Peeling the onion with my Psychiatrist
As I mentioned earlier this week, I had my follow up appointment with my Psychiatrist in order to review the Tegretol he prescribed for my irritability.
It went well; about as I was expecting.
We chatted about my symptoms along with a review about the triggers and presentation. I mentioned that I had not had any physical episodes of anger (like punching a wall or kicking something), only verbal episodes where I snapped or yelled at the kids or my wife.
This is hard for me to write about, but important.
He was glad to hear about the lack of physical outbursts and felt that this was a sign that we were on the right track with the treatment. He described the irritability outbursts (diagnosed as Intermittent Explosive Disorder) as being like layers of an onion and that the medication usually starts to show its effect on the outer layers first, and then moving in.
The outer layer is the physical outbursts, such as my kicking of things and breaking of objects. The next layer is the verbal aggression, which is what I’m dealing with currently. Finally, the inner most layer of this Intermittent Explosive Disorder is episodes of moodiness without any verbal or physical outbursts.
He was glad that there have been no physical outbursts and felt that the Tegretol has possibly helped with that.
The dose of the medication I’m currently on is quite low still, especially given my size. I’m 6'-5" (196cm) and about 220 pounds (101 kg), so the next step is to increase my dose as I’ve suffered no adverse effects from taking the medication itself. Today, I will increase to 300mg and then in a couple of weeks, up to 400mg daily.
Let’s hope these onion layers keep peeling away.
