Meds are Dumb Anyway.

They're not really. I promise. Most of them kept me upright for the better part of the last five years and there are certainly ones that will continue to do so that I have no intention of stopping.

Most, however, will not.

Since I've started this miraculous nasal spray and have started feeling so much better, I decided to approach my doctors and do a Very Supervised Med Wash. There are a couple of them that are a hard no, like my thyroid meds. He won't budge an inch, and I get it. Neither will my gastro doctor. I hate hate HATE taking pepcid, but I hate the idea of esophageal cancer more, so those two are staying, as are all of my hormones.

The amount of meds keeping me upright was kind of staggering and also all signs pointed to me being able to keep myself upright just fine at this point, so I went to my naturopath and was like "I need to find another way." Her response?

Yes, I notified my medical team that I would be doing this. My PCP's response?

"WOOP WOOP DO IT"

Literally. That was her response. If you wonder why I would walk through fire to keep this woman on my medical team, that's exhibit A.

The first to go were my migraine meds. She did not recommend that I come off of the beta blocker all at once, so I tapered. I noticed a difference almost instantly when I started to taper, so I continued to. Five weeks later, I was all done with the beta blocker without a migraine in sight. She told me to be careful about my blood pressure because it can go up when you come off of them.

Mine went down. Like, consistently down. Like, "Hey, have you always struggled with low blood pressure?" was a legit question I was asked the last three times I've had it taken.

Then I came off of the prescription strength magnesium, instead trading it for a supplement of a different type - I went from oxide to glycinate, because it had more of a holistic impact. Fantastic. I stayed and will stay on the Migravent, maybe. I'm still taking it, but maybe I don't need to. I'll experiment probably next week and see how that goes.

Then, here's where things got awesome.

I came off of my ADHD meds. Because I was on the lowest dose, I was just able to stop it. Oddly enough, my brain fog disappeared.

Then I came off of my anti-anxiety meds. I'm currently on week 2 of being off of them, and I feel different. I'm still coming off of them and regulating might be a smidge tougher in the next few weeks, but I think if I can get over that hurdle, I won't need them.

Read that again.

I won't need them.

It turns out that I haven't really had anxiety or ADHD this whole time. I've had multiple neurological problems that mimic those things, made worse by the drastic shift in hormones in 2021, and made again drastically worse also by the beta blocker I was taking to prevent migraines. My neuro-optometrist is going to go BANANAS when I see her in May for my eye exam, because I 1000000% credit the vision therapy. I had no idea it would have this huge of an impact.

The last one was the biggest. But, I've realized in the last few weeks that it's not working. Not only that, but my insurance doesn't cover it, and I've spent the equivalent of what it would cost to replace the outside stairs at our house for it over the past 8 months.

Yup. I'm coming off of the Zepbound. Like, cold turkey.

"OMG DO NOT DO THAT THE FOOD NOISE WILL COME RUSHING BACK" said my GLP person.

My response?

First, what food noise? I don't struggle now, and I have not actually ever struggled with food noise. I struggle with portion control and grazing, both of which I've behaviorally gotten entirely under control in the past eight months.

Second, if that's the biggest problem, I will BY FAR take that over any side effects, all of which were actually pretty manageable but also totally unnecessary for a medication that was without a doubt Not Working At All.

Coming off of these meds was a hugely necessary step in my recovery that I have needed to take, but my health was just not in a place where I could.

Feeling like a Normal Human continues, and I'll take it.

Scratching the Nerd Itch

So, I'm all for professional self-care. There are lots of different ways that people meet professional self-care needs as counselors, and mine is through trainings. I love running trainings, I love a good training as a participant, and everything in between. I also feel like I've finally struck that balance of asking good questions in a training and also not being a total pain in the ass.

It's an important balance to strike.

ANYWAY.

So I recently did a certification training to become a forensic evaluator. I'm pretty stoked about it, and I learned a whole lot. I also decided to go full nerd and do the full asynchronous training that they have on individual assessments. I tried starting it during medical week but that was, quite frankly, a very stupid decision on my part. I absorbed none of it, I couldn't focus on the videos, and also the post-test, I couldn't figure it out.

However, clearer heads prevailed. I sat down this weekend to try again. Because Assessment was one of the main classes I taught when I was teaching, most of it was a huge snooze-fest. Then we got to individual assessments. The training for these was engaging, interesting, and I was pretty stoked about it.

Then I got to the post-test.

Friends, the amount of nerding I did just on the first one was legendary. -LEGENDARY.- They said that no one ever gets a perfect score on the post-tests.

Challenge accepted, trainers. I don't fuck around.

I submitted my first one and we'll see how it goes. But it was asking all kinds of questions where I was like, thinking critically and also just not holding myself back, which I haven't felt since grad school (which I'm certain is one of the 15 main reasons why I loved it so much).

Man, this training is really scratching an itch for me that I didn't think I had anymore. In short, I need to be a nerd. A big one. I'm not sure what that means or what it'll look like, but I've discovered that in the unlikely event that a doctorate is in my future, the number one reason will be because it allows me to be a nerd. I don't care about being in academia, I don't care about teaching. I just want to nerd out. If I could do that for a living, it'd 10000000% be my next career move. Except I want to keep being a therapist. And owning my practice. And all of the things. OK FINE.

Maybe I'll see what needs to happen in order to do more research.