Medication

I had to use so much medication today...

It's hard. It's difficult. I never really know what to do. If I take medication when I hurt, the doctors start talking about the possibility of rebound headaches and medication overuse. If I don't take the medication when I hurt, the doctors scold me and start talking about pain cycles and ask me if I "like pain" and act like I'm stupid or something. It gets really confusing. So... it's this constant balancing act of trying to figure out when to take medication for acute pain and when not to take medication for acute pain.

See, the problem is I hurt almost daily. And, I get migraines almost daily. So... that means I'm taking pain killers almost daily. And... if you're taking pain killers daily, you can start getting rebound headaches. It's less likely with medications like triptans than it is with medications like advil... but still, there is that worry.

Also, I was one of those "anti-drug" kids. A total narc. I'm still a prude. A total square. I am the squarest of all of my friends. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I haven't ever done street drugs like acid or mushrooms or "e" or coke or anything that I've seen tons of people do at parties. And, I have absolutely no interest in ever trying anything like that.

And my interest in trying street drugs has only lessened, if that's even possible considering how absolutely against them I was prior, after having to take medication and having bad reactions sometimes. Like the time I took over-the-counter back pain medication (yeah, over-the-counter... I react pretty strongly to medications) and started to hallucinate. Or, the time they gave me 8mg of hydromorphone at the hospital instead of the regular 2mg-4mg and I thought the doctors were invisible and that I was under water. That wasn't cool... at all. That was scary and horrible. I have never felt more physically disgusting. It was worse than the worst flu ever.

In fact, after having to take medications... I don't really understand why people would take medication for fun. I totally understand that a lot of people who use illicit drugs are self-medicating.... I have self-medicated in the past before when I have been in absolute extreme amounts of pain before (semi-suicide attempts to escape the intense physical pain). So, I do totally understand that. Also, I live in a province that shut down the mental health care system so now we have the worst drug problem in Canada because a huge number of people who need mental health care are self-medicating... so, when you live in my city, it's hard not to understand that sort of illicit-drug use.

BUT! I can't understand the type of drug use that a lot of my peers are into. The kind just for "fun". That has never made sense to me and once I actually had experience with medication thanks to these horrible stupid migraines... I understood the idea of drugs being fun even less. There really isn't anything fun about drugs at all. Sometimes they take the pain away and don't do anything else. Sometimes they don't take the pain away and don't do anything else. And sometimes they react badly and you see things you shouldn't or feel things you shouldn't and that is scary as hell and the grossest feeling in the whole world.

But. With all that said. I know that it's possible to become addicted to some of the pain medications I take. So, sometimes I don't take them until I'm sobbing. Like today.

And, sometimes the pain is so bad that I have to take a lot of medication... like today.

I took two doses of triptans (you can only ever take two a day).

Three hydromorphone. First dose worked (as in took the edge off, but didn't take all the headache away) then wore off and I was sobbing again. Second dose did absolutely nothing and I was sobbing for hours. That's when I took the other triptan and waited.

Then an advil. I try not to take advil. The last neurologist before my current one (he was the meanest rudest man I have ever met) made me feel like a drug addict for taking advil and told me my headaches were all my fault because I took advil. So, I hardly ever take advil anymore because I am so afraid that maybe he was some how right even though my GP told me that he sounded very odd and although he had a point about rebound headaches and medication overuse everything he said to me was WRONG WRONG WRONG and my mom told me he was the meanest doctor she'd ever met and a total jerk and was WRONG WRONG WRONG and my counselor told me he was a total jerk and WRONG WRONG WRONG and my current neurologist told me he had a point about rebound headaches and medication overuse but he totally over-reacted and I could still use advil if I needed to. But, it doesn't matter that my GP, mom, counselor and current neurologist all say he was wrong and a jerk. That man scarred me for life and now advil scares the **** out of me.

But. I was sobbing and starting to think about self harm. And, an advil was better than another hydromorphone as far as being worried about being a drug addict like the crazy neurologist accused me of being for taking advil.  

I don't know why self harm seems like a good idea when one is in pain. It makes no sense at all. I think I just get desperate and start grasping at straws and totally insane ideas like cutting out the part of my head that hurts or sticking needles into my head where the pain is starts actually sounding like a good idea.

Anyway. The advil didn't work. At all.

Mom freaked out when she saw me going for another advil because I had 2 aspirin patches on my neck and back where the trigger areas hurt. I hadn't really thought about that. I'd used about 6 of those in total today. She told me that if I took another advil I'd totally be overdosing on NSAIDS and could DIE. (Apparently a girl did die from using 8 aspirin patches at once... although, I wasn't using them all at once, it's okay to use 2 at a time... and you can use as many as you want in a day I think... but... still, mom totally had a point... too many NSAIDS in my system would equal a rebound headache.)

So. I finally took my third hydromorphone for the night.

Mom did acupressure on my feet until the third hydromorphone kicked in. Mom is an angel.

It took about half an hour but finally I stopped thinking that I might have to go to the hospital.

Then it took another half an hour for the pain to get down to that dull background annoyance it's usually at.

Anyway. My doctor prescribed something to replace the hydromorphone. He said it wasn't addictive or something? Or at least, much less so. I pick up that prescription tomorrow. So... no more hydromorphone starting tomorrow. We'll see how the new medication works. Who knows... maybe it'll work better!

Oh yeah... and today was my second day on 125mg of topamax as opposed to 100mg... we'll see how it works... trying to get up to 150mg... if there is no improvement... back down to 100mg... and then I guess we'll try a new preventative medication? Sigh.

Pain Tracker