Tuesday 2 December 2014

A quick update....

Medical Illustration Showing Inflammation
in Human Back Area


I had to go back to the doctor's last Friday *sigh*  I was in so much pain, especially around my ankle, and had not had anywhere near a decent night's sleep since before the previous weekend.  Frankly, I was a wreck ~ and blubbed down the phone to the doctor's receptionist (who was very nice about it!) and to my friend, Olive (who was also really lovely!), asking if she could possibly give me a lift to the surgery.

I saw another GP (it appears that my regular doctor has been on longterm sickness, with some kind of back injury I think, and is only working a couple of days a week at the moment) who promptly told me that the co-codamol was "quite frankly, useless".  She said that the amount of codeine in the tablets just wasn't enough to help the pain so she has prescribed "straight" codeine, which I am to take four times a day along with over-the-counter paracetamols.  I have to say that this has hit the pain wonderfully and I've been able to get some much better night's sleep too.  The only downside is how sleepy the codeine makes me ~ I'm having to take a nap every day because I can barely keep my eyes open!

I'm really hoping that the codeine will help to keep on top of the pain and the sciatica will gradually get better.  The next medication step after codeine is what the GP described as "dirty drugs", i.e. they are addictive and much harder to come off of.  I know this is the case as when I had the prolapsed disc I was on a high dose of Tramadol and it took a very long time to gradually reduce the amount I was taking ~ and I still had some withdrawal symptoms when I finally stopped altogether.

So wish me luck with the codeine, my loves ~ I really don't want to be back on the likes of Tramadol!  

No comments: