A couple of weeks ago I did this weird thing in my Psychiatrist’s office. I know, I know, I do weird shit all the time, but this wasn’t my idea, this was hers. First, let me say that I know I talk about therapy a lot with you guys, but I think it is so important to have an open and honest conversation about mental health, and for me, regular therapy and medication are just what the doctor ordered. So thanks for reading and talking about it with me. It really helps. But I also know that regular therapy and medication are not the best case scenario for everyone. So as always, you do your thang, and I’ll do mine. Cool? Cool.

Alright, let’s get back on track. I have a therapist (y’all know about her, I told you about her here: https://missygoodnight.com/2019/08/13/dig-dig-climax/), but I also have a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. This is because the particular place that I first found here in Georgia was not accepting adult patients for the psychiatrist at the time I started. She is now, but I’m like six months in with my therapist, and I LOVE her, buuuuut she’s a therapist so she can’t dispense drugs. That’s where the Psychiatric NP comes in. All caught now? Yes, good.

A couple of weeks ago my NP, ohhh, let’s call her Susie Q, Susie Q was going over my charts and we were discussing new medication. She had already switched my anti-anxiety meds a few months back and of course I blogged about that here: https://missygoodnight.com/2019/07/02/backstreets-back-alright/. Duh. But then she wanted to move on to updating my anti-depression medication. I suffer from a small host of mental illnesses, but most prominently: Generalized Anxiety and Chronic Depression. I was game because I have been on Lexapro for years and it is starting to not work so well, besides the more obvious things like inability to lose weight and a dwindling libido. Both common side effects of most antidepressants. This new class of antidepressants coming out now are supposed to be much better, with less side effects because science. #TheMoreYouKnow #Rainbows

Normally the process of finding the right medication for you is trial and error, and boy have I done some of that. In fact, I’ve done a decade worth of it at this point, so Susie Q was all, “Ohh, let’s swab you!” Then she jumped out of her chair, literally, and ran back a few minutes later with two long swabs (the kind they check for strep throat with) and a FedEx envelope.

Let me stop there. Susie Q is a very nice person, but she real cray. Like I think this is one of those instances where she studied a field she was familiar with because she too suffers from a host of mental illnesses, one of which has got to be ADD. Has. To. Be. Anyhoo, she got herself composed again and explained the swab test.

“Apparently” (and I am using quotes here to show my pure suspicion about this whole thing) “apparently” by swabbing the inside of my mouth with these two giant Q-tips and sending the samples to a lab somewhere in a corn field in Iowa, Susie Q could tell me a whole bunch about my mental health that I did not know. Yeah. She said this to me. And she was very excited about it too. Like, bouncing in her seat excited. She said this would make it so much easier to get me a drug that actually worked for me. I asked if my insurance would pay for it, she shrugged a “probably” and that was good enough for me.

Listen, I have tried A LOT of drugs. Been through many years of self-medication, and have yet to find the “magic” one. Do I think the “magic” one exists? No. But at this point I just want to have one that does more good than bad, so I was game, albeit suspicious.

So I waited a couple of weeks and went back. My insurance did in fact pay for it, which is great because these Iowa people billed my insurance like $5,000 for the two swabs. I swear to the Lord Baby Jesus our healthcare system is straight jacked up and… no. That is another post. Anyway, when I sat down in front of Susie Q again she was bouncing out of her damn seat talking bout, “I think this will work! Ohhh, I think this new medicine will work!” Christ on an antidepressant cross, I sure hope it does, cause she really has to stop bouncing so much in my presence.

So that’s that. I’m on a new medication, one that has significantly less side effects than my old one, and one that “apparently” works with my genomic DNA and my T allele of the C677T polymorphism in the MTHFR gene (which I can only assume is short for Motherfucker), not to mention my “significantly reduced” folic acid conversion (I have to take LMethyl Folate everyday now too because Susie Q was “astounded” at my lack of folic acid conversion.) I wish she had done a better job of explaining all this so I could tell you all, but… crickets. Bouncing crickets.

Get your motherfucker genes swabbed you guys. Get your motherfucker genes swabbed sooner rather than later…

M.