Friday, June 10, 2005

'Safe' drug link to heart attacks

This is not welcome news. Mentioned in the report is one of the prescribed drugs I take -- diclofenac. Which seems to work well and leaves me with few unpleasant side effects. I have got it down to three tablets a week. The fewer tablets, the better.
Ibuprofen? It never seemed to work for me and I also experienced a series of unpleasant side effects: including day-long nausea, lassitude and weariness, and bouts of dizziness. I lived like that for weeks, and was not the best of company.
Celebrex? I was prescribed that about a year after it came out -- that didn't seem to work either -- so I stopped that several years ago.
Then, I saw some pain management specialists at Queen Mary Hospital. Who knew they were there? I didn't. I was in for something else and I guess the nurses saw I was in so much pain.
The pain people talked to me and asked me all kinds of questions. Pain can be surprisingly difficult to describe with any sort of accuracy. But they had some kind of checklist and kept asking me: on a scale of one to ten...
After which they first prescribed a codeine formula -- it didn't work -- so they then prescribed diclofenac. Which did work, and does.
I have known all along that these drugs have risks attached. But I also know what life is like without them: crippling pain. So, I guess I will keep taking the tablets.

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