Wierd day today - I woke up feeling OK, but noticed when I actually got up that I was feeling really stiff all over, just like when I was on the Tramadol. As soon as I started moving around, though, I realised it was a lot worse than that. The pain was totally off the chart - I've never had that kind of pain getting up before, it's only reached that level during the course of the day. It was all through my shoulder, my neck, back and all across the top of my chest. It was excruciating, I felt like I hadn't taken any meds for days, and I have no idea why. I started to wonder if I'd accidentally taken two of the anti-nausea pills first thing, instead of one of those and one morphine (the only difference between them is the tiny writing on the side), because I've already confused them a couple of times. But it can't have been that, because I started to feel zonked a couple of hours later. So I thought maybe the morphine was just taking a really long time to kick in, but three hours after taking it, the pain was still unbearable.
I ended up having to do the 'topping up' thing, with the immediate-release pills, for the first time.
I was worried about this, given how the stuff was making me feel last week, but the pain was so bad, I had no choice. It took about an hour-and-a-half, but eventually it did start to ease. It didn't last long though - another couple of hours and it was already wearing off. I know I could easily have taken another one, but I didn't want to, so gritted my teeth to get through to the time for taking the evening dose. I made it - and this is the larger of the two doses, so it's helped -but even so I'm getting a lot of pain heading off to bed, so god knows what tomorrow's going to be like.
This is all such a balancing act - I don't want to increase my basic dose yet, because the side effects still haven't settled (though they seem to be improving), but if the pain's so bad that I'm having to take the other pills as well, then I'm going to get those side effects too. So which is worse - more side effects because of a high dose of slow-release, or more side effects because of a lower dose of slow-release plus occasional immediate-release? If I could be sure that the higher dose of the slow-release would work, I'd say that would be better, so I didn't have to go through what I did today, but I can't even guarantee that.
It's like trying to build a wardrobe with no instructions and wearing a blindfold!
Friday, 7 August 2009
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
M-Day 23
New side effect, or rather, existing side effect gone mad...
I've been getting breathing problems since I started taking the morphine - nothing major, just feels like I'm at altitude and the air's too thin. It tends to be worse at night when I've taken the larger dose.
Last night, though, I also had panic attacks. Over and over, it got really hard to breathe and I started to feel panicky - though not about the breathing; I've lived at altitude, so I recognise that feeling and I know it's not a problem. No, this was like being perpetually in the moments just after you've woken up from a really bad nightmare - your heart's pounding, you can't breathe, you're on hyper-alert in case the monsters weren't just in your head . . .
I had this once before, that night after I increased the dose to 30 on the immediate-release stuff, but it didn't last nearly as long. This just went on and on, all night. I tried putting the light on, reading, doing puzzles, watching TV, nothing worked. And as soon as I stopped concentrating on something else, it happened again.
I'd already not been able to go to bed till 1am because the damn stuff was making hyper, and then this.
Oh, and I nearly broke my toe at the weekend tripping over a footstool - it's now all swollen and blood-blistery (my toe, not the footstool!). And yesterday I burnt my hand on the oven . . .
I've been getting breathing problems since I started taking the morphine - nothing major, just feels like I'm at altitude and the air's too thin. It tends to be worse at night when I've taken the larger dose.
Last night, though, I also had panic attacks. Over and over, it got really hard to breathe and I started to feel panicky - though not about the breathing; I've lived at altitude, so I recognise that feeling and I know it's not a problem. No, this was like being perpetually in the moments just after you've woken up from a really bad nightmare - your heart's pounding, you can't breathe, you're on hyper-alert in case the monsters weren't just in your head . . .
I had this once before, that night after I increased the dose to 30 on the immediate-release stuff, but it didn't last nearly as long. This just went on and on, all night. I tried putting the light on, reading, doing puzzles, watching TV, nothing worked. And as soon as I stopped concentrating on something else, it happened again.
I'd already not been able to go to bed till 1am because the damn stuff was making hyper, and then this.
Oh, and I nearly broke my toe at the weekend tripping over a footstool - it's now all swollen and blood-blistery (my toe, not the footstool!). And yesterday I burnt my hand on the oven . . .
Monday, 3 August 2009
Morphine - day 22. Or is that day 4?
So, a few days after my last post, exactly what I was afraid of, happened.
I posted the day after I increased the morphine to 30mg, and I was having these horrible ‘shut down’ moments, where I was feeling completely zonked and just seemed to ‘switch off’ in the middle of things. It was happening at fairly unimportant moments, but I was worried it might happen when I had the gas hob on, or was in the car or something.
The first couple of days after the increase weren't nice, then things seemed to improve. But then all hell broke loose.
Four days after the increase, I was so zonked after taking the first pills of the day that I couldn't even get out of bed. The next day I thought I was doing better - the zonked feeling seemed to be wearing off - but 2 minutes into a conversation, my friend told me I sounded really drunk. Things went downhill from there - I started feeling more and more out of it and decided it would be best to wait a while before trying to get to the office. When I finally went out to the car 2 hours later, I felt like I was fairly OK, but two minutes into the journey I realized that I really wasn't; the ‘shut down’ moments were happening again, whilst I was driving, only they were worse - I was completely 'blanking out', then suddenly realising that I was in the car! It was terrifying! Obviously I turned round and came straight home again, then spent the next 4 or 5 hours feeling like I was on a completely different planet.
It seems like each time I took one of these immediate-release pills, it reactivated all of the morphine that was already in my system; every pill I took, the worse I felt. It was like the dosage was way too high for my body, but not nearly high enough to actually do the job I was taking it for, and kill the pain. Either that, or I have some weird 4-day-side-effect problem, where things get really bad 4 days after I increase a dose. (It was 4 or 5 days after an increase that everything went so bad the last time I was on morphine.) I thought if it was a side effect thing, maybe it would pass, but when I spoke to the doctor we agreed it would be better to change onto a slow-release morphine, just in case.
So now I'm starting all over again, on the same stuff as certain high-profile celebs who shall remain nameless . . .
So far (4 days in . . . ) the zonking isn't as bad as on the old stuff, but I did have to delay going to the office by two hours today because I wasn't safe to drive. I'm still taking 30mg (10 in the morning 20 in the evening), but I'm having a really hard time because the 10 isn't enough to get me through the 12 hours it's supposed to last. It was fine over the weekend - I could just take the morning dose a couple of hours late, then carry on sleeping. That didn’t work today though, because it turns out that it does still make me very zonked, about 1½hr after I take it; not a problem when I'm lazing around in bed, but very inconvenient when I’m trying to work! So I need to take it at the right time in the morning, but that means I'm going to have several very unpleasant hours in the evening before I can take the next dose. Unless I ‘top up’ with the immediate-release stuff, which the doctor told me I could do. But I really don't fancy that, given the problems I’ve have already had!
Of course the other option is to increase to 20mg twice a day, which I'm planning to do eventually, but I was on 40mg when the awful depression hit last time and to be honest I don't want to. I will get there, but I just need to take my time, because if it all goes wrong like that again, I don't know that I have the strength to try it a third time.
One thing, though, I really and truly do not get, is why people do this for fun . . . I think I'd sooner stick spoons in my eyes.
I posted the day after I increased the morphine to 30mg, and I was having these horrible ‘shut down’ moments, where I was feeling completely zonked and just seemed to ‘switch off’ in the middle of things. It was happening at fairly unimportant moments, but I was worried it might happen when I had the gas hob on, or was in the car or something.
The first couple of days after the increase weren't nice, then things seemed to improve. But then all hell broke loose.
Four days after the increase, I was so zonked after taking the first pills of the day that I couldn't even get out of bed. The next day I thought I was doing better - the zonked feeling seemed to be wearing off - but 2 minutes into a conversation, my friend told me I sounded really drunk. Things went downhill from there - I started feeling more and more out of it and decided it would be best to wait a while before trying to get to the office. When I finally went out to the car 2 hours later, I felt like I was fairly OK, but two minutes into the journey I realized that I really wasn't; the ‘shut down’ moments were happening again, whilst I was driving, only they were worse - I was completely 'blanking out', then suddenly realising that I was in the car! It was terrifying! Obviously I turned round and came straight home again, then spent the next 4 or 5 hours feeling like I was on a completely different planet.
It seems like each time I took one of these immediate-release pills, it reactivated all of the morphine that was already in my system; every pill I took, the worse I felt. It was like the dosage was way too high for my body, but not nearly high enough to actually do the job I was taking it for, and kill the pain. Either that, or I have some weird 4-day-side-effect problem, where things get really bad 4 days after I increase a dose. (It was 4 or 5 days after an increase that everything went so bad the last time I was on morphine.) I thought if it was a side effect thing, maybe it would pass, but when I spoke to the doctor we agreed it would be better to change onto a slow-release morphine, just in case.
So now I'm starting all over again, on the same stuff as certain high-profile celebs who shall remain nameless . . .
So far (4 days in . . . ) the zonking isn't as bad as on the old stuff, but I did have to delay going to the office by two hours today because I wasn't safe to drive. I'm still taking 30mg (10 in the morning 20 in the evening), but I'm having a really hard time because the 10 isn't enough to get me through the 12 hours it's supposed to last. It was fine over the weekend - I could just take the morning dose a couple of hours late, then carry on sleeping. That didn’t work today though, because it turns out that it does still make me very zonked, about 1½hr after I take it; not a problem when I'm lazing around in bed, but very inconvenient when I’m trying to work! So I need to take it at the right time in the morning, but that means I'm going to have several very unpleasant hours in the evening before I can take the next dose. Unless I ‘top up’ with the immediate-release stuff, which the doctor told me I could do. But I really don't fancy that, given the problems I’ve have already had!
Of course the other option is to increase to 20mg twice a day, which I'm planning to do eventually, but I was on 40mg when the awful depression hit last time and to be honest I don't want to. I will get there, but I just need to take my time, because if it all goes wrong like that again, I don't know that I have the strength to try it a third time.
One thing, though, I really and truly do not get, is why people do this for fun . . . I think I'd sooner stick spoons in my eyes.
Saturday, 25 July 2009
Morphine - day ??: can't remember, and that's the problem
I've been on the morphine for nearly 2 weeks now. I decided not to follow the doctor's advice and 'double the dose after 2-3 days', since I was having so much trouble coming off the Tramadol and getting used to this new stuff. I increased to 25mg after a week and yesterday went up to 30mg. And I had a horrible night.
When I went up to 25mg I had several nights where I slept pretty well (first time in six months that I haven't woken up several hours before the alarm went off!), and a couple of mornings where the increased dose was making me feel pleasantly relaxed (like my body had dropped off to sleep and my mind was about to follow, but it never did). Last night, though, I had that same feeling, coupled with the sensation of falling forever, horrid panics, jerking awake then it all starting over again. It was awful. I tried to distract myself by make up stories in my head, but I couldn't make it past the first thought - I'd just keep thinking the same 'first line' over and over. It was really scary. Then I got really hungry. So I tried having a snack and watching a bit of TV, then trying to sleep to the sound of the TV, but that was actually worse somehow so I turned it off. And it all started again.
I'm guessing (hoping) this is just a temporary side effect, as it did wear off earlier in the week, but what doesn't seem to be wearing off is the 'brain shutdowns' I keep getting.
I've had something similar before, where the meds just make me pretty stupid, but this is different. Before, it's been like I'm aware that I'm constantly functioning on half a brain - everything seems a bit fuzzy and I can tell I'm not thinking straight. This time, though, it's really disconcerting, because I feel like I'm fine, and then my brain either just freezes, or I do something utterly ridiculous but without any awareness of it. I think it's probably down to the combination of the new pills and the anti-depressants, rather than just being about the new stuff, because I was having 'shut-down' moments before I started the morphine, but this is a lot scarier. Then, I wouldn't see it coming, but I would realise immediately afterwards that I'd just done something daft and be a bit shocked at myself. Now, I don't even seem to realise that I've done it - never mind that it was stupid - until much later. I know the drugs are affecting my concentration and memory and I think it's a spin off from that - I can't concentrate to the extent that I don't even realise I'm doing things. At times I feel zonked and spaced, but at others I feel OK, yet I'm clearly not.
So far, this has only resulted in unimportant mistakes, like forgetting I was in the middle of doing something and just going off and leaving it half done, then being really surprised to come back and find it there. But I'm a bit worried that I'm going to do that with the gas hob lit or something. Or in the car. It's a bit like when my Grandmother was in the early stages of Alzheimer's and we just couldn't tell what she might do next. I almost got on a dual carriageway going the wrong way the day before I started the morphine (one of those instances where I realise immediately afterwards and can't quite believe what I've just [nearly] done), so what might I do now?
When I'm feeling zonked on pills I don't get behind the wheel because it's just too dangerous. It was bad enough to find I'd done something stupid without having even realised I was zonked, but this is much worse. At least if I realise I've been doing daft things I know not to drive, but if I don't realise I've done them, I won't know to stay home. And if I just decide not to drive in case, then my prison goes up to maximum security overnight. I want to be sensible, particularly with something as potentially dangerous as a car, but I also don't want to limit myself any further than I have to.
I guess I just have to hope this side effect turns out to be temporary too. Because I have to increase the morphine again in a few days and if this carries on, I'll have to stay at home, just so I can remember where I live!
When I went up to 25mg I had several nights where I slept pretty well (first time in six months that I haven't woken up several hours before the alarm went off!), and a couple of mornings where the increased dose was making me feel pleasantly relaxed (like my body had dropped off to sleep and my mind was about to follow, but it never did). Last night, though, I had that same feeling, coupled with the sensation of falling forever, horrid panics, jerking awake then it all starting over again. It was awful. I tried to distract myself by make up stories in my head, but I couldn't make it past the first thought - I'd just keep thinking the same 'first line' over and over. It was really scary. Then I got really hungry. So I tried having a snack and watching a bit of TV, then trying to sleep to the sound of the TV, but that was actually worse somehow so I turned it off. And it all started again.
I'm guessing (hoping) this is just a temporary side effect, as it did wear off earlier in the week, but what doesn't seem to be wearing off is the 'brain shutdowns' I keep getting.
I've had something similar before, where the meds just make me pretty stupid, but this is different. Before, it's been like I'm aware that I'm constantly functioning on half a brain - everything seems a bit fuzzy and I can tell I'm not thinking straight. This time, though, it's really disconcerting, because I feel like I'm fine, and then my brain either just freezes, or I do something utterly ridiculous but without any awareness of it. I think it's probably down to the combination of the new pills and the anti-depressants, rather than just being about the new stuff, because I was having 'shut-down' moments before I started the morphine, but this is a lot scarier. Then, I wouldn't see it coming, but I would realise immediately afterwards that I'd just done something daft and be a bit shocked at myself. Now, I don't even seem to realise that I've done it - never mind that it was stupid - until much later. I know the drugs are affecting my concentration and memory and I think it's a spin off from that - I can't concentrate to the extent that I don't even realise I'm doing things. At times I feel zonked and spaced, but at others I feel OK, yet I'm clearly not.
So far, this has only resulted in unimportant mistakes, like forgetting I was in the middle of doing something and just going off and leaving it half done, then being really surprised to come back and find it there. But I'm a bit worried that I'm going to do that with the gas hob lit or something. Or in the car. It's a bit like when my Grandmother was in the early stages of Alzheimer's and we just couldn't tell what she might do next. I almost got on a dual carriageway going the wrong way the day before I started the morphine (one of those instances where I realise immediately afterwards and can't quite believe what I've just [nearly] done), so what might I do now?
When I'm feeling zonked on pills I don't get behind the wheel because it's just too dangerous. It was bad enough to find I'd done something stupid without having even realised I was zonked, but this is much worse. At least if I realise I've been doing daft things I know not to drive, but if I don't realise I've done them, I won't know to stay home. And if I just decide not to drive in case, then my prison goes up to maximum security overnight. I want to be sensible, particularly with something as potentially dangerous as a car, but I also don't want to limit myself any further than I have to.
I guess I just have to hope this side effect turns out to be temporary too. Because I have to increase the morphine again in a few days and if this carries on, I'll have to stay at home, just so I can remember where I live!
Friday, 17 July 2009
Shadows
You know that movie with Sandra Bullock, 'The Net', where she plays a computer geek whose identity is erased as part of some corporate espionage plot? I feel like her. She's a freelance IT specialist, so she works from home. Her clients are all over the place, so her only contact with them is online or by phone. Her only 'friends' are people in online chat rooms that she's never actually met and who don't even know her real name. The very fact that she has no human contact (bar the dodgy boyfriend who shows up halfway through) is the whole crux of the story - her identity can be easily erased because it's not like she really exists; she's a shadow person created by the electronic age.
For me, the saddest - and possibly the scariest - part of the whole movie, though, is right at the very start, when she orders a pizza by phone, calls up a 'friend' in a chat room and sets one of the computer screensavers to show a roaring fire. That's her idea of a night in with friends. It seems the loneliest and most empty existence imaginable.
But that's how I feel too - a shadow person, created not by technology, but by this disability.
I know I'm not as bad as her - I have real friends, I get to see people and they know my real name - I'm lucky, by comparison. But the majority of my time is spent on my own because it's so hard to go anywhere, and the majority of my communicatioin is electronic. Technology really is a lifeline for me. My contact with friends and family is by phone and email, plus the occasional visit. I work almost exclusively from home, and it's almost all done by internet / email; it means I can stay in contact and I can do my job. But it also means that I can go for days on end without seeing or even speaking to a single person. Talking on the phone is good, but it's still not the same as real human contact - you can't see the other person's facial expressions, you can't judge their responses or adapt your own appropriately. Half of the whole experience is missing.
And it's going to get worse. At the moment I'm so much at home because the pain and the meds have been so bad I either can't get to the office, or I need to rest so often it just isn't worth it, but I keep hoping things might improve. Now, though, my employers want to move my team upstairs, where I won't be able to go, so I'll either be working at home all the time - alone - or in a separate office downstairs - alone. Either way, I'll be on my own.
I didn't ask to be living and working alone. In fact years ago, when that seemed to be where my life was headed, I made changes specifically to prevent it; I gave up freelancing and went back to work with a team because I was suddenly (intentionally) single and I didn't think it was healthy to be by myself 24/7. Some years later, I quit postgrad study in part because it was just getting too solitary. And yet here I am, precisely where I didn't want to be.
Friends do still invite me to stuff of course, and I try to go. They're very thoughtful and they try to make it as easy for me as possible, saying things like 'you don't have to come for the whole thing', or 'you can go off and lie down anytime you like, it's no problem'. I love them for being so considerate, and for still wanting me there even though it inevitably complicates things. But the very fact that it's necessary to think that way makes me feel like I'm only half a member of the group. A Shadow person.
It's the same at work. My bosses are so worried to make sure I can cope, that I'm not overloaded (especially as that's exactly what happened last year) that all I seem to do now is training and vague-non urgent stuff that has no deadline so it doesn't matter if it takes me forever to finish it. Oh, and hour upon hour of trying to make the stupid voice activation software work. It's not my bosses' fault that the one active project I was working on got pulled, and I'm grateful they're so considerate of my situation and are doing everything they can to make sure I don't have lots of work pressure to deal with on top of everything else. But it still makes me feel like I'm half an employee. My initials never turn up in the action points of meeting minutes. I rarely get an email where I'm the main recipient, not just a cc.
The whole thing about me being so desperate to stay in work is not just that I have something to do every day - let's face it, I could fill my days writing this crap - it's so I feel useful, productive, like I'm contributing something. Like there's some point to all the rest of it; a reason to lie awake all night racked with pain, a reason to have to stop every 3 steps when I walk anywhere, a reason for having to make two trips from the kitchen just to carry my dinner and a drink through.
I don't just want to be 'employed' in the sense that my time is occupied. I'm not looking just to fill the hours between getting up and going to bed. And I don't want to be half an employee or a Shadow person. I want to be useful; I've got a lot of skills and experience and I want it to be utilised. I want to be bringing something to a job that nobody else can, I want to be going out there and leaving a mark, socially and professionally. I want to be 'employed', as a real person, not a Shadow.
For me, the saddest - and possibly the scariest - part of the whole movie, though, is right at the very start, when she orders a pizza by phone, calls up a 'friend' in a chat room and sets one of the computer screensavers to show a roaring fire. That's her idea of a night in with friends. It seems the loneliest and most empty existence imaginable.
But that's how I feel too - a shadow person, created not by technology, but by this disability.
I know I'm not as bad as her - I have real friends, I get to see people and they know my real name - I'm lucky, by comparison. But the majority of my time is spent on my own because it's so hard to go anywhere, and the majority of my communicatioin is electronic. Technology really is a lifeline for me. My contact with friends and family is by phone and email, plus the occasional visit. I work almost exclusively from home, and it's almost all done by internet / email; it means I can stay in contact and I can do my job. But it also means that I can go for days on end without seeing or even speaking to a single person. Talking on the phone is good, but it's still not the same as real human contact - you can't see the other person's facial expressions, you can't judge their responses or adapt your own appropriately. Half of the whole experience is missing.
And it's going to get worse. At the moment I'm so much at home because the pain and the meds have been so bad I either can't get to the office, or I need to rest so often it just isn't worth it, but I keep hoping things might improve. Now, though, my employers want to move my team upstairs, where I won't be able to go, so I'll either be working at home all the time - alone - or in a separate office downstairs - alone. Either way, I'll be on my own.
I didn't ask to be living and working alone. In fact years ago, when that seemed to be where my life was headed, I made changes specifically to prevent it; I gave up freelancing and went back to work with a team because I was suddenly (intentionally) single and I didn't think it was healthy to be by myself 24/7. Some years later, I quit postgrad study in part because it was just getting too solitary. And yet here I am, precisely where I didn't want to be.
Friends do still invite me to stuff of course, and I try to go. They're very thoughtful and they try to make it as easy for me as possible, saying things like 'you don't have to come for the whole thing', or 'you can go off and lie down anytime you like, it's no problem'. I love them for being so considerate, and for still wanting me there even though it inevitably complicates things. But the very fact that it's necessary to think that way makes me feel like I'm only half a member of the group. A Shadow person.
It's the same at work. My bosses are so worried to make sure I can cope, that I'm not overloaded (especially as that's exactly what happened last year) that all I seem to do now is training and vague-non urgent stuff that has no deadline so it doesn't matter if it takes me forever to finish it. Oh, and hour upon hour of trying to make the stupid voice activation software work. It's not my bosses' fault that the one active project I was working on got pulled, and I'm grateful they're so considerate of my situation and are doing everything they can to make sure I don't have lots of work pressure to deal with on top of everything else. But it still makes me feel like I'm half an employee. My initials never turn up in the action points of meeting minutes. I rarely get an email where I'm the main recipient, not just a cc.
The whole thing about me being so desperate to stay in work is not just that I have something to do every day - let's face it, I could fill my days writing this crap - it's so I feel useful, productive, like I'm contributing something. Like there's some point to all the rest of it; a reason to lie awake all night racked with pain, a reason to have to stop every 3 steps when I walk anywhere, a reason for having to make two trips from the kitchen just to carry my dinner and a drink through.
I don't just want to be 'employed' in the sense that my time is occupied. I'm not looking just to fill the hours between getting up and going to bed. And I don't want to be half an employee or a Shadow person. I want to be useful; I've got a lot of skills and experience and I want it to be utilised. I want to be bringing something to a job that nobody else can, I want to be going out there and leaving a mark, socially and professionally. I want to be 'employed', as a real person, not a Shadow.
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Morphine - day 2: The plot thickens
Things are a lot worse today - I was awake from 5am but the back pains were so bad I had to get up at 6. I took the first morphine at 7 but my back didn't really start to ease till after the second at midday, and even then not by much. I know the back pains come from the Tramadol, so I figured it was just that it's leaving my system and the low-dose immediate release morphine just isn't enough to make up the shortfall. I was back in bed by 7.30am, feeling absolutely exhausted, aching all over and having a really upset stomach. I couldn't even lift my head off the pillow for several hours.
I didn't find this last time, but the Tramadol back-pains didn't really start till after I went back on it after trying the morphine, so that didn't seem all that surprising. I've been saying to the doctors for ages, though, that I was worried that these back pains might be indicative of dependence on the drug, because they only happened if I missed or was late with a dose, but they kept telling me not to worry. After I tried coming off it altogether late last year (to see if it was actually doing anything for the shoulder pain - it was, so I had to restart it) the problem got worse, and it seemed to go critical when I tried reducing the dose by just one pill per day a few months ago, so I had a bit of spare capacity for the bad days. I told both the GP and the pain specialist about all this, and said I was worried my body was becoming dependant on the Tramadol, but they just made non-commital noises (presumably because they had nothing else to offer).
But I've now realised that in actual fact I AM dependant on Tramadol; I've just been doing some research and discovered that most of things I had taken as side effects of the morphine yesterday, are actually Tramadol withdrawal symptoms! It didn't happen last time because I wasn't dependant at that point.
So everything that I'm going through at the moment - the overheating then feeling freezing, not being able to sleep, the back pains, the upset stomach, feeling so weak and tired I can barely move - that's all down to the Tramadol. Most of it I've had on and off for a while, but never all at once. Fortunately, it never in all these months occurred to me that increasing the dose might ease those symptoms, (I guess I'm a bit thick, but under the circumstances, I'm quite glad). The only time I considered upping it was recently, when the actual shoulder pain was getting so much worse and I just wanted to test if the reason was that the Tramadol was failing.
What's really scary about all this, though, is that I'm what you might call a 'diligent patient' - I'd read all the literature, I knew there was a 'small risk of physical dependence' and I brought it up with my doctors as soon as I became concerned. But all they did was prescribe another drug to combat the effects (which, by the way, caused serious depression)! They didn't say 'yes that's what it is' and give me the choice to do something about it, they just stepped round the issue. If I'd realised, I would have insisted on coming off it long ago!
Healthcare needs to be a partnership between practitioner and patient, but how can that be the case if there isn't honesty? I feel really betrayed by the people I trusted with my health, and health is too precious a thing to gamble with. I wouldn't do that knowingly, so why should I be put in the position where I'm doing it inadvertently? Just because I believed what my doctors told me? Morphine's no safer, either, so the same thing could happen again. At least this time I'll know not to rely on the doctors, but to trust my own instincts.
When I started writing this, I was feeling really embarrassed to have found myself in this position; I always thought (unfairly, I now realise) that these sorts of things happened to people who were weak or lazy, people who weren't really in pain or simply didn't try to stop. Now, I just feel upset and angry that it can happen to you even when you're on the look-out for it, and your doctors, far from helping prevent it, actually let it happen.
I didn't find this last time, but the Tramadol back-pains didn't really start till after I went back on it after trying the morphine, so that didn't seem all that surprising. I've been saying to the doctors for ages, though, that I was worried that these back pains might be indicative of dependence on the drug, because they only happened if I missed or was late with a dose, but they kept telling me not to worry. After I tried coming off it altogether late last year (to see if it was actually doing anything for the shoulder pain - it was, so I had to restart it) the problem got worse, and it seemed to go critical when I tried reducing the dose by just one pill per day a few months ago, so I had a bit of spare capacity for the bad days. I told both the GP and the pain specialist about all this, and said I was worried my body was becoming dependant on the Tramadol, but they just made non-commital noises (presumably because they had nothing else to offer).
But I've now realised that in actual fact I AM dependant on Tramadol; I've just been doing some research and discovered that most of things I had taken as side effects of the morphine yesterday, are actually Tramadol withdrawal symptoms! It didn't happen last time because I wasn't dependant at that point.
So everything that I'm going through at the moment - the overheating then feeling freezing, not being able to sleep, the back pains, the upset stomach, feeling so weak and tired I can barely move - that's all down to the Tramadol. Most of it I've had on and off for a while, but never all at once. Fortunately, it never in all these months occurred to me that increasing the dose might ease those symptoms, (I guess I'm a bit thick, but under the circumstances, I'm quite glad). The only time I considered upping it was recently, when the actual shoulder pain was getting so much worse and I just wanted to test if the reason was that the Tramadol was failing.
What's really scary about all this, though, is that I'm what you might call a 'diligent patient' - I'd read all the literature, I knew there was a 'small risk of physical dependence' and I brought it up with my doctors as soon as I became concerned. But all they did was prescribe another drug to combat the effects (which, by the way, caused serious depression)! They didn't say 'yes that's what it is' and give me the choice to do something about it, they just stepped round the issue. If I'd realised, I would have insisted on coming off it long ago!
Healthcare needs to be a partnership between practitioner and patient, but how can that be the case if there isn't honesty? I feel really betrayed by the people I trusted with my health, and health is too precious a thing to gamble with. I wouldn't do that knowingly, so why should I be put in the position where I'm doing it inadvertently? Just because I believed what my doctors told me? Morphine's no safer, either, so the same thing could happen again. At least this time I'll know not to rely on the doctors, but to trust my own instincts.
When I started writing this, I was feeling really embarrassed to have found myself in this position; I always thought (unfairly, I now realise) that these sorts of things happened to people who were weak or lazy, people who weren't really in pain or simply didn't try to stop. Now, I just feel upset and angry that it can happen to you even when you're on the look-out for it, and your doctors, far from helping prevent it, actually let it happen.
Monday, 13 July 2009
Morphine - day 1
I started the morphine last night. Side effects so far have been:
The spaced out thing tends to come on within half an hour of taking a pill and last for several hours afterwards; these are immediate release pills, not slow release like last time, so I get an attack of some side effects straight after each pill, and the rest just seem to be constant. At the moment I daren't drive because when the floatiness happens I just have the feeling that I wouldn't react quickly enough on the road. I got a lift to the office today and I guess I'll just have to see tomorrow.
I think at the moment the morphine is also acting a bit like anti-depressants; I feel a bit removed from my fears about it - if I don't think about it, I'm OK, but if someone starts talking to me about it, I can feel the panic surging up and it's a real struggle to push it down. This anti-dep effect isn't necessarily as encouraging as you might think - the same thing happened last time on morphine and with a couple of other things since, but then it all went to pot.
- feeling very spaced out and floaty
- body temperature out of whack (mostly much too hot, but occasionally freezing cold)
- bad nausea
- bit dizzy (different to spaced out - actually feeing like you're going to fall over)
- itching all over
- talking too loud and saying things I probably shouldn't
- feeling a bit hyper
The spaced out thing tends to come on within half an hour of taking a pill and last for several hours afterwards; these are immediate release pills, not slow release like last time, so I get an attack of some side effects straight after each pill, and the rest just seem to be constant. At the moment I daren't drive because when the floatiness happens I just have the feeling that I wouldn't react quickly enough on the road. I got a lift to the office today and I guess I'll just have to see tomorrow.
I think at the moment the morphine is also acting a bit like anti-depressants; I feel a bit removed from my fears about it - if I don't think about it, I'm OK, but if someone starts talking to me about it, I can feel the panic surging up and it's a real struggle to push it down. This anti-dep effect isn't necessarily as encouraging as you might think - the same thing happened last time on morphine and with a couple of other things since, but then it all went to pot.
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