Monday, August 07, 2006

Lost in a Valium Bottle For 3 Weeks

My latest scientific discovery is that valium (5mg) is useless. It was prescribed as part of a pain regimen to relieve the discomfort of sciatica.

I wrote a letter to L,T & J yesterday whining about my sciatica pain and my medications. Thank goodness for children - you can usually subject them to some heartfelt whining without fear of a series of repercussions. It's a good type of
payback. Here's part of my letter from Tom:


>> I recommend morphine. It rocks.
Do you have some you could spare?

>>Sadly, no. It requires hospitalization.

It seems that vicodin is the morphine of Northern MI.

>>Yeah as far as I can tell doctors hand out Vicodin like lollypops.
I've got a lifetime supply. It doesn't really work. Granted, if I take two Vicodin when I'm not in serious pain I get high as a kite. But when my kidney stone kicks
in it's like the Vicodin isn't even there. I've got Percoset, too,
which according to Dr. Amy is supposed to be stronger but I haven't
noticed a difference.

I told my Doc he could either give me morphine or shoot me, but
all I got was vicodin and valium.

>Never tried Valium. I think my margaritas are probably more effective
>than any of that crap. Seriously.

So far it's about as effective as having the Pope wave some smoke
in my general direction.

>Yeah, I definitely feel for you. With the kidney stone the attacks
>usually only last 2-6 hours. It sucks, but you can gut it out. I
>can't imagine it going on for days and days.
>> Or the Ditty Bops. They are touring Michigan.

Do THEY have morphine?

>Doubtful. Maybe an outside shot at some pot, but that's probably about it.

*****************************************


I ran out of valium today, and while I was waiting for the refill to be fetched I noticed that I was feeling much better without it. A LOT better! Valium had no effect on the pain whatsoever, and I actually feel more like myself.
Sometimes I get the feeling that the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians are in charge of boiling the leaves and bark for my pain medication.

I was prescribed Darvocet originally for the sciatica, but it made me physically ill. The next thing we tried was percoset plus valium. This combo totally knocked me out -it didn't touch the pain, but it did put me to sleep. So now I'm happy just taking the vicodin by itself. I'm actually feeling halfway normal.