Monday, November 22, 2010

The new world of prescription medication.


At least new for me. My first real experience picking up a prescription was back in February when I was prepping for my colonoscopy. You can read about that under Instruments of Torture if you care to. Personally I think it best forgotten.

In the last five months I've picked up five bottles that look like this. Drugs are awfully cheap these days. I think the most I've paid for them is $1.00.

(lest you become too impressed with my counter, I must inform you that the only clean corner is the one you see. :-)

Financially they have been easy on us, physically, not so much.

The first was a sleeping pill.

It worked, I slept.

However, the second night I woke up with a racing heart that would not stop for at least twenty minutes. ( Good thing I re read that sentence. :-) I forgot the "not" in it. If this sleeping pill caused my heart to stop for 20 minutes I wouldn't have to worry about prescription medicine right now. :-)

After thinking I was going to die, I decided not to try that one again and called the doctor for another.

Ambian, my next try into prescription sleeping pills kept me awaker than a bad conscience or a pesky mosquito.

Ambian CR, the real thing, only put me to sleep for a few hours - which at that time was a blessing, but not what I was hoping for.

Vicoden, well, who wants a rash for a week that makes you itch like a monkey?:-)

And then Tramadol. I love Tramadol. It is an opiate, which works for some people and not for others. It worked for me. It took all the aches and pains away while taking the edge off everything else.

I suppose I should be thankful that it is what I am allergic to, but I must say I've had some bitter moments of mourning. I haven't talked to my doctor yet, but apparently I am allergic to everything that can be called in.

I did have one bout with some major pain and I was tempted to take one anyway. Can you believe it? A pill that was making me wheeze, breathe like I was at the top of Mount Everest, and cough up blood. No wonder people get addicted to things that are harmful. However, if drugs and alcohol produced these symptoms I'm guessing there would be a lot fewer addicts.

So... now I'm almost fine. I breath like normal, have a wheeze only a little bit, and the blood is gone.

I have a lot more to write about, but Karis wants to get on the computer to type and play pbskids:-)

I think pbs has a conspiracy going. Sadly, some of the first words out of my kids mouths is pbskids.org.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving if I don't talk to you sooner!

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