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User:Avalyn

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Avalyn (talk | contribs) at 07:56, 2 May 2006. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


Hello! I am, as the title of this page suggests, Avalyn. No more, no less. I prefer complete androgyny online; that way nobody knows you're a dog, or a fruitafossor, for that matter. I don't particularly care for gender-neutral pronouns, so feel free to use whichever one you prefer when addressing me, though what you choose may conflict with my gender identity, but don't worry, I'm used to it and it doesn't bother me (much).

I can also be found at Everything2, where I am a content editor.

I live in New Orleans, and I was present during Hurricane Katrina, which I watched destroy the downtown area from the tenth-floor window of the Poydras Centre building, where my employer maintains a datacenter and colocation facility. I posted my account of the event at Everything2 because it has no place here, of course.

I've lived in Detroit, Michigan (1976-98), Waltham, Massachusetts (1998), Brooklyn, New York (1998-99), New York, New York (1999), South River, New Jersey (1999-2000), Nashville, Tennessee (2003-04), and New Orleans (2000-03, 2004-present). If I'd paid attention in high school and what few community college classes I attended, I'd probably be a pharmacist by now. (Which is odd because as a teen and in my twenties I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up; I became interested in pharmacology only after my various mental disorders manifested. So I suppose if I ever go back to school, it'll be to get a PharmD.) Oh well. I blame my mental disorders and my will to spend my teens and twenties having fun instead of remaining in school.

I keep four computers at home, for doing various things. They are, by name, purple (a desktop computer I built myself running Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64-bit Edition), blue (another desktop I built myself, running Fedora Core 5 x86), orange (an HP ze2117 laptop running Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2), and silver (a second generation Apple Mac Mini running Mac OS X.4). The laptop usually accompanies me to work.

Just in case you can't get enough of little old me, I maintain a LiveJournal, too. (Several, in fact, if you count the LJ communities I maintain, which, as of 1 May 2006, number six in all.)

I play World of Warcraft, perhaps a little less fervently then when I first started, on the Kirin Tor (USA) server. My primary character is a level 60 Night Elf warrior by the name of Avendhras. Feel free to say hello if you play on that server and you see me online.

My current job, which I've held since August 2000, has me working the graveyard shift, and I've been on that shift since July 2001, so chances are slim you'll catch me online during the day (GMT -0600, USA central time), but you can often find me slacking off at in the bottomless dark of an office empty but for me, by playing with Wikipedia and a number of other sites. If you feel an urgent need to contact me, leave me a message and I'll get back to you when it's convenient for me to do so.

And remember, this is just a website, so have fun! Edit wars are teh suck, if I may be so bold as to use an internet meme.

Pill feast

Thanks to the wonderful genes in my mother's side of the family, I have a number of mental disorders, and thus I have to take a veritable feast of prescription medication every day. My current pill roster is a follows:


Adderall 30mg

Lexapro 40mg

Lignoderm 700mg (patch)

Lunesta 6mg

  • For treating chronic, lifelong insomnia.

Seroquel 50mg

  • For treating post-traumatic stress disorder related to Hurricane Katrina. I use it as a sedative, too. When combined with Lunesta, it's very effective at putting me to sleep and keeping me asleep for at least eight hours.

Xanax 1mg

  • For treating panic disorder; it lessens the likelyhood of having a panic attack.

Supplements:

Recent quits

I recently ceased using the following:

Ambien 1mg (2002-2006)

  • For treating chronic, lifelong insomnia. I became addicted to Ambien and would often consume a month's worth of it in three or four days, which is why I chose to stop taking it. Incidentally, an uncle of mine committed suicide in 2004 by intentionally overdosing on Ambien.

Gabitril 12mg (2004-2006)

  • I was prescribed Gabitril to treat panic disorder with seizures (panic attacks), but using it regularly made it very hard to think or speak, and I would get minute shock feelings in my extremities when the drug took effect.

Darvocet/APAP 100/650mg

  • For treating a spider (unknown species) bite on my left hand, suffered in my sleep on April 16, 2006. I was wearing a splint glove because I have carpal tunnel syndrome, and the spider was most likely hiding inside the glove before I put it on. Disaster, of course, ensued. This prescription was a 3-day course that I finished on April 20, 2006.

Minocycline 100mg

  • For treating the infection brought on by the spider bite. This was a two-week antibiotic course. Much to my chagrin, these were gelatin capsuls, which are abhorrent to me as a vegan, so I had to puncture them to get the mediciation out. This was a two-week course that I finished on April 28, 2006.

Previous drugs

Since 2001, when most of my conditions were diagnosed, I've used the following medications for a time:

Paxil 40mg (2001-2002)

  • For treating dysthymia and depression related to gender dysphoria. I stopped taking it after it plateaued on me. Coming off of it gave me vertigo for a month.

Meclizine 50mg (2002)

  • For treating the vertigo that came with SSRI discontinuation syndrome after I stopped using Paxil. It's basically a stronger version of Dramamine, a popular, over-the-counter anti-motion sickness drug. It helped calm the vertigo, but oddly enough, I've never suffered from motion sickness of any kind.

Zoloft 50mg (2003-2004)

  • For treating dysthymia and depression related to gender dysphoria. Also plateaued.

Remeron 30mg (2003)

  • For treating dysthymia and depression related to gender dysphoria. Stopped taking it after only two weeks because it made me extremely irritable.

Trazodone 25mg (2001)

  • Allegedly for treating insomnia, this is a terrible, loathesome drug. My mind entered an impenetrable fog after dosing, and the rest of the side-effects seemed equally disgusting to me.

Depakote 125mg (2002)

  • For treating bipolar disorder. I was misdiagnosed as bipolar and used Depakote for only two weeks.

Ativan 0.5mg (2003-2004)

  • For treating panic disorder; it lessens the likelyhood of having a panic attack.

Klonopin 2mg (2001-2003)

  • For treating panic disorder; it lessens the likelyhood of having a panic attack.

Strattera 40mg (2005)

  • For treating attention deficit disorder without hyperactivity. After about two months it stopped working.

Ritalin 10mg (1986-1988)

  • For treating attention deficit disorder without hyperactivity. I was one of Ritalin's early adopters; a psychologist prescribed it to me in 1986, when I was ten years old. Contrary to its intended effects, it didn't help my concentration or school work, and as each dose wore off I would enter a period of deep depression, which lasted until my next dose. I was taken off Ritalin in 1988, at age 12, when it was decided by my parents that the depressive bouts were so severe as to be disabling.

Trippin'

Incidentally, in my late teens (1994-96), I frequently used LSD in blotter form; my best guess as to how many times is roughly 50. The last time I had it was in 1996, at age 20. Also, I am either allergic to marijuana, as I've had a number of strongly negative reactions to it, or my negative reactions were caused by some unknown agent laced in pre-prepared packets I'd purchased, like methamphetamine or PCP. (See my talk page for more info.) Could go either way, really. In my early-to-mid 20s, I used MDMA about half a dozen times, ketamine once, and I've experimented (unsuccessfully) with salvia divinorum on a number of occasions. As I approach age 30, the only (non-prescription) drug holdover from earlier in my life has been cigarettes, which I alternately smoke for a month or so, then quit for a month, then smoke for another month, ad infinitum. Quitting doesn't seem to be much of a problem for me; when I get back into the smoking groove, it's to satisfy an oral fixation, particularly if I'm out in public (I'm an agoraphobe).

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