Spain & Psychiatric Medication Updates

We are back from our Spain trip. It was fantastic! It was so nice to be back in Europe. I lived in Belgium from 2001 to 2008 and spent a summer in Spain in 2005. I miss it. There was something about the European style of life that I really identified with. I’m not sure if it’s how they are less materialistic and more about enjoying life. It’s hard to pin point exactly what it is. But I love it. And it felt good to be back.  We did a great mix of visiting family members, walking throughout the cities, visiting museums and we even did a day trip to Toledo with my father in law. Oh, and the day we landed we had Richards cousins wedding, which was in a nearby village Chinchón. The wedding was so much fun and the village adorable. My cousins offered to watch our kids for the night and they did great – both cousins and kids :). 

We ended up taking two strollers and were so grateful we did since we really needed them. Thankfully, a neighbor of ours lent us one that packs up as a carry on and we took another smaller Maclaren stroller my parents had hanging out on their patio that was one of my sisters. Our single stroller is pretty compact for US standards. We have the City Mini baby jogger but for European standards it’s pretty big. It was really useful having strollers that folded up easily as we often had to take stairs in metro and train stations. Also, both kids napped daily on the go so it was also useful to have two strollers for that reason. Other than that, traveling with two toddlers was better than I imagined. They did get a little tired of being strapped into strollers some days but we made sure to include playground visits and some activities for them too. If you ask my husband, he may say otherwise since he wanted to give them away at times. They are louder than your usual European child and were more active and rowdy in restaurants, which my husband didn’t enjoy. I am too patient/lenient according to him.

Now we are back and happy that we are. I have a few egg hunts this weekend and other activities next week. I also have some work meetings next week and am working on typing this blog together into a book, which is a whole other project in and of itself. Lot’s of exciting things to look forward to and I am feeling overall well. I continued to feel some nausea from going off olanzapine. I am officially not taking it anymore at night. I ended up not taking over the counter medications suggested by my psychiatrist for the nausea. I found out that if I took a ginger/lemon lozenge or ate a bite of something it tended to help. In other medication news, we have been literally all over the place with trips to Naples, dog sitting at my sisters, and the Spain trip and in taking medication from one spot to the other I forgot my additional venlafaxine dose. I take a 150 mg pill and another 75 mg pill. I forgot the 75 mg pills so I’ve been on a lower dose for about two weeks. As this was not suggested by my Doctor I checked in with him today about this. He says for me to continue taking 150 mg as it’s preferred to be on less medication. So I have eliminated olanzapine at night and am on the path to decrease the dose of venlafaxine, which is the first time in this year of treatment I’ve taken a step in decreasing. I will continue the hormonal treatment taking testosterone and progesterone and also with the supplements. I caught up with the Biostation doctor (functional medicine Doctor) before my trip who had my updated lab results and the news were not as good as I thought on paper. The Doctor says I still have high inflammation levels and my vitamin D has not increased as it should have. It is either a vitamin retention issue or I was not taking the indicated one so I am now taking one I bought from them as well as Pre and Probiotics and a Bvital tranquility supplement. They also recommended I do more of an effort to go gluten free and eliminate alcohol such as wine, which I will try my best to do.