Posted by Shirley on November 14, 2000, at 20:27:30
In reply to Re: Desparately need your thoughts , posted by S. Howard on November 12, 2000, at 13:56:14
I thought you all might like to know that I found a possible answer to my problem. Dr. Valerie Raskin, in one of her books (sorry I forgot the title and left the book in my car)explained that a woman's menstrual cycle can affect the medicine blood level particularly in the last part of the PMS Phase. She goes on to say, that in rare cases, this happens to women at the start of ovulation, which is what my experience has been.
Dr. Raskin explains that if a woman sees a pattern with this situation, blood tests should be done at precisely the same time, when the person feels pretty good and when they feel the crash from the possibility of a low med level. If Dr. Raskin's theory is correct, there should be a a much lower med level during the PMS phase.I plan to chart my cycle and symptoms for the next two months to see if there is a consistent pattern. If there is, I will ask my internist for these blood tests plus alerting my psychiatrist to what is going on.
I am so happy that finally, a professional has a possible solution to what has been a very frustrating problem. By the way, this woman seems to have other good ideas such as using liquid prozac to slowly increase the dosage if increasing it by 5mg is too much. I think John L. had something similar but it's nice to see a professional thinking in the same way.
When I get the book out of my car, I'll quote exactly the phrase she used and give everybody the title of the book. I think it will be quite useful.
Again, thanks for your responses.
Shirley
poster:Shirley
thread:48453
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20001102/msgs/48818.html