Call your doctor now, Bitsy! Fioricet/butalbital (generic name brand)is HIGHLY addictive.
My mother-in-law has been taking them for about 20 years now and is very addicted to them. In the last 4-5 years, she has been taking them to the point where she runs out before her next prescription, and she then has a seizure secondary to withdrawals.
Let me first point out that, although she has been taking them for 20 years, she only got them every once in a while (about 30 pills 3 times a year) because no doctor would give them to her, as they could tell she was addicted. However, about 4-5 years ago, she found a doctor "ignorant" enough to give her 90 every month with 5 refills!
The first part of her pattern begins when she gets her refill. She first gets a little mouthy, but helps clean the house (only takes a few pills the first day), by the next day, you can hardly understand a word she says, then the next day, she is stumbling all over (in front of my 3 small children), babbling incoherently and has to ask for help even for simple tasks, such as getting a basket off the top of a shelf. By the next day (when she is up to about 13 pills), she actually falls, cries that she has had a stroke (and will cry about this every day until the pills are gone); you cannot possibly have a stroke in your sleep every day for a week straight.
After that stage, she will be depressed and want to die. She even got herself Baker Acted once because she called her doctor and told the nurse she did not want to live anymore. Next thing you know, cops are at my door and fighting to put her in the car. She then screamed "why did you do this to me", and I had nothing to do with it.
When the pills are all gone, about two days after they are gone, she has a seizure. I have to constantly go to her room and check on her because I am waiting for one to occur. Her last one was on New Years, right around midnight. She fell as she was coming in the back door and hit my baby's swing, and then hit the side of her face on our kitchen table. This left a pretty big gash on her cheek.
Finally, when she comes home from the hospital (after the seizure), she tells me she just can't figure out why she is having these seizures and neither can the doctors. Several MRIs and visits to a neurologist later, there are still no findings or etiology as to why these occur. You would think they would review her medication list and figure it out, but they don't. This last time, my husband even told the doctors at the hospital, but apparently no one read the report. Therefore, she continues to get these pills.
She just got more pills about 4 days ago. My husband kept telling her to give him the pills, and she claims she is not taking nothing and states she is acting like she is because she had a stroke in her sleep. Well, he went in her room, found the pills, and also found that she has been taking about 10-13 per day! He told her that he would dispense the pills to her 5 a day for two days, 4 a day for a day, and then only 2 pills a day until she gets her next prescription. When she does get her next prescription, we will be picking it up and giving them to her as they are prescribed. We cannot take them away from her altogether because we know she will have a seizure.
Right now, she claims she is moving out, but she has no where to go (she says she is going to go live in the woods with her dog..haha She wouldn't last a minute out there).
I wrote the above message so that you (and others) could see the effects of this drug. As I said before, it is highly addictive and should only be taken if absolutely necessary! I do believe that if my husband had not taken her pills and put an end to this cycle of pill popping, she would be dead.
Good luck to you, Bitsy...I truly hope you heed my warning...this drug you are taking is very dangerous.
anyone ever been on fioricet?
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