Day Three
Strattera, Day Four, Five, Six:
On Saturday I went up to 80mg, since I was only supposed to do the 40 samples once a day for four days. Instead of opening my prescription bottle, though, I just took two of the 40 samples (might as well use them). I still have one left I'll keep for an emergency.
The heartburn came back and was as bad as the first day on 40. I guess that was to be expected. I didn't notice any mental effects that day.
On the second day, actually taking one of my 80mg pills, the heartburn was a bitch; it was worse than the day before but, however, didn't seem to last as long. I do believe I experienced some interesting mental effects finally...
First of all, there's something you have to understand about me. It's something I'm not totally aware of all of the time but I've been told that I am not a very emotional person. Although I've never lost anybody extremely close yet (like a mother or sibling or spouse or something) I've never cried at a funeral. I've gotten misty-eyed, like for my father-in-law, but that's about it. In fact, I cannot even remember the last time I cried... about anything. I like to think of it as an advantage; I can almost always keep a cool head. I don't panic very often. My wife is usually the one to point out that I'm not emotional very often and it makes me seem cold (but this is coming from a person who is extremely emotional).
But last night, only about 20 minutes after taking the day's pill (the first 80mg one), I was making some Hamburger Helper and I put the 1 cup of water on the beef and I thought "That's not nearly enough liquid. Is something wrong with these directions?" and I started to cook it but it just wasn't looking right. To see if I was going crazy I handed the box to my wife and said "That says 1 cup right?" and she said "Yes, but did you notice after that it says 2 cups of milk?" I couldn't believe I totally skipped that over. That was the kind of inattention I thought Stattera was helping. Then I felt really despondent. I almost seriously cried. Then later while waiting for the dinner to simmer I saw my son in the living room near the kitchen entrance and I felt how much I just loved the little guy and I sat him down and gave him this speech about how when the new babies come that they might get more attention than him and that it didn't mean we didn't love him any less and that I was sorry ahead of time if I accidentally didn't give him enough attention. Again, I started to feel all emotional. I cannot even tell you specifically what the emotion was (I don't think it was a negative one like sadness) but I started to tear up again. I suddenly felt like bawling my eyes out. I told my wife about it in a trembling voice. She became concerned.
I continued to feel that way as I finished preparing dinner and by the time we were eating I was fine. And, I don't know if this has anything to do with the drug, but last night I woke up several times to turn over or whatnot, and each time my mind let me continue the dream I'd been having, which was a good one. It's extremely rare, but really kickass when that happens.
Today everything feels normal. I have some concern, though, after reading this blog. I wonder what else is in store...
UPDATE: Since writing this, I have been doing some more research. There are a lot of folks out there who have experiened emotional problems (the younger they are the worse they are) from Strattera. I suddenly felt sad, maybe from reading those, who knows, and then I started laughing (fortunately not too loudly) because of how funny it was that all of a sudden I felt sad for a moment. Hmmm.
Day 7 >>