I am on a different, time-released immunosuppressive now, plus the same dizziness-causing anti-pneumonia drug (we're very limited in what one to use here) and this one plays nice with my morning meds, so I can take everything all at once and hopefully fall asleep and avoid the tummy troubles. Looking over the documentation for this drug, my current dose is largely given just to see if people have a bad reaction, and I won't really see much of a response until I'm at the twice-a-day dose.
However, 5 days after starting it, my pain in my left hand (which was keeping me off the computer, which as a writer and currently a shut-in was terrible) has greatly reduced, but the pain in my back and knees has greatly increased. This is a positive, as far as I'm concerned, because I can write again, as long as I get up and stretch.
The morning pain, though, is awful. I take 2-3 hours to be able to fully move. Less if and when I can get into a warm shower.
I'm now on a total of three drugs that make me incapable of dealing with heat and sunlight, and it's been in the 90s and sunny here for weeks, so I'm basically becoming a complete shut-in (I'm supposed to avoid crowds, kids, sunlight, heat and stress) instead of just stuck away from people, which sucks, but being able to type again makes me feel a lot better.
..and now, the rant.
In my area, we have an anti-narcotics advocate who is intent on making painkillers harder to get. This puts me, a person who has had narcotics EXPIRE in the medicine cabinet, and who was on hydrocodone for two full months (post-surgery) and never had trouble stopping it, pretty much capable of getting nothing more than high-dose ibuprofen because I would be on a long-term dose of narcotics and my doctors both say that they aren't comfortable going through those hoops and that if my hand gets that bad again I should go to the ER for morphine. I was in labor for over a day and didn't get painkillers until the last hour, I have had both migraines (and the steroids for this lung shit have ENDED them, which almost makes the side effects worth it) and cluster headaches (once every 3-5 years, but they repeat daily during an episode, which is 3-5 days) and I've been in a serious car accident that resulted in nerve damage....
...The pain in my hand when it first cramped up, which lasted almost 36 hours, the pain in my calf during an 8-hour muscle spasm which results in bruising in the knee and ankle, these are 10 out of 10 on a pain scale. Cluster headaches are supposed to be the worst pain in the world (I find them not as bad as migraines, because they don't make you puke, but whatever) and I do not think the cluster headaches (which have sent me to an ER, and were diagnosed by a neurologist) come close to this level of pain. I used to get a bottle of 30 tylenol with codeine a YEAR to deal with both kinds of those headaches (and usually use 6-12 of them a year), and now, because of addictions that I do not share, I'm having my local doctors remind me that BOOZE might be my best choice in such a situation, because it's the muscle relaxant I can get, FAST.
A friend in the know and I talked about illegal narcotics and the black market yesterday. There are two types of people on the black market for prescription narcotics right now, there are people with addictions using them recreationally, and there are people with things like MS and broken bones who are buying them because their doctors won't prescribe them because of the hoops. Like me, these people have had their pain acknowledged by their doctors, but the Insurance companies' DEATH PANELS have become the final say in who gets help and who doesn't. The insurance companies and some local laws make some drugs with 100 year old histories of helping people into a "new" dangerous drug that needs to be stopped. The new drug menace!
I would seriously like to see a study, when people say that prescription drug "abuse" is a terrible problem, of how many people are taking them because they sprained an ankle and can't afford to make it to the Emergency Room, but can wrap, elevate, and medicate. You know, some people claim people in Canada wait months to get seen by a doctor "because socialism." I know people who've gone years without seeing a doctor for things. When you've waited years, I bet months sound pretty good.
My doctors have suggested booze as a muscle relaxant I can get...if we make it impossible for people for people to get narcotics who need them rather than treat addiction as a disease on its own and treating that disease, why not just ban booze, too, because I bet most of the people using that are doing it recreationally.
Most of you know my views: Make it all legal (and I cannot tell you how much that would suck for people like me who are allergic to hemp[and yes, that's a real thing]) and make addiction help easy to get and the punishments for driving while under the influence more severe (which requires inventing several tests). I had these views before I ended up a victim of the complete stupidity brought about by the fact that not every pill is beneficial to every person...
These immunosuppressives I'm on ARE POISONS. They keep people like me, and people with transplants, ALIVE. But since they are poisons, let's fricking ban them, too, because it's better to hurt people than run the risk that some people will hurt themselves.
Sorry I'm cranky, I'm in fucking pain. People die because they can't be responsible with their drugs. That's no reason to punish those of us who CAN be responsible.
However, 5 days after starting it, my pain in my left hand (which was keeping me off the computer, which as a writer and currently a shut-in was terrible) has greatly reduced, but the pain in my back and knees has greatly increased. This is a positive, as far as I'm concerned, because I can write again, as long as I get up and stretch.
The morning pain, though, is awful. I take 2-3 hours to be able to fully move. Less if and when I can get into a warm shower.
I'm now on a total of three drugs that make me incapable of dealing with heat and sunlight, and it's been in the 90s and sunny here for weeks, so I'm basically becoming a complete shut-in (I'm supposed to avoid crowds, kids, sunlight, heat and stress) instead of just stuck away from people, which sucks, but being able to type again makes me feel a lot better.
..and now, the rant.
In my area, we have an anti-narcotics advocate who is intent on making painkillers harder to get. This puts me, a person who has had narcotics EXPIRE in the medicine cabinet, and who was on hydrocodone for two full months (post-surgery) and never had trouble stopping it, pretty much capable of getting nothing more than high-dose ibuprofen because I would be on a long-term dose of narcotics and my doctors both say that they aren't comfortable going through those hoops and that if my hand gets that bad again I should go to the ER for morphine. I was in labor for over a day and didn't get painkillers until the last hour, I have had both migraines (and the steroids for this lung shit have ENDED them, which almost makes the side effects worth it) and cluster headaches (once every 3-5 years, but they repeat daily during an episode, which is 3-5 days) and I've been in a serious car accident that resulted in nerve damage....
...The pain in my hand when it first cramped up, which lasted almost 36 hours, the pain in my calf during an 8-hour muscle spasm which results in bruising in the knee and ankle, these are 10 out of 10 on a pain scale. Cluster headaches are supposed to be the worst pain in the world (I find them not as bad as migraines, because they don't make you puke, but whatever) and I do not think the cluster headaches (which have sent me to an ER, and were diagnosed by a neurologist) come close to this level of pain. I used to get a bottle of 30 tylenol with codeine a YEAR to deal with both kinds of those headaches (and usually use 6-12 of them a year), and now, because of addictions that I do not share, I'm having my local doctors remind me that BOOZE might be my best choice in such a situation, because it's the muscle relaxant I can get, FAST.
A friend in the know and I talked about illegal narcotics and the black market yesterday. There are two types of people on the black market for prescription narcotics right now, there are people with addictions using them recreationally, and there are people with things like MS and broken bones who are buying them because their doctors won't prescribe them because of the hoops. Like me, these people have had their pain acknowledged by their doctors, but the Insurance companies' DEATH PANELS have become the final say in who gets help and who doesn't. The insurance companies and some local laws make some drugs with 100 year old histories of helping people into a "new" dangerous drug that needs to be stopped. The new drug menace!
I would seriously like to see a study, when people say that prescription drug "abuse" is a terrible problem, of how many people are taking them because they sprained an ankle and can't afford to make it to the Emergency Room, but can wrap, elevate, and medicate. You know, some people claim people in Canada wait months to get seen by a doctor "because socialism." I know people who've gone years without seeing a doctor for things. When you've waited years, I bet months sound pretty good.
My doctors have suggested booze as a muscle relaxant I can get...if we make it impossible for people for people to get narcotics who need them rather than treat addiction as a disease on its own and treating that disease, why not just ban booze, too, because I bet most of the people using that are doing it recreationally.
Most of you know my views: Make it all legal (and I cannot tell you how much that would suck for people like me who are allergic to hemp[and yes, that's a real thing]) and make addiction help easy to get and the punishments for driving while under the influence more severe (which requires inventing several tests). I had these views before I ended up a victim of the complete stupidity brought about by the fact that not every pill is beneficial to every person...
These immunosuppressives I'm on ARE POISONS. They keep people like me, and people with transplants, ALIVE. But since they are poisons, let's fricking ban them, too, because it's better to hurt people than run the risk that some people will hurt themselves.
Sorry I'm cranky, I'm in fucking pain. People die because they can't be responsible with their drugs. That's no reason to punish those of us who CAN be responsible.