Second Dose of Saphris

I've taken two doses of the new drug in the last 16 hours- one at 9:30 p.m. and one at 10 a.m. I got a few text messages on my phone around 10:30 last night and woke up enough to read them and fall back asleep. What seemed like a few minutes of willing myself to reply was really about half an hour. I replied that I was sorry but I was too sleepy and that was that until 9 a.m. when my alarm went off.

By 9:30 a.m., I was awake enough to watch some t.v. At 10 o'clock, I took the second dose and promptly fell back asleep until 11:30 when my alarm went off again. Yesterday, I was up at 7:00 without a problem, so this is a big change. I made myself get up so that I could go out with my friend to lunch.

At lunch, I explained to one friend that I am on a new anti-psychotic and it will take a bit for my body to adjust. She seemed understanding, but this isn't the first time I've mentioned being bipolar to her, either. So, I sat and stared quite a bit of the time while I drank my two cups of coffee. The talk around me was warming as I listened to the snippets of each conversation along the stretched-out table of 11. I got up to take a walk outside because I was feeling like I could fall asleep at any moment. The air outside was cool, crisp, and blew lightly into my face. I was awake again! It felt good- a happy, settled feeling.

After I circled the building, I went back inside, thinking of how I've felt this morning. The tip of my tongue went numb after I took each dose of the new med. I felt tired, but not like I'd been out and about all day, but like it was 2 a.m. and I just had missed my bedtime. My heart beat faster. I'd had more sleep than the last week, and yet I was this sedated. As I sat and stared out the window, I turned my head toward my left and the room turned slightly with me. How do I feel? Drunk! Slightly, but drunk. The room followed me like pulling taffy behind my head and back again.

The longer I get away from a dose, the better I feel. I still am only at my first day on this, so I'm sure I will have plenty more before I begin to feel back to my normal self. For now, its not as bad as I'd thought. I can still write. I can still talk. I'm just much slower. Its as if someone turned the turntable down from 45 to 33 1/3. Its still the same song, just slower and lower. Let's see how I make it back to a place where 33 1/3 feels okay. Maybe even a place where 33 1/3 feels like 45 and I'm okay with that.