Thank you for the detailed reply SwimmingDancer, I really appreciate it. Yeah I'm realise when I said "being told not to do it" that I may have come across in a slightly aggressive manner, but it wasn't intended like that at all. I just mean that I have no what I will do in so far as, your first post scared me a lot. I don't know what I am going to do in regards to my medication/future.
I have suffered in proverbial silence for about two years with severe disruption to my quality of life. Having to drop out of University, leaving my work, losing 95% of my friends and social life. The average day being wasted and long - just counting the hours till I would be tired enough to fall asleep and escape the pain for another 7-8 hours.
DHC has changed all this, and in the back of my mind I know I can't really go on like this forever, but I also don't want to go back to how thing were. The predicament is further compounded by the fact that I have tried numerous other techniques - some more medically founded than others. Mindfulness meditation, The Alexander Technique, Paracetamol, Anti-inflammatories, nearly £1000 spent on Physiotherapy; all of which provided me with nothing. I have speculated numerous times that my opiate system is actually dysfunctional on top of the other issues.
My tumour is a Trigeminal Neuroma (although some of the letters I have received label it as a schwannoma). The doctors seem to be happy not to operate because of my age, and only want to operate if an immediate threat of death is present, and at the moment, there isn't an impending death so I am stuck with it.
The Gastrointestinal problems are potentially even worse though, and some days I will forget about the brain tumour, where as the stomach problems leave me with constant crippling agony, feeling equivalent to taking a heavy punch to an un-tensed abdomen. Needless to say, the accompanying diarrhoea and sickness are an extra kick in the teeth.
I am sorry to hear you too suffer with Chronic Pain. It is one of the most unfair conditions I have ever come across.
Ah, im in the east of England, lincolnshire. Funnily enough im from the midlands myself, coventry. Your quite welcome btw, im impressed at how little you have to dose considering your health issues. I tried setraline for GAD at one point , brilliant for anxiety but made me so hypermanic I was hoovering the house at 3oclock in the morning and gardening in the pitch black at 4oclock in the morning. At the time I thought it was great but strangly the doctor didnt agree with me! :-D im more then happy to discuss all this sort of stuff anytime, feel free to pm me. Theres not many of us regularly prescribed opiate and benzo users and even less of us in the uk who are prescribed the dihydros month after month. I think the forum members over in places such as the US dont always realize how strict opiate laws are over here and how little choice there is for opiate and benzo meds. My mother is prescribed cyclizine for migraine induced nausea and I know from her run ins with the pharmacys that its rare to be gave it on repeat prescription. Promethazine is an interesting one for me and ive always meant to give it a go but im taking mirtazepine at the minute and cant mix other antihistamines with it so I take zopiclone as a sleep aid and muscle relaxant. Like I said im usually around on here hg anging around the BDD and ODD or pm me, ill be glad of the company.
I completely agree about the sertraline haha. I was so productive during my last stint on it a couple of years back whilst I was studying for my college mid-terms. I got some of the best grades I have ever got in my life, and my social life was great too. That's all history now though. That was before all these health issues set in, and I have frequent nostalgia about those sertraline halcyon days. I think gardening at 4am is great! There were times on it were it felt like I was on amphetamines, by the sounds of it I'm not the only one!
I haven't too much about zopiclone, sounds an interesting substance though!
And cool mate, I will send you a FR!
