Friday 17 June 2011

Another morphine nightmare

Wierd afternoon. I saw the shrink at lunchtime, and I got the meds wrong coming home.

I took the 12.30 slow release morphine at the right time (in the middle of the shrink session). 1pm was three hours from my last quick release. I was about to drive home at the time, the pain wasn't too bad, so I thought I'd wait before taking the next one (ideally, they should be every four hours).

Unfortunately, by the time I got home, the pain had flared in my back and was starting in my shoulder.

I took the quick release and went straight to bed. I spent the next four hours feeling totally drugged out, as though I'd taken a lot more morphine than I actually had. I was getting all the horrid guilt/panic feelings that I often get at night when I've taken the double slow release dose.

It was a really nasty experience, made even worse by the fact that through all that, the pain was still present (though not as bad). It's finally gone down and the drugged-outness has eased, but I'm going to make damn sure I take the next dose at three hours, regardless of pain levels.

That's what's so bloody impossible about this situation - the unpredictability. I never know what the pain's going to do. Long term, the more morphine I take, the more I'll need, so it makes sense to be careful about dosage; if I don't *need* it at three hours, better to wait till four. But then it can explode, like today, and suddenly it's too late. I can't win.

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