Alas, the issue of drugs is dominating my Crohn’s journey so far. I am on a constant hourly battle with the intense mood swings from the Prednisolone. My dealings with Azathioprine show that I continue to be one of those difficult, allergic to everything patients. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, drugs are a reality of chronic illness. And my body doesn’t really like them.
Some of my dealings with drugs have been downright funny in hindsight. I had two diagnostic laparoscopies before my hysterectomy. After the first one, I was discharged with a box of Oxycodone (also known as OxyContin) for pain relief, with instructions from the nurse to take them as directed for at least the first 24 hours and then as needed, but to never let the pain get away from me before I take them. For those not in the know, Oxycodone is a very potent opiate. In fact, it’s so potent that it’s become a street drug of choice in my home province, who have recently banned crushable forms of the pill so that recreational users can’t snort it (listen from 1:38) - http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2012/02/27/oxycontin-off-the-market/.
The NHS are very reluctant to prescribe it to anyone because of it’s addictive qualities. And it gives you a terrible case of the munchies.
Why I was given this on discharge from a fairly simple diagnostic lap that only involved looking around and the removal of some “filmy adhesions”, I will never understand. It was a bit overkill, but hey, they were handy when I had my next period. I well remember lying in bed doped up on them after I got home from the op. And the munchies had taken over. I knew I had a box of Cadbury Roses in the drawer on the other side of the room. But there was problem. As I was lying there thinking about those Roses, I watched the throw rug on the floor wrap itself up and turn into a carpet-style snake writhering across the floor. And rather than being freaked out by this, all I could think was, "How the hell am I going to get past that snake to get those Roses?" I spent some time pondering strategies in my drug induced haze, and eventually very gingerly got myself up, stepped over the slithering serpent, got those Roses, and got back into bed with them. And didn’t think anything about that snake once I had chocolate even though I continued to watch it wriggle on the floor for a few more hours. I never asked myself why there was a snake in my bedroom. And it didn’t occur to me that I had been hallucinating until several days later.
Some of my dealings with drugs have not been so funny. I’ve had serious allergic reactions to several, and that list just keeps getting longer. Some reactions weren’t allergic, but were very very bad.
My old GP tried to find ways to control the chronic pelvic pain I was living with conservative methods for many years, which mostly involved throwing a range of birth controls pills at it. Six brands of birth control pills over five years plus the Nuva-Ring (not approved in the UK), and every one of them was a disaster.
Ortho 7-7-7 (brand number 4) was by far the worst. I suddenly gained a lot of weight, my normally borderline low blood pressure shot up to being worryingly high, I developed pernicious anaemia (Vitamin B12) to go along with my iron-deficiency anaemia, and I was having so much breakthrough bleeding, I was having two periods a month. But the worst was that it made me seriously depressed and I started having panic attacks. Crippling panic attacks. So bad that I didn’t recognise myself in the mirror and seriously thought I was losing my mind. I was lucky that I had a good GP then who aside from taking that mental health crisis very seriously, also had the wisdom to think that it could have been at least partially drug-induced and got me off of them. It took some time and hard work on my part to sort out the mental health stuff, but interestingly everything else sorted itself out really quickly (I lost 8 lbs in 4 days, It was all water retention!).
And now I am faced with some similar issues from the Prednisolone. I can almost live with most of the Crohn’s symptoms, but the mental health effects from the Prednisolone is what I am struggling most with. And it is very hard for me to say that publicly, but I’m saying it because I am so not myself right now and I'd just rather be up front and tell people why.
And with the Azathioprine not working, I’m faced with more decisions about drugs. Watch this space.
Some of my dealings with drugs have been downright funny in hindsight. I had two diagnostic laparoscopies before my hysterectomy. After the first one, I was discharged with a box of Oxycodone (also known as OxyContin) for pain relief, with instructions from the nurse to take them as directed for at least the first 24 hours and then as needed, but to never let the pain get away from me before I take them. For those not in the know, Oxycodone is a very potent opiate. In fact, it’s so potent that it’s become a street drug of choice in my home province, who have recently banned crushable forms of the pill so that recreational users can’t snort it (listen from 1:38) - http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2012/02/27/oxycontin-off-the-market/.
The NHS are very reluctant to prescribe it to anyone because of it’s addictive qualities. And it gives you a terrible case of the munchies.
Why I was given this on discharge from a fairly simple diagnostic lap that only involved looking around and the removal of some “filmy adhesions”, I will never understand. It was a bit overkill, but hey, they were handy when I had my next period. I well remember lying in bed doped up on them after I got home from the op. And the munchies had taken over. I knew I had a box of Cadbury Roses in the drawer on the other side of the room. But there was problem. As I was lying there thinking about those Roses, I watched the throw rug on the floor wrap itself up and turn into a carpet-style snake writhering across the floor. And rather than being freaked out by this, all I could think was, "How the hell am I going to get past that snake to get those Roses?" I spent some time pondering strategies in my drug induced haze, and eventually very gingerly got myself up, stepped over the slithering serpent, got those Roses, and got back into bed with them. And didn’t think anything about that snake once I had chocolate even though I continued to watch it wriggle on the floor for a few more hours. I never asked myself why there was a snake in my bedroom. And it didn’t occur to me that I had been hallucinating until several days later.
Some of my dealings with drugs have not been so funny. I’ve had serious allergic reactions to several, and that list just keeps getting longer. Some reactions weren’t allergic, but were very very bad.
My old GP tried to find ways to control the chronic pelvic pain I was living with conservative methods for many years, which mostly involved throwing a range of birth controls pills at it. Six brands of birth control pills over five years plus the Nuva-Ring (not approved in the UK), and every one of them was a disaster.
Ortho 7-7-7 (brand number 4) was by far the worst. I suddenly gained a lot of weight, my normally borderline low blood pressure shot up to being worryingly high, I developed pernicious anaemia (Vitamin B12) to go along with my iron-deficiency anaemia, and I was having so much breakthrough bleeding, I was having two periods a month. But the worst was that it made me seriously depressed and I started having panic attacks. Crippling panic attacks. So bad that I didn’t recognise myself in the mirror and seriously thought I was losing my mind. I was lucky that I had a good GP then who aside from taking that mental health crisis very seriously, also had the wisdom to think that it could have been at least partially drug-induced and got me off of them. It took some time and hard work on my part to sort out the mental health stuff, but interestingly everything else sorted itself out really quickly (I lost 8 lbs in 4 days, It was all water retention!).
And now I am faced with some similar issues from the Prednisolone. I can almost live with most of the Crohn’s symptoms, but the mental health effects from the Prednisolone is what I am struggling most with. And it is very hard for me to say that publicly, but I’m saying it because I am so not myself right now and I'd just rather be up front and tell people why.
And with the Azathioprine not working, I’m faced with more decisions about drugs. Watch this space.
No comments:
Post a Comment