Well I missed classes this week for the first time since I started graduate school. So much for perfect attendance, not that anyone was counting.
Lessee... it all began with a little bump between my knuckles that stuck around and began aching more and more until I got concerned. Thought at first it was a ganglion cyst, then wondered about arthritis, blood clots, bone cancer... you know how the mind can go south on these things. So I went to my orthopedic surgeon to get it checked out. Turned out to be a small calcification that showed on the X-ray and was causing tendinitis. This is getting to be my theme song. Tendinitis in her hips, tendinitis in her knees, tendinitis in her knuckle boooones. (sung to tune of Hyperactive) She prescribed an ANSAID called Sulindac twice per day to treat it. 5 days later I started coughing up blood. Somehow I thought maybe I should stop the meds, so back I went and she then prescribed Meloxicam, which she told me was essentially the same thing but in a different formulation so it wouldn't devour my stomach. Well little old overstressed me heard "the same thing" and somehow thought that meant the same dosage schedule, so I took the Meloxicam 2x per day as well.
Read? Oh hell, I'm a graduate student, I have too many other things to read to be wasting my precious time on medication labels.
Two hours after the second pill the room started going in circles. I went to bed and when the cats woke me up in the wee hours the world was spinning completely out of control and I threw up on my way to put the cats out. Read my drug sheet and spotted the 1x per day part. Oh fuck...
After poking AR violently into awareness and convincing him I was NOT the Bogey man, I managed to make him understand I was dying and he got Poison control on the phone. They said this is about as bad as it gets and "these side effects are well tolerated" so I should just sit tight and wait it out until the double dose wore off. Yeah, well tolerated by whomever is on the OTHER side of the lab rat. YOU try being stuck in a spinning Zipper car at the carnival for 30+ hours and throwing up every time you move your fucking eyeballs. Well tolerated my ass.
The call was at 3am, so at 3pm I called again since I wasn't much better and the double dose should have been over with at 9am. Same stuff, same spiel about being tolerable. Same thoughts in my head. Blah.
Tonight I am still woozy and can't turn my head suddenly or lean to either side without a swarm of bees buzzing angrily in the back of my brain and the world whirling madly. I mean with my eyes open the whole room actually shifts; chunk, chunk, chunk. That's better than with my eyes closed though, when it feels like I'm going to fly off the planet. I'm just shy of 48 hours since I took the second dose and they told me I should feel all better this morning. This is better, but a hell of a long way from ALL better. I'd call again, but if I hear 'well tolerated' one more time I'll puke right through the phone at them.
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6 comments:
OMG, I'm glad you're "better" but shit that sounds awful.
Did you try calling your actual doctor instead of poison control? You aren't on any other meds that might be exasperating the issue are you?
I hope you do get to "all" better really soon!!
Thank you for the good thoughts!
Nope, no other meds and I did call my doctor. She said the same thing as poison control and told me to start up again today with half the (prescribed) dosage. I'm STILL having symptoms though, so I'm not going to start again until I am 100% back to normal. Apparently the double dose had a synergistic effect and I'm going to have some residual stuff going on for awhile.
My frigging hand barely even hurts (I only went in to find out what the lump was), but my doc said that the ANSAID can potentially dissolve the calcification, so I should take the meds anyway. I confess, this has just about put me off ANSAIDS for life. Of course the second reaction was my own fault and I have no idea if I'd have had a milder reaction if I'd taken it as directed, or if everything would have been peachy. But I wonder now if I've sensitized myself. Pooh. Life without Ibuprofin would suck!
Good heavens. I hope you're better now.
Donna
Thanks for checking in on me Donna. Amazingly, I am not. Well that's not true, I am much better, but I am not ALL better, which is worrisome since tomorrow will be a week since I managed this snafu. I called my Dr. today and she insisted I make an appt to come see her, but then didn't clear a spot for me to be there in any great hurry. I'm guessing it's more about liability than anything.
I just want to know if I am going to have spells of vertigo for the rest of my life or WHAT? It's definitely worse at night, which is weird. I tried looking up how this happens in the brain, but all the possibilities just added panic attacks to my symptoms, so I stopped reading. :(
Yikes. That's some pretty intense medication that an accidental second dose should have such an effect. I hope all of the effects are gone and that the tendinitis eases up.
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