first place.  Luckily, I now have a solid gold reminder of why I need to be mentally healthy.  It's called student loan debt and it's roughly the size of a developing Third-World nation.

But the other two, those just keep me from dropping dead without any assistance from myself.  These are the ones for that favorite of all favorites for the overweight:  High blood pressure.  Well, maybe diabetes is the favorite of the favorite, but high blood pressure is the silent killer.  You get symptoms of diabetes fairly early on.  HBP doesn't really have many early warning signs.  Often the first hint of a problem is when you stroke out.  After two years of mucking around with varieties and dosages, I learned that a large percentage of the headaches that have plagued me for years are actually caused by high blood pressure.  Lovely, eh?

It's the high blood pressure meds I could live without, provided that I no longer have high blood pressure.  The other crap, that's here to stay and I'm okay with that.  I'd rather have it go away, but as I start into my 40th year of life on this rock the evidence is overwhelming that it will not.  One of these treats PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome (hey guys, are your privates shriveling up as you read this?  it's okay, I'll keep the girlie stuff brief), which in my opinion is really a congenital condition for me.   Granted, you have to be menstruating -- or not menstruating, as the case may be -- to get it diagnosed, but I think it's there to a certain extent from birth.  It's also hereditary.  Anyhow, for many gaining weight can cause it to manifest and losing weight can cause it to go into remission.  Not me.  I was a pretty skinny 12 year old and I had it then.  I'm a not so skinny 39 year old now and I still have it.  Glucose meds, like Metformin, reverse the symptoms in some.  Not in me.  The personal hell I go through when my PCOS is untreated is worth the $15 each month.

Again, though, the high blood pressure meds need to go.  I did briefly go to a third med for it when I was at my heaviest, but I lost some weight and was able to be off that.  Now I want the other two to go away and I'm hoping I might be working my way towards that point.  The only day I did not have a headache this week was the day I didn't take my blood pressure meds.  In the past, if I skipped one of those HBP meds I would get a raging, here-let-me-murder-you headache.  That happened even this year, after I started running.  Not this week.  I completely forgot I hadn't taken them until right before I went to bed that night.  That made me think that maybe I can kick this purple-pulsing-veiney monkey.  The Biggest Loser contestants talk about going completely off their meds all the time.  Why can't I?

In other news, I've had a craving to binge.  Not necessarily to binge on anything in particular, although I'm leaning towards pizza since it binges so well, but just a craving to binge.  I'm trying to decide if I should ignore it and maybe it will go away, or just give in and binge for one meal.  It wouldn't be a throw up binge or anything.  I've always joked that I'm a lousy bulimic because I always forget to throw up afterwards.  Just a sit down where I eat until I am full.  I'm going out for sushi after work with my friend S where I will have a lot of sushi.  I'm hoping that will satisfy my craving to binge.  Only two more hours to go!

Here's hoping everyone has a wonderful weekend.  I will be at work.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl


*It could just be that I wonder if I really need to be paying for all these prescription meds, but that's another story completely.  I used to pay about $120 a month for my prescriptions.  Thankfully Walmart did their $4 deal and Freddy's followed so now I'm only around $30 a month.
**To be accurate about it, one is specifically for mental health while the other keeps physical issues in check that negatively affect my mental health when they're allowed to run amok.  Amok amok amok.