Hi Guys
Had an experince involving painkillers this weekend that I thought I would share with my friends here. I ended up in the emergency room on Saturady with severe.. really severe.... sharp pain in my waist area of the back into my hip. after 11 hours of poking, prodding and all kinds of testing, the diagnosis was multiple... episode of diverticulitis, a severe urinary tract infection and a pinched nerve in the lower back.
I was straight up in the initial info taking and told them I had come off all opiates and Xanax as well in the past year. It took 6 hours to make the diagnoses and I was in pretty tormenting pain the whole time. Finally, the doctor talked with me and said that I was going to need someting really strong to get the pain down to a tolerable level. I asked that he make a courtesy call to my primary care doctor (which I had agreed to always do if I found myself in this kind of situation). I ended up having three shots of high dose morphine pumped into me over the next five-six hours. The morphine did not eliminate the pain actually, but it calmed me down and toom the edge off enough so that I could think straight and handle it. I was sent home with 20 vicodine. I took them sparingly on sunday. On Sunday night, I was having a bad reaction to one of the antibioatics I had been put on and began vomiting violently. Ended up in an emergency visit to my primary care doctor and that one antibiotic dose was changed. (It is metronidazole which is known to cause some violent reactions).
My doctor said not to take the vivodin anymore... not because of past issues, but because opiate pain relievers slow down the metaabolism and that would not let the antibiotics work as fast as they could. Now that was an interesting fact to learn. Anyway, he gave me an anti-inflammatory to help with the pinched nerve ( the muscles in that area are tight and swollen). So I am taking that and no opiate painkiller.
And you know what? I have no desire to take the vicoden that are left. I have given them to my husband and do not care that they are available. I will have him just dispose of them.
Thinking can change and for me it seems it has. I don't have the desire to use the vicoden just to "escape." I know the sources of the pain and that helps me to deal with it. Within a couple of days, the antibiotics should work their magic and much of the pain should be gone. I will deal with the pinched nerve through physical therapy if necessary and through an anti-inflammatory.
I wanted to share this because I know many of us fear that a time will come when drugs for pain might become necessary. I know now that I will be okay whenever this might happen now. I have more knowledge now about opiates and such. They are addictive. I crossed a line and abused them before. I can never do this again. If I must use them, then it must be with great caution and supervised. I must always let all doctors know up front of my past issues with opiates and Xanax. Nothing less, ever, than full disclosure. My committment to what I have learned this past year worked for me. I am relieved and happy about this.
So, that is what I wanted to share... that I was hit with an unexpected medical crisis, but made it through just fine. Being armed with knowledge is important. We must always stay armed with it to combat the drug issues we have, or are, going through.
With hope and hugs always
reach
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