Sunday, November 01, 2009

NOW I GET IT!

Writing here really does me a lot of good. It generates responses. Those responses teach me, even if it takes repeating the same thing until the light comes on in my head. The light has come on regarding my pain drugs! I shall explain.

More than one person has suggested MJ to deal with my condition. This is amusing because I used to use MJ for precisely that reason, although I didn't know that was the reason. Makes sense? No of course not.

When I had my first MJ joint, I LOVED it. Yes, it made me laugh, yes it made sex wild, but most importantly I was able to let go and relax and I could keep still. I was able to sit still and watch tv or read. I didn't have to keep moving or get up and down. Bear in mind that in those days, I was shut off from my feelings. I was still in a dissociative state all the time.(as an example, I had a liver biopsy and had no pain relief because I was not present emotionally.)

Gradually my use of MJ increased. I gained weight, a lot of it. I also began to be able to think about my past with no feelings attached. This set me on the road to recovery. However, the MJ use was a problem. I saw it as a addiction, as did others. I stopped and always restarted. Whenever I stopped I felt awful. I couldn't sleep. I hurt all over. To cut this very short, I kept being told it was my imagination, there was no withdrawal from MJ use. What I did not know was, and nor did anyone else, and the Dr I had at the time could not have cared less, was that I was ILL! This was the reason the MJ had impacted me the way it had in the first place. It gave me pain relief more or less immediately. I was unaware of that. I know this sounds weird to those who do not experience 24/7 pain but you can have it and not be aware of it. I did used to complain to the Dr about not being able to be still. I know I woke at night when I moved because it hurt. No one seemed to take any of this on board so I thought it was NORMAL. That and the fact I had been taught all my life to 'not make a fuss' and besides that, it was always my 'imagination'.

When I did eventually stay off the MJ long enough, and the withdrawal did not go away, I don't know what I thought. I just accepted that I felt terrible and that it was probably my fault. I just got on with life as best I could.

Then I got my present GP of 11 years. She knew str8 away I was ill. She also knew I did not trust her or any medical professional. She waited until trust grew and also waited for me to tell her I was ill. I never did. Until I was rushed to hospital by a screaming ambulance. I was in much pain and it was assumed I was having heart attack. I wasn't and I knew I wasn't and I tried to tell them that but they knew better and basically told me to shut up.

I knew I wasn't because 1. the pain was not inside my chest and 2. this pain was just a worse version of pain I'd had for many years. The following morning the heart doctor told me I had not had a heart attack (duh!) but when had I injured my neck? HUH? I hadn't, I told him. Then why can't you move your head? Pardon? He showed me by telling me to follow his finger as he moved it. I moved only my eyes. He was right, my neck had very little movement. Okay, so this was when I started having all sorts of tests. And you know where I am today. Being treated properly and knowing what is wrong with me.

So what has this got to do with MJ and my pain meds? A lot!

You see, I considered myself an addict. I now see that as incorrect for the aforementioned reasons. However, I had learned a lot about addiction. Plus I am prone to feeling guilt/shame. I also knew that people who use drugs recreationally for for reasons other than they are supposed to, get hooked and are 'using'.

It could be argued that a lot of my 'education' on this subject was 'cult like'. To me, taking my pain meds when I was not in severe pain was using. So I have had this battle going inside me for years. It is why I had the script for Tramadol for 2 years before I gave in and took it. It is also why I didn't take the morphine when first prescribed. It doesn't quite explain the paracetamol as that is not in the same class but it was still a drug to me!

Basically, I had had a lot of addiction crap pumped into me by ignorant lay people who were addicts themselves and who assumed what applied to them applied to me. I was programmed by my past experiences to succumb to this 'education'. So for years I have suffered pain and felt guilt / shame each time I succumbed and took the drugs.

This last few days I have taken my drugs on regular basis. I do now understand why this is necessary. Several health professionals and other pain suffers have written to me and explained why. It makes sense. Even the information with the Tramadol says it is for the treatment or PREVENTION of pain!!!! As a result I feel much better. The pain has dialled down a lot. Not to zero but enough.

I am very lucky in that I feel no side effects at all from my drugs, either in mood or in feeling sick. The only side effect I get is pain relief.

I am somewhat surprised at the amount of trepidation and shame I have felt while writing this. I knew that to explain my issue with the pain meds, which doesn't make sense without the whole picture, would mean me explaining my MJ history and my involvement with 'recovery groups' and how that has f*cked up my thinking about my situation. I still feel shame about taking the drugs. I don't about taking the drugs for my heart and intestines. I take them, no questions. I just learned that to take drugs for pain relief was using.

I also recall a woman at the meetings who was diagnosed with terminal cancer and once she was taking morphine for it, she was asked to stop coming to the groups as her 'using' was affecting others. Appalling I know but you know for someone like me, susceptible then to cult like pressure, my shame around drugs grew and grew. It was as if this poor woman was not well enough to cope with her disease without using! That seemed to be the attitude.

Gosh, I hadn't realised the depth of screwed up thinking around this. Just goes to show that no matter how far one has come, there is always further to go.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Colin, from my days as an assistant in a pharmacy I can tell you something. Doctors no diddly squat about drugs and interactions. My boss was a lovely lady and trying to get me to go to college and take Pharmacy... I chose teaching.

But what I see now and learnt then was that Doctors don't really know about drugs, they rely on MiMMs... a little book written by pharmacists. Talk to your friendly pharmacist for advice on how, when and what to take. Pick one who has a private room.

I am fairly sure the NHS does have pain management clinics... where they have Docs trained by pharmacists to understand the drugs.. but the pharmacist is just down the road in the meantime.

Repeat after me "Prescribed Drugs mmmmmmmm." :) Take care.

Brigitte said...

I find it interesting that you take your other meds without a feeling of guild and shame, yet pain drugs are "tainted" for you. Could it be that you still do not see pain as a medical condition, a thing that you can no more will away than your intestinal problems? After all, you don't wait for your intestines to get really really bad until you decide to try meds... and you should not wait for your pain to get really really bad either.
The line between medication and "using" might be thin but it is distinct. You can "use" pretty much everything (and street kids swallow, snort and shoot anything that doesn't shoot back nowadays). Bad boys making meth out of it doesn't mean that you can't take cough syrup until you are coughing your lungs out though ;o))
Take care
Brigitte

Margie said...

Colin, repeat after me, "I will take my pain meds regularly! I will do this because they make my pain less and when I am in less pain, those that love me are also happier, because it hurts them to see me suffer more than I have to." Repeat this mantra until you really believe it!

I hope you and John will become a stronger couple as a result of this trouble.

Bo... said...

(Thank you, Colin, for saying my socks were lovely!)

I am totally there with ya about the miseries of chronic pain. My back has so many compression fractures and pinched nerves from 22 years of lifting patients that my thighs always feel like they're "on fire", I always have sciatica, and my back is usually killing me. One thing I didn't know was the relationship of chronic pain to fatigue. When I told my therapist I was fatigued a lot, he said that chronic pain causes the body to wear itself out from having to fight the pain all day. I didn't know that. Sigh....

Indigo said...

Indigo Incarnates

Your experience with pain sounds so much like mine. I occasionally get a type of migraine called cluster headache. It's a pain so intense that I though I was having a stroke.

The fact of the matter is that I won't take opiate medication. I'll take imatrex, which is not habit forming. But I've always been terrified of taking opiate pain meds because of all of the addiction in my family.

You're certainly not weak for taking pain meds for a legitimate medical condition that hurts (which you have several, I believe).

My experience with dealing with defendants that use marijuana a lot is that it's technically not physically addictive, but the people who use it all the time gradually lose their ability to plan the future or remember the past. They sort of become locked-in at whatever age they were when they started using. Of course, medical marijuana might be different. The street stuff always has a bunch of crap in it like formaldehyde, PCP, etc.

Sheila said...

Ok, it took me a few sentence to realize the MJ was not Micheal Jackson!

Picnicfan said...

Colin, I've always enjoyed reading your blog and greatly admire your courage and the way you keep going in spite of difficulies. I understand perfectly how you feel about taking medication. Since I started to take medication for Sjogrens I seem to have to worse in many ways. They also persuaded me that most of my problems are in my head and that I should take antidepressants ( ssri's) They have completely messed me up and caused more problems and increased the general dryness caused by the disease. I had a reduced sense of taste caused by Sjogrens but the antidepressants took it away completely. I can't taste a thing - I can't distinguish between orange juice or water or any kind of foods. I've been like this for more than two months I have to force myself to eat. No doctor has taken this seriously enough.I have other health problems to but I won't go into detail now. I hope you don't mind me posting this but I really am desperate for a solution but I don't know where and how to get help. Anyway, I'll continue to read your blog for as long as I can and wish you ( and John) the strength to keep getting the most out of life.

Janey said...

Colin, I worked in chronic pain management for a number of years, and we used a pretty broad approach. The first thing was to wean all patients off all pain meds, and to start back prescribing and monitoring their reactions and pain relief. And for some, obviously, a LOT was needed. The best management of pain, however, happened when meds were taken preventatively, BEFORE the pain was awful. Get a steady level of the meds into your body, and the pain stays at bay better. Now, another thing I learned was that when morphine is used to treat pain, it can NOT become addictive! I am not sure how that works, physiologically, but have had many doctors, some with addictions of their own, say the same thing. At any rate, I am (1) in total awe of your many wonderful socks; (2) hopeful that you have gotten to a spot in your life where you can treat your pain without guilt and apprehension; (3) wishing you and John a good path through this forest of information you are needing to assimilate. Take care, and keep knitting.