Gridley

[Giulietta]

On 2/13/2020 at 10:23 AM, Gridley said:

 I'm having a good morning

 

Hello Gridley

 

Good news! Sorry - I meant was it raining or cloudy when I asked good weather.

 

The shrimp dish sounds delectable! Being the clever one that you are, I wonder if you can 'guess' at the ingredients and make it yourself? 😉   I love swordfish and salmon. I imagine they are things you can't get in Ecuador?  Maybe a dumb question....

 

16 hours ago, Frogie said:

I’m on the 3rd day of a very low dosage steroid because of my tapering. But it’s running down my arm. Not pinching today though, so I think I’m on the uphill with healing.

 

I am very glad your pinched nerve improved and hope it is doing better today as well. 💓

 

Hope a good day for you  both

G.

[Gridley]

1 hour ago, Giulietta said:

. I imagine they are things you can't get in Ecuador?  Maybe a dumb question....

Salmon is available but it's GMO and raised in Chile.  No wild salmon.  No oysters or crab, so when I make gumbo it has to be only with shrimp.  The most readily available fish is sea bass.  

[Giulietta]

33 minutes ago, Gridley said:

GMO and raised in Chile

 

33 minutes ago, Gridley said:

gumbo it has to be only with shrimp

 

Tunafish here (canned) is all from East Asia and likely GMO. I hate to buy it. Canned Salmon I think is mostly the same.

 

I've enjoyed homemade cajun shrimp gumbo by a southern friend and it's delicious. 😉

 

 

 

[sunnysideup69]

Hey @Gridley, just dropping by to say hello and hope you are bearing up in these challenging times. 

Sending love and good wishes xxx

[Gridley]

2 hours ago, sunnysideup69 said:

Hey @Gridley, just dropping by to say hello and hope you are bearing up in these challenging times. 

Sending love and good wishes xxx

Love to you too, Sunnysideup.  I am bearing up and hope you are too.

[sunnysideup69]

Just now, Gridley said:

Love to you too, Sunnysideup.  I am bearing up and hope you are too.

 I am! A bit wavey here and there, but nothing I can't cope with  

[Giulietta]

I am glad you are continuing to be well and not having to add stress by going out. An article in the NYT says that going outside is very important. Will copy/paste in my thread.

 

 

[Gridley]

51 minutes ago, Giulietta said:

going outside

Done.  Thanks for reminding me.

[Giulietta]

16 hours ago, Gridley said:

Done.  Thanks for reminding me.

 

I forget as well as I can be hyperfocused on activities - which are often indoors. I will try a timer to go out when the weather is good. I am trying to avoid out of doors when it is cold, damp or windy to minimize the chances of catching a cold, weakening immune system.

 

Do you like listening to music?

 

I new CD arrived yesterday - piano music - so that is relaxing and helps with mindfulness. Unfortunately it will takek me 30 min or so fo sync it with my iphone.

 

Hugs,

G.

 

 

 

 

[Frogie]

Good morning Gridley:

 

I jumped on really quick to write something and noticed how low you are getting with your Lexapro.

 

 I just wanted to say congratulations! You’re almost there!
 

I hope you are doing well. Miss talking with you 😊Give the fur babies a hug from me.

 

Take care,

 Frogie xx

[Gridley]

42 minutes ago, Frogie said:

Give the fur babies a hug from me.

 

Frogie,

 

Consider it done.  Humphrey is on the coffee table in front of me eyeing my scrambled eggs.  He and Yapa get to lick the plate when I'm finished.

 

Thanks for your encouragement.  I'm getting pretty low.  So are you--July is not far off.  0.30mgai is really getting down there.  I'm hope you're bearing up well with the taper.

 

Gridley

 

 

[Frogie]

6 minutes ago, Gridley said:

Frogie,

 

Consider it done.  Humphrey is on the coffee table in front of me eyeing my scrambled eggs.  He and Yapa get to lick the plate when I'm finished.

 

Thanks for your encouragement.  I'm getting pretty low.  So are you--July is not far off.  0.30mgai is really getting down there.  I'm hope you're bearing up well with the taper.

 

Gridley

 

 

I can picture him watching you take the last bite. Delilah had an egg this morning and gobbled it down, along with her food. We call her Chunky Monkey lol...

 

You are getting really low, that’s wonderful. You’ll be off in no time, then on to the Ativan. Just be careful. It’s so much different than the Lexapro taper, at least my Xanax is.

 

 I’m pushing through the taper. No choice. And life goes on through this awful way of the world right now. I’ll be so happy to see summer and my family and friends again😊

 

Hang in there. You’re almost there!

 

Take care,

 Frogie xx

[Terry]

On 3/22/2020 at 3:34 PM, Gridley said:

Done.  Thanks for reminding me.

Are you able to taper faster now that you're under 1 mg.?  I'm down to 0.79 sertraline and looking forward to zero!

Terry

[Gridley]

11 minutes ago, Terry said:

Are you able to taper faster now that you're under 1 mg

No, I'm still trying to stick to 10% of current dose every 4 weeks.  Due to the limitations of the scale, I'm tapering by dropping by 1mg pill weight every four weeks (so I dropped for 7mg  pill weight to 6 last week).  This is a bit higher than 10% but the end game is different from before due to the measurement difficulties.  Once I get the the limits of the scale (it doesn't measure accurately below 4mg pill weight), I'll be doing a visual division.  I'm a couple of months from that point.  Brassmonkey, one of our moderators, is putting together a post on exactly this subject, which should appear soon.  

 

0.79mg active ingredient is way too high to jump to zero.  Wait until Brassmonkey's post appears, which will give very good guidance on when to jump to zero,

[Terry]

18 hours ago, Gridley said:

0.79mg active ingredient is way too high to jump to zero.  Wait until Brassmonkey's post appears, which will give very good guidance on when to jump to zero,

Oh, I would never jump off at this point.  I'm guessing I'll have maybe another year of tapering.  I look forward to seeing Brassmonkey's post.

 

Did you ever try making a solution of your Lexapro for tapering?

[Gridley]

41 minutes ago, Terry said:

 

Did you ever try making a solution of your Lexapro for tapering

No, I've always stuck with weighing powder from the tablet.

[Giulietta]

Hello Gridley

 

Stopping by to see how you are doing with the lexapro. It's nice that BrassMonkey and another moderator are writing a post on measuring small dosages with limited tools. 

 

On 4/1/2020 at 1:59 PM, Gridley said:

No, I've always stuck with weighing powder from the tablet.

 

Did you consider this? Out of curiosity I wonder why you stuck with the powder. I wonder if if is for the sake of consistency?

 

Hope you are well. sending a quick PM

 

G

[Gridley]

1 hour ago, Giulietta said:

 

Did you consider this? Out of curiosity I wonder why you stuck with the powder.

 

I was just never comfortable with the liquid and couldn't wrap my head around how to do it.  

[Giulietta]

2 hours ago, Gridley said:

I was just never comfortable with the liquid and couldn't wrap my head around how to do it.  

 

I understand the 'comfortable' concept after my experience. 🤕 I not sure about the distribution of the drug ingredient in the liquid either, etc.

 

That being said - do you put your powder in capsules?

[Gridley]

41 minutes ago, Giulietta said:

 

That being said - do you put your powder in capsules?

Yes, I weigh the powder then pour it onto a piece of bent LabExact weighing paper and pour it into the capsule. I make a week's worth at a time.  I discovered this week if I don't grind the powder too fine it won't stick to the weighing paper so I get my full dose (I was having trouble with that the last batch).

[Giulietta]

18 hours ago, Gridley said:

 I discovered this week if I don't grind the powder too fine it won't stick to the weighing paper

 

I don't follow. Do you mean you need to grind it very fine - or you shoudl not grind it very fine?

[Gridley]

5 minutes ago, Giulietta said:

you shoudl not grind it very fine?

 

I was grinding it too fine, so that some of the powder was sticking on the weighing paper.  I'd say medium fine.  You can experiment to see what works best for you.

[brassmonkey]

A little "bad housekeeping" can be helpful.  Reuse the same paper each time. After the first use there will be a small amount of powder that will stick to the paper. This will keep subsequent powder from sticking and you will be getting the full dose.  You can "prime" the paper by applying some unweighed powder and pouring it off then gentally tapping the paper to remove the loose powder a couple of times before you start actually weighing your dose.

 

Also it doesn't matter if a tiny amount is lost. Firstly because the amount of powder that actually sticks is so small it doesn't contain enough Active Ingredient to really measure, and because consistency is the most important thing. If your dose is off by the same amount each time your body doesn't know the difference. The actual numbers are more for record keeping and reference. Making your reductions by the set percentage each time is more important than the actual dose weight.

[Rosetta]

Hello, Gridley.  I hope you are doing well. -Rosetta

[Giulietta]

On 4/5/2020 at 10:35 AM, Gridley said:

I was grinding it too fine, so that some of the powder was sticking on the weighing paper.  I'd say medium fine.

 

I see now. Makes sense. Hope things are going better now with this.

 

On 4/5/2020 at 1:57 PM, brassmonkey said:

Reuse the same paper each time.

 

On 4/5/2020 at 1:57 PM, brassmonkey said:

Also it doesn't matter if a tiny amount is lost.

 

Good tips on recycling the paper particularly on a long taper and being consistent. 

[Gridley]

On 4/5/2020 at 11:54 PM, Rosetta said:

Hello, Gridley.  I hope you are doing well. -Rosetta

Thanks for dropping by, Rosetta. I'm doing well.  Maybe 5-6 more months to get off the Lexapro, maybe a little less, depending on how I'm able to handle the tiny amounts of powder, then on to the Ativan.  Very few symptoms except that sleep is just so-so.  

 

Ecuador has a very strict lockdown, we can only drive one day a week, one person per car,  and there's a 2pm to 5am curfew.  

 

I hope you're doing well.  I'm glad you got your trip to Spain in before all this.

[Rosetta]

Me, too!  I’m glad that trip was when it was, and that we didn’t find a way to stay until June.  
 

Our rules here aren’t that intense, but the only place we go is to the store one person at a time.  We can go for a walk on the streets anytime.  Some parks are closed others are not.  Today, we are having a rainstorm.  The most intense storm in quite a while.  There’s no lightening or thunder, but a lot of water is falling.  Not a good day to be out.

[Cigale]

Hello @Gridley! You have helped me so much these last few weeks, I wanted to stop by your string and see how you are doing. Thank you!

[Gridley]

1 hour ago, Cigale said:

and see how you are doing

I'm doing pretty well.  Thanks for asking.  Some symptoms but managing okay.  Tomorrow I drop to 0.4mg Lexapro, so I have just a few more months before jumping to zero.  Then I'll move on to the Ativan.  Poco a poco, as they say in Spanish (little by little).

 

 

[mdwstrx]

Congrats on getting so low Gridley!  

[wantrelief]

Wow, Gridley - you should be so proud of this accomplishment!!

[brassmonkey]

Way to go Gridley. Just don't rush things, listen to your body and take the time it asks for.

[Gridley]

@brassmonkey @wantrelief @mdwstrx  Thanks for your kind words.  I am definitely going to go slowly here at the end.  4mgpw is the lowest the scale will measure, so next month I'll eyeball to divide the 4mgpw into four 1mgpw  doses to get my next dose of 0.3mgai, then to get 0.2mgai, then to get 0.1mgai.  Then I'll divide that in half to get 0.05mgai, after which I'll jump to zero.  

[mustafa]

48 minutes ago, Gridley said:

@brassmonkey @wantrelief @mdwstrx  Thanks for your kind words.  I am definitely going to go slowly here at the end.  4mgpw is the lowest the scale will measure, so next month I'll eyeball to divide the 4mgpw into four 1mgpw  doses to get my next dose of 0.3mgai, then to get 0.2mgai, then to get 0.1mgai.  Then I'll divide that in half to get 0.05mgai, after which I'll jump to zero.  

 

Thats really great gridley that you are about to jump to zero; i very happy for u❤️.

I hope a long life in happiness for u after u are drug free.

You are my friend gridley; oneday, i had a friend from america who is gridley❤️.

[sunnysideup69]

Just dropping by to say hello @Gridley and reading the news of your taper. I am so pleased for you  

[jozeff]

Way to go gridley!

 

I'm looking forward to your experiences while tapering that low. I really hope you are doing very well. I have faith in you going to be just fine. Good luck with that.

 

About running out of medication.... I was affraid about this also although here in the Netherlands things are pretty well regulated. They also changed brand all the time and that really made me very unwell.

 

What I did was the following. I went to my GP and told him I wanted to updose because I felt my citalopram wasn't working that well anymore. I was on 15 mg and went to 20 and a few weeks later I went to 30, anyway, that's what I told him....( I was still on 15 mg actually and tapering even lower).

 

I am on about 10 mg now but I have 30 mg prescribed daily. I have 20 mg per day left!

 

I get a 2 month supply every time but in my case that is actually 6 months(which costs me about 12 EUR). I did this a couple of times so I have enough citalopram to complete my entire taper!

 

I know this is not the fairest way to do things but the thought of not having enough medication is very distressing also. The doctor doesn't really care if I take 10 mg or 30 mg as long as I don't show up too often

 

I don't want to encourage anyone to do this but it's just how I ended up doing things.

 

 

Hope you are doing great!

 

Jozeff