They say to trust your instinct, your gut feeling. I know my body better than anyone else, or so I thought.
Last week I ran out of one of my tablets; sertraline. I was worried at first, but I forgot to organise my repeat prescription and then when I did order it, I forgot to pick it up, and then the weekend was upon me.
But, hang on, I went for about 6 days without taking sertraline, and didn't feel any different. May be I don't need them, I thought. May be I was taking them unnecessarily, I thought. May be I could do without them, I thought.
Yes, I overthink everything, I analyse, scrutinise, logicasize (is that even a word?), think, think, think, over and over. What if, what about, how come, how about, perhaps it's this, perhaps it's that. I can find a logical reason for everything, I drive myself mad.
Anyway, back to the reason for this blog; sertraline.
So yes, I know my GP would have advised otherwise, but I decided to try to do without them.
That was the worst decision I have made in a long, long time.
I stopped sleeping, but I blamed the heat, my joints flared, but I blamed the heat. I felt like everything around me was swaying, perhaps my sugar levels had dropped, I THOUGHT!
Today, I gave in and started taking Sertraline again.
My joints haven't been this bad, this long, for quite some time. I'm not sleeping, in fact I'm only dozing, and when I doze I have nightmares, and am dreaming that I'm tryin to wake up but I can't. I need to wake up, but I can't come round. Then I dream I'm awake, then realise in my dream that I'm still asleep; my very own ground hog day.
So I've restarted Sertraline, and am hoping they kick back in quickly. Never again will I doubt their efficacy, never again will I stop medication by mistake or purposely, without consulting my GP first.
Lesson learnt!