For the last month or so, I’ve been having issues with the tendon to my left thumb. I don’t know what the hell I did to it, but it’s been extra-painful.

The GP said it’s apparently tendonitis (or tendinitis, for some reason) and prescribed some weapons-grade anti-inflammatories that have done cock-all.

So I’m due back at the GPs in a couple of weeks, once the anti-inflammatories are finished, and we’ll see what gets said this time.

In the meantime, it has periods of being “OK-ish”, but then there are others where anything at all hurts. And I can’t fucking wait ’til those periods are over and done with.

Last week, I made the decision to stop taking the Citalopram.  It hasn’t done much for me in the year I’ve been taking it – other events have had far more effect on depression, motivation etc. than the anti-depressants have.  I’ve also found that they have a nasty levelling side-effect, making me not care more than when I wasn’t taking them. (By that I mean that everything was just same-same in my head, there were no real highs – or, admittedly, lows – and it all became a bit blah, nothing provoking any form of reaction)

Additonally, the anti-depressants just didn’t seem to really work for me. There were still Bad Days on them, but there weren’t really any Good Days- things more levelled out to Just OK Days. (or Blah Days)   My motivation didn’t shoot up – indeed most of the time it seemed to be harder to be motivated, because well, what was the point? I wasn’t Depressed, but more Couldn’t Be Bothered.

So, I’ve come off completely them.  It’s not the method advised by GPs, but I don’t have the time, tolerance or inclination to do a “gradual withdrawal”. If the withdrawal side-effects were to become really bad (not that I expect them to) then I have a new box ready to be started. But I doubt it’ll be that bad.

Weirdly, the worst time (so far) for being off them seems to be early evening, when my head begins to feel a bit wooly, a bit floaty, not really all that level. It’s not debilitating or unpleasant – just a weird sensation.

I don’t miss the Citalopram.

I don’t know what’s next. I’m going to go back to wanting to do things, and then to trying to find ways to motivate myself to do them. So far that seems to be OK. I’m not perfect – thankfully I’ve never claimed to be – and I do have issues with motivation, or at least Getting Things Done.

I’ll still work on the motivation and so on – I’ve still got the ideas and plans, but need to bring them out into the world – but I don’t think it’s actually necessarily related to depression.

And when all’s said and done, I’d rather have the ups and downs of life, depression and whatever else, instead of the flat day-to-day numbness of Citalopram.

Well, 2011 has started with a diagnosis for me of bronchitis. Great.

I’d picked up the cough at work before Christmas, where my manager had been coughing heavily. The three hours where he sat next to me coughing uncontrollably has obviously had a knock-on effect.

So my first week of 2011 now involves an inhaler, and a metric shit-ton of amoxicillin. Happy Days.

Along the way this week, I’ve picked up a foul cold and cough, which has laid me seriously low. So low in fact that it’s made me miss a concert last night – and one I really wanted to see, too – and contemplate taking a day sick off work. (I didn’t in the end, but it was a close-run thing)

Pathetically, I went to bed at 8pm last night – although I did then read for an hour- which is unheard of.

I hate feeling like this, being so utterly effing useless and drained.

Today I weighed myself for the first time in ages. I didn’t really know what to expect, as it’s been a long time since I’ve done any of the Slimming World stuff or whatever.

Obviously while not expecting much in the way of good news, I was also still hoping I hadn’t put too much on. I know the recent period has been pretty stressed, but still I know I’ve been pretty good on food too.

Anyway, weighed myself and came in at 134Kg. 21 stone 1 pound.

And I’m actually pretty damn pleased with that. It means that even with everything that’s been going on, and with not going to Slimming World or anything else, I’ve kept that weight the same for a year.

So yeah, I’m quite pleased with that. I do want to lose more when things settle down, but right now I’m happy to be just staying the same as before.

This week at work, I’ve broken the chair I’ve been using since October. Completely, categorically broken it. The central piston (for raising/lowering the seat) has cracked through the plastic baseplate, and now hits the floor. This has resulted in a chair that is politely known as “broken”. Or in my terminology, it’s “totally fucked”.

Thankfully the directors are OK about it – it’s wear and tear (and me being a weighty bastard) rather than that I’ve wilfully abused/broken the chair.

But because I know that at least some of the blame is due to being rather bulkier than most people, I had a look at the specs for some new office chairs as a replacement. And I know Argos isn’t exactly the centre of the office-furniture world, but it’s a useful reference point.

So looking through the chairs they’ve got listed, and all of them seem to have a ‘recommended max weight’ of 110kg – 17ish stone. You can see what I mean by looking at this one. And don’t just think it’s the cheap-ass ones – even this one for £150 has the same limitaton.

I know I’m not an average size – I’d need to lose four stone just to get down to that ‘max recommended weight’ – but equally I’m not massively obese. Fairly solid, I think it’s fair to say, but not supersized or owt. So why is it that chairs just aren’t available (in Argos, I know, I know) that are designed to support – or at least not fuck up and break – for someone my size?