Conclusions

It appears that I won't be able to participate in any medication trials while I'm up here. The parameters are too rigid. Yesterday, I talked about the possibility to being switched to another medication trial, that of Riluzole. Today at rounds the team I and discussed this in detail. To wit, the doctors are hesitant to involve me in the Riluzole profile for two reasons.

a) Doing so would require me to be taken off of Lithium, which as a mood regulator is the only reason I didn't get psychotic, manic, or severely depressed all of last week when I was severely sleep deprived. Furthermore, lithium was difficult to adjust to taking in the first place, and getting back on it after the profile was finished would be an additional hassle.

b) The Riluzole study is 50% active and 50% placebo. This means that one hardly gets any kind of sustained relief from the trial medication, since there's a 1 in 2 chance at all times that one could be receiving only placebo and not an active agent. To sleep, I'd be administered Ativan, which is a benzo I have abused before and one which like every other benzo I've taken that I would quickly develop a tolerance to, rendering the net result negligible and forcing me to have to go through withdrawal symptoms to get completely off of it later.

There are no easy answers when you have a chronic health condition.

I'll be up here for another two months, at minimum. There are other options: genetic profiles, brain scans, and assorted other tests. I intend to pursue these to the fullest. It does bums me out considerably that I won't be able to explore new medication options while I'm up here, but I'll be completely honest---none of the trials in which I was to participate seemed to promise much for me. Depression and mania are underlying issues to my severe generalized anxiety disorder, which has rendered me unable to sustain lasting employment or function in the outside world for more than fleeting periods of time.