WAGblog

New Problem due to Old

I seem to have developed a new problem, or a recrudescence of a very old problem to be precise, because of the old problem of weight gain that I had with the Zyprexa.

As those of you who have read the book know, I spent many years very underweight from my teens on, laboring to become "one with the wind" or to disappear from visibility altogether. Although the book does not belabor the point, since it is not the main subject matter, I weighed between 74lbs and 85lbs during much of the years between 1967-87 (with a brief break in the years during which I studied for and attended medical school, when I deliberately let my weight rise to 110lbs).

After 1987, feeling imprisoned, I began deliberately desensitizing myself to being visible, by looking at people and watching them eating (surreptitiously of course) and seeing that whatever weight they were at they didn't seem to mind being seen by other people, at least in the sense of not being invisible. They talked to friends, the LOOKED at friends, they seemed to have a good time being visible. And gradually my weight rose over the years until when I actually decided to give up my obsession and eat normally, I didn't gain any weight at all!

I stayed at about 100lbs for many years, until cumulative antipsychotics, esp prolixin shots twice a week, and then Clozaril, then Xyprexa started rapidly putting the pounds on. I gained up to 120lbs and tolerated it okay on the prolixin, because I trusted the nurse clincian who treated me when she said I was doing a lot better on the shots, and indeed I was writing poetry in a white heat and also because I had this weird mental thing: I had been thin for so long, I still felt like a thin person, and so failed to "see" myself as a person of normal weight, a blessing in fact. But the CLozaril, which after three long trials had to be stopped because of the precipitous fall in my white cell count, was another thing, and after came Zyprexa and you know what happened then!

On Geodon, which I started in mid-2004, I lost weight right away, from somewhere in the 170's (my doc says 160's; I say 180's and I weighed myself more often) down to 144lbs where I got stuck for months. Then effort brought me to 130lbs, where I got stuck but wasn't too unhappy because I'd come from the 170's. That was in August 2005 ...Now I weigh 102lbs... and I'm 5'3" and my backbone shows and my ribs stick out and...you can imagine (unless you are anorexic in which case that sounds heavy!) But to me it's a problem....(To be continued in another entry...)

Posted by pamwagg at February 3, 2006 09:43 AM