It is back to the medical theme today. As regular followers know I am on a variety of medications for various things covering two chronic conditions. (Chronic means long lasting or no cure. People us it when they actually mean Acute, which means severe, short lived and curable. I know which is which). I have diabetes mellitis which is chronic and severe lower back pain which is also chronic.
Now my view is that Diabetes can kill me, and a painful back won't. So as I am fed up of all the tablets I am taking, I decided to stop taking the daily pain regime tablets for my lower back. That regime is a combination of Gabapentin and Venlafaxine. I stopped on Tuesday. Still taking all my diabetes meds of course.
Around midday on friday I suddenly (suddenly like I mean NO WARNING) I had a really bad head cold. Overnight friday it developed into full blown man flu. Of course, being diabetic, I cannot take anything for it, I just have to tough it out.
I happened to mention this to an online friend and she kind of told me off and told me to go and look up withdrawal. So I did, again. (I had already and thought I knew what to expect, just some mild dizziness) And what I found was that 2-3 days after stopping venlafaxine, I could expect to get severe flu symptoms, that would last 2 - 3 weeks, and would not be completely cleared for 2 - 3 months. WHAT!!!!!!
Guess what? 2.5 days after stopping the venlafaxine i developed severe flu like symptoms. I can't be having that, and the dizziness. So back on the venlafaxine.
My lesson learned? Listen to my Doctor!!!!!
And thanks VM to my internet friend, she know who she is.
Showing posts with label gabapentin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gabapentin. Show all posts
Saturday
Tuesday
I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help me God.
Gabapentin, so they tell me, has a side effect that affects memory. There are, genuinly, things that my familiy have said to me recently that I have absolutely no recollection of them saying.
But is it the gabapentin? I remember doing a training course on Human Performance a few years ago. We were all shown a short film and then asked a number of questions on it. There were twenty of us doing the course, and twenty of us all saw a different film. MOST of us did not see a man with a banana, some did but thought it a knife, and so on. I performed no better or worse than anyone else, but i have a long lasting memory of a question, What is the truth?
Is it what I remember?
Is it what someone else remembers?
Is it what mattered what happened?
Do you remember driving to work yesterday? What colour was the second bus you saw? What car was behind you at the third set of lights? Did a car cut you up? Was the driver young or old, male or female. What car did you park next to in the car park. What dress/tie was a c0-worker wearing? And so on. You can't remember some key issues can you?
'But they are not key' you might rebuff, but what if you read the local paper tomorrow and discover that the car that cut you up was fleeing from a crime, perhaps a murder? I grew up with the Birmingham bombings, and I know what I remember seeing on TV, but what do I remember of the actual events as they unfolded. How reliable would I be if I were called as a witness 40 years on? How reliable would you be, I day, 1 month, 1 year on from an event.
How reliable a witness could you be? And you probably are not taking gabapentin. Just think about it next time there is a report of a big trial on TV, perhaps a terrorist bombing.
Perhaps it ought to be
I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as my memory remembers it, so help me God.
Gabapentin, so they tell me, has a side effect that affects memory. There are, genuinly, things that my familiy have said to me recently that I have absolutely no recollection of them saying.
But is it the gabapentin? I remember doing a training course on Human Performance a few years ago. We were all shown a short film and then asked a number of questions on it. There were twenty of us doing the course, and twenty of us all saw a different film. MOST of us did not see a man with a banana, some did but thought it a knife, and so on. I performed no better or worse than anyone else, but i have a long lasting memory of a question, What is the truth?
Is it what I remember?
Is it what someone else remembers?
Is it what mattered what happened?
Do you remember driving to work yesterday? What colour was the second bus you saw? What car was behind you at the third set of lights? Did a car cut you up? Was the driver young or old, male or female. What car did you park next to in the car park. What dress/tie was a c0-worker wearing? And so on. You can't remember some key issues can you?
'But they are not key' you might rebuff, but what if you read the local paper tomorrow and discover that the car that cut you up was fleeing from a crime, perhaps a murder? I grew up with the Birmingham bombings, and I know what I remember seeing on TV, but what do I remember of the actual events as they unfolded. How reliable would I be if I were called as a witness 40 years on? How reliable would you be, I day, 1 month, 1 year on from an event.
How reliable a witness could you be? And you probably are not taking gabapentin. Just think about it next time there is a report of a big trial on TV, perhaps a terrorist bombing.
Perhaps it ought to be
I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as my memory remembers it, so help me God.
Saturday
Gabapentin. It is my prescribed pain killer at the moment. It wasn't yesterday, but it is today. Let me explain.
I went to a Pain Clinic group hug the other day. Following on from the nerve killing (more like nerve irritating and getting them jolly mad!) injection, my follow up appointment was a group session in the Centre for Pain Management. A sort of group hug if you like, but we were presented details of how they (the Pain Clinic) could help us manage our pain. We were told in no uncertain terms that they would not get rid of our pain, but help us come to terms with it. Good Grief! I've been in pain since I was 14, 38 years ago, I think that I have learned to come to terms with it by now. But anyway, I will try anything, I have nothing to lose. Back to the hug, there was a psychologist there (!), a nurse and a previous 'graduate' of the programme. I listened, but mostly to the other patients. I had to suppress my smiles at one other inductee when she complained about her co-codamol. Good Lord, I mean, my pain went beyond co-codamol twenty years ago. Bless, she was new to it all.
One snippet did make sense though. A fellow inductee mentioned that she wouldn't take gabapentin because it caused memory loss. PING!!! Yvonne and Hannah have 'complained' to me recently that I haven't done things they asked, such as use up some specific food stuffs when I make tea. I had completely forgotten it, and on several occasions too. The nurse confirmed that memory impairment was a major side effect of Gaba.
Right, so I came straight off it. That was Tuesday. Wednesday was okay, and I thought, hey, I can handle this. Thursday I hurt and ached in places that I had forgotten existed. Yesterday, (Friday) I could hardly move with the pain. It obviously takes a few days to work out of the system, and boy, do I now know how much pain it suppressed.
Sod the memory loss, give me my gaba!
Sorry, what was I saying?
I went to a Pain Clinic group hug the other day. Following on from the nerve killing (more like nerve irritating and getting them jolly mad!) injection, my follow up appointment was a group session in the Centre for Pain Management. A sort of group hug if you like, but we were presented details of how they (the Pain Clinic) could help us manage our pain. We were told in no uncertain terms that they would not get rid of our pain, but help us come to terms with it. Good Grief! I've been in pain since I was 14, 38 years ago, I think that I have learned to come to terms with it by now. But anyway, I will try anything, I have nothing to lose. Back to the hug, there was a psychologist there (!), a nurse and a previous 'graduate' of the programme. I listened, but mostly to the other patients. I had to suppress my smiles at one other inductee when she complained about her co-codamol. Good Lord, I mean, my pain went beyond co-codamol twenty years ago. Bless, she was new to it all.
One snippet did make sense though. A fellow inductee mentioned that she wouldn't take gabapentin because it caused memory loss. PING!!! Yvonne and Hannah have 'complained' to me recently that I haven't done things they asked, such as use up some specific food stuffs when I make tea. I had completely forgotten it, and on several occasions too. The nurse confirmed that memory impairment was a major side effect of Gaba.
Right, so I came straight off it. That was Tuesday. Wednesday was okay, and I thought, hey, I can handle this. Thursday I hurt and ached in places that I had forgotten existed. Yesterday, (Friday) I could hardly move with the pain. It obviously takes a few days to work out of the system, and boy, do I now know how much pain it suppressed.
Sod the memory loss, give me my gaba!
Sorry, what was I saying?
Monday
What a few days. Something, I don't know exactly what, keeps tripping the electrics. It just trips the Earth Leakage, so all the sockets go. Hannah gets p155ed off because her alarm loses the time and she has to reset it. My alarm just adds 3 minutes everytime the leccy trips. Much more of this and I'll be on tomorrow's time, today.
My fault. Complete up cock. Yvonne told me last week I needed more tablets. Well, I didn't go and get them. So today, well, you can guess. So. scrawled letter to the docs and then a quick plea over the phone and then up the chemist. Few, panic over, but, all entirely my own fault. If you can think of someone else for me to blame, please let me know, it'll help me feel much better. email me or leave me a comment.
Off to the hospital on Wednesday as a day patient for some treatment to my back. Hope it works, and hope it takes away some of this lingering, nagging, haunting agony that I am in. The gabapentin helps, but only just.
If you look at my blog, you will see that a shop front has appeared. I am trying to work out how to sell the massive accumulation of stamps that I have that I don't want. I only collect Gibraltar, and I only want one of each, so all the extra's and the swaps must go. Looking at all the options at the moment, and a shop front on my blog is just one option that may be worth using. AT the moment the shop is closed, that is because I haven't loaded any stock into it yet!!
Dreading the hospital and it's only just over a day away.
Happy days.
Trip
There goes the leccy again. Thank goodness for the UPS on the computer.
My fault. Complete up cock. Yvonne told me last week I needed more tablets. Well, I didn't go and get them. So today, well, you can guess. So. scrawled letter to the docs and then a quick plea over the phone and then up the chemist. Few, panic over, but, all entirely my own fault. If you can think of someone else for me to blame, please let me know, it'll help me feel much better. email me or leave me a comment.
Off to the hospital on Wednesday as a day patient for some treatment to my back. Hope it works, and hope it takes away some of this lingering, nagging, haunting agony that I am in. The gabapentin helps, but only just.
If you look at my blog, you will see that a shop front has appeared. I am trying to work out how to sell the massive accumulation of stamps that I have that I don't want. I only collect Gibraltar, and I only want one of each, so all the extra's and the swaps must go. Looking at all the options at the moment, and a shop front on my blog is just one option that may be worth using. AT the moment the shop is closed, that is because I haven't loaded any stock into it yet!!
Dreading the hospital and it's only just over a day away.
Happy days.
Trip
There goes the leccy again. Thank goodness for the UPS on the computer.
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