Please lend your opinion. I need it right now!

siobhan · Newbie

Please lend your opinion. I need it right now!

Tahir · Member

Greetings Siobhan,

I can't say that I have much experience as what you are going thru right now, but I do have experiences of having to take medication for my other mental health problems for a few months of my early recovery.

Firstly, I informed my doctor about my addiction history and my abuse of such medication in the past honestly. Saw to it that I don't get those pills that I have abused before, or those ones that I feel attracted to, in a way that this medication creates or entertains undesirable thoughts and feelings within me...

Next, I took a couple of members from NA, my therapist and doctor and my family into confidence, a kind of a pact, where I wouldn't know what medication I was taking, that one of my family members would take the responsibility of giving me my meds all the time, that I did not have access at any time to my meds otherwise. Also, at such times, my addiction acts very subtly in ways that I sometimes would not even be able to detect... so I committed to the NA program thoroughly and tried my best to share as honestly as I can, at meetings and with this couple of members about my thoughts and feelings regarding these meds. I committed to daily meetings... constant touch with members almost 24/7... whenever I felt my addiction manifest in context of these meds, I brought them out, sometimes it took a great effort to do so, in the open, with my therapist or with another member and also family, and took necessary precautions accordingly, with vigilance. Since, me of myself, inspite of being as honest as possible, am still susceptible to my addictive tendencies, I always allowed others fully into my medication affairs...

Reading the NA booklet, "In Times Of Illness" and the chapter "More Will Be Revealed" from the Basict Text also was a great guidance and awareness for me during these times. Please read these immediately, and most importantly, call a member or members whom you trust, and whom you are comfortable with, better yet, if you have a Sponsor, call him or her, and share your fears and problems with him/her/them. Ask them to be with you thru this ordeal, on a regular basis. Don't miss meetings. Also, prayer, meditation and applying the steps on this situation also gives us the strength to face our fears and to seek ways to cope and deal with them.

We never have to go thru these experiences alone, Siobhan. We just need to reach out, build as much support system as we can, that consists of family and loved ones, professionals and Narcotics Anonymous. Most importantly, that daily contact with our Higher Power, and rigorous honesty and vigilance will see us thru. Sometimes, we do have to take medication for our health problems. Dwelling in feelings of guilt that we are taking some medication and thinking that we must not take meds no matter what, according to my understanding, is not what NA suggest...

However, to what extent our illness, whatever it is, is serious, and the necessity of taking meds, can best be assessed only thru a honest inventory taken by us with the help of our Higher Power, Sponsor and the NA program, apart from the professional opinion which is very important too...

Hope this helps. Please keep sharing with us. We are here for you, in whatever ways we can. Together we can do what we cannot do alone.

Please read "In Times of Illness" at the following link, if you don't have the booklet...

http://na.org/pdf/litfiles/us_english/Booklet/In%20Times%20of%20Illness.pdf

And also the Basic Text chapter, More Will Be Revealed...

Blessings, Peace & Prayers ~ Tahir.

jjj · Member

As a medical person, I would have to ask if you have ever spoken to anyone from the Cleveland Clinic. This sounds like one of those situations where there is no other way BUT to medicate, unless someone can actually correct the problem.

I am not a doctor (nor do I play on on T.V..) But calling the hospitals with the best neurological advancements can't hurt. Some fine surgeons consider it an honor and a challenge to attempt to correct such problems, often for nothing in return, if the case is unusually severe, which yours does sound.

Good luck with this.

jjj

-- Edited by jjj at 18:49, 2007-02-08

siobhan · Newbie

Thank you for your response. I have met with the best surgeon in the country for this disorder. He is in NYC (I am in upstate NY) and actually the specialists I have met with were all like a kid in a candy shop because this is an extremely rare disease and they really have no one or anything to compare me or it to because it is that rare. You see, they can't operate because first, I have several hundred of these "cyst-type" things and they are filled with spinal fluid. If any of the spinal fluid were to leak out into my chest cavity, where they reside, I would end up with pleural effusion, a permanent breathing problem, they also would have to litterally split me open, breaking ribs to reach some of them, and no surgery has ever been done and no one wants me to be the first to try it out as the risks in doing so just to eleviate pain doesn't give them a good enough reason to attempt this. I have been to so many local and national doctors that all say the same and since I am not at any risk at this point for anything other than pain, they just want to leave me at this point. They were talking about putting this case into the medical journal of neuroscience because it is the weirdest, largest case of them that they have seen, in fact it really hasn't even been diagnosed as far as they don't even really have a name for it...nonetheless, I hate being in this situation, I can't stand taking medication anymore. It doesn't mess me up, or at least that I notice, but I know that its no good and I don't like being in control of it, because I don't have any...I also don't have anyone around me that I can trust to be in control of it. My fiance and I decided that he would hide the lock box and I would keep the keys. This way, we both have to be there to get my meds, he will watch what I take (at my request) and he won't have the keys to help himself. This is the only thing we have come up with...WOW, addiction sucks.

Thank you very much for your response. It is very appreciated!

Siobhan null

Prendila · Newbie

Hi Siobhan, WOW is right! I don't know how your pharmacy's work, but why don't try talking with him/her and asking them to allot your daily dosage? I am on a lot of medication and have a close relationship with my pharmacist and I know if I asked him, he would definitely be able to so knowing that I am a recovering addict. Just a suggestion. The pharmacy's here do this with patients who need to take methadone. Hope everything works out for you.

Pren.

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