A Moment of Clarity

The last few days have been rough.  If you read yesterday's post you understand this.  Last night when my  husband got home, I left him to feed the kids dinner and went upstairs and prayed...my exhaustion took over and I fell asleep for about an hour and a half.  Then I got up and ate and had some quiet time because the kiddos were asleep by the time I came downstairs.  I slept pretty decently last night too.

Today has been a much better day.  It started off with me snuggling with this sweet face for about a half hour after he crawled into bed with me at 6 am.

After Matty got up and ventured off to wreak havoc on the household, I felt a migraine coming on.  So my hubby got up with Matt and I took my headache medicine and laid back down for awhile.  Luckily I was able to ward it off before it turned into a bad migraine.  Then this sweet girl climbed in bed with me for a snuggle.

I can't tell you how much better the day starts out when I am able to take the time to love on my kids.  Part of the frustration I was feeling yesterday was disconnection from my family, feeling like an outsider in my own life.  Cuddle time is very grounding.  It is good therapy.

When I was lying in bed this morning I realized that for the past several weeks I have been taking Claritin to deal with my allergies.  Hmmmm.....moment of clarity....My allergies are not usually super bad in the spring, but this year they have been.  Then I started to wonder...is it possible that the allergy medication is having some kind of effect on the efficacy of my anti-depressant.  I looked it up on line...definitely a possibility.  Then I dropped Anne off at school and went to run errands with my Matty boy.  The first errand was a stop at the pharmacy to pick up my prescription.  Since I was there I asked the pharmacist if it was possible that the drugs were interacting.  He asked when I took them.  I told him that I have been taking them both at the same time in the evening.  He told me that I want to avoid having the medications reaching peak potency at the same time by taking them at the same time.  He told me that the allergy medication could very well be contributing to some of the issues I have been having over the last several days. 

So maybe all the possible decision outcomes aren't so bleak after all.  I know that hormones in a bad PMS cycle have also come into play lately, and even when I was taking Cymbalta, the medication that has worked the best so far, I did still have two or three bad days a month.  That is way better than every day being a bad day. 

So I made a decision about what to try next.  I am going to stop taking Claritin and keep taking my antidepressant.  I am going to give it a week to get the Claritin completely out of my system.  Then i am going to see if I start feeling any better.  My period will also be over by then which will make me a much better judge of how good or bad the situation really is. 

Right now I am feeling hopefully that maybe this whole situation that I made so complex in my mind yesterday, might have a simple answer and it is not such a big deal after all.  In the mean time I am gong to cuddle and love my kids and take it one day at a time.