Medication Nation

As some readers may already know, I'm currently recovering from a back injury that left me with 2 slipped disks and a single ruptured one. These days the pain isn't so bad, but a few months ago the pain was pretty intense. I just started lifting above 10 lbs, and walk without too much difficulty. Thanks to a short regimen of prednisone, I recovered quickly - these days just 800 mgs (third of the max daily dose) of ibuprofen keeps me able to walk. Most days I'm able to lift, and the numbness in my legs is minimal. Enough background - here is what is on my mind.

After almost fully recovering, workers comp. finally approved a specialist to evaluate my injury and prescribe treatment. The appointment was in January 22nd. My injury occurred on August 10th. Good thing the general practitioner and my PT were able to get me to work again, I only missed a few days thanks to just 4 days of prednisone. If I had waited for the specialist, I would have been at home for months. It might seem decent to sit at home and collect a check, but I would have gone out of my mind! My work is very important to me, and I would have returned completely out of the loop.

Imagine my surprise when I finally got to see the "specialist" and he completely changed my medication after simply reading my case history that was months out of date. I told him carefully that I was managing the pain just fine with advil, but he didn't seem to mind stuffing me full of some pretty heavy meds.

To start my day, he wanted to take a pill for the inflammation. Handy since this is the source of the nerve pain - the disks are bulging against the nerves leading out of 2 vertebrae in my lower lumbar region and anti-inflammatories help a great deal. Since the stuff he wanted to me to take can cause bleeding, he prescribed Xantac to "protect my stomach". This apparently means "covers his ass". I used it for a week. Not only was I in immense pain for a few days because it didn't work, I felt like I was on some kind of mind-altering drug. Hey wait, I was!

That's not all; he also prescribed Neurontin. For those of you who are familiar with such a thing, you'll know this ALSO messes with your head. It makes you sleepy, dizzy and nauseous. But, no worries - the good doctor also prescribed some sleeping pills. Side effects? Dizziness and nausea. It seems that the doctor was well aware of the anxiety and restlessness that are caused by the anti-inflammatory, and simply decided to omit this fact from our 12 minutes spent together. That's right - 12 minutes. That includes the 3 and a half minutes I took to follow him into the hall after he tried to take off without explaining a damn thing about the crap he was giving me. His lame ass excuse for the drowsiness inducing meds? "You need a full nights sleep to heal properly." No kidding! Did he ask me if I was having trouble sleeping? Nope. He just assumed I'd be an anxious wreck from all the drugs, and did not tell me. Bingo! I felt like I was on cocaine just from the anti-inflammatory. Score one for the drug companies!

So, it comes down to this: a few advil a day or 2 drugs to do the same thing plus ANOTHER 2 to counteract the bad side effects. On top of it all, they didn't work HALF as well as just a few generic ibuprofen tabs.

No thanks doc, I'll stick with the ibuprofen.