yep, I am still a hypochondriac (I checked)

One reason that I have not been blogging as much this summer is that I have been struggling with body image REALLY BAD and every time I have sat down to blog all I can think about is complaining about my body and weight. Obviously I know that would not be helpful to me or anyone reading, so I have restrained myself. But it has been a struggle, and my zest and zeal for recovery has been reduced to a mere plodding along, putting one foot in front of the other, because I know "it's worth it!".

I have been gaining weight since last December and have suspected Lexapro to be the culprit, since that was around the time I started taking it. I dont know if you all remember but my doctor put me on it because he wanted me on an SSRI (I was on pristiq which is an SNRI) for my health anxiety. My health anxiet is basically hypochondriasis, but that is not my official diagnoses, because I have alrady been diagnosed with anxiety. Hypochondria is only diagnosed when it is the primary symptom, but I have other anxiety problems as well.

So anyways, the Lexparo helped dramatically with my health anxiety and I went from frequent calls to the nurse and doctor, urgent care, and ER visits, to having no health worries at all. It was great! Fast-forward to now. I havent had any signifigant health worries for several months. I dont think I have been to the ER since the lexapro. But I am really down about my weight. So I decided to try going off the lexapro. I called my psychdoc's nurse and let her know and explained why and she said to call if I had a any problems and also to go back on the lexapro if I felt worse after stopping it. Well I went from 30mgs down to 20mgs without any problems, but after I got down to 10, things started to change. This past week I have called the on-call dentist because I was afraid that I had an infection in my jaw from dental work I had done. I don't, but he gave me some antibiotics just to be sure (bad, I know). Then I was having chest pains and I called FirstNurse and my mom, who is a nurse. I went to the ER (but in my defense, they both told me to) and after a few hours and ekg and chest x-rays the doc told me I was fine and it was likely costocondritis, which I have had before. I think I would have recognized that if I had been on the Lexapro. But in my anxiety I went straight to "heart attack", of course. Oh, and I saw a friend from church while I was in the ER which was kind of embarassing.

So yesterday I started my full dose again but I dont think it has kicked in yet because today I was SURE I was pregnant (even though today is the last day of my period) and I had to run out and take TWO pregnancy tests and even though they were both negative I am still worried I am pregnant and worrying about what the dental x-rays and chest x-ray and meds have done to my (imaginary) unborn child. It's like, even though the logical part of me knows I am fine, there is a part of my brain that believes something different and continues to obsess over it. SO frustrating.

Well, the lexapro may or may not be affecting my weight, but I am stuck with it for now, because the turmoil I have gone through this week was more distressing to me than my bad body image. I also think I need to face my body image and learn to look outside of the physical to find value with myself instead of trying to fix the problem with weight loss (even healthy weight loss, which is all I was planning).

Peace out :)