Monthly Archives: March 2015

Health, Hope

Bitterness and recovery

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So I continue to struggle with my health and my recovery from poisonous antibiotics, but there has been a shift.

I let go of the bitterness.

Bitterness has a sharp taste, and it stings like tiny needles. I know because I’ve been living with it for four months. There has been a lot to be bitter about these past four months as I’ve mourned the loss of my health: bitter that the pharmaceutical companies and the FDA are immoral, unethical, and corrupt; bitter that my doctors are misinformed and uneducated and unknowingly prescribed a poison; bitter that some doctors won’t even listen to their patients, instead they believe the “research” that the pharmaceutical companies have funded and provided over what their patients are telling them; bitter that I have no legal recourse and the institutions can continue to poison more people and make their money.

And of course, the ubiquitous, “Why me?” Just bitter at the universe that I have been selected to experience this pain and sadness.

These have been my thoughts for four months, almost to the exclusion of thoughts of my children and my husband. Self-pity and deep, intense bitterness.

Also, these past four months, I have searched for the stories of others, trying to find hope in their journeys. I was poisoned by Zithromax that, from what I’ve read from other people, will take several months from which to recover. Since it’s a “relatively” short recovery time, there isn’t any support on the internet. However, it takes years to recover from fluoroquinolone antibiotics, and there are support groups and websites on the internet to help people. All of these support groups and websites are run by people who have suffered the poisoning themselves because the government, the pharmaceutical companies and the doctors offer no help — they don’t even acknowledge that the problem exists. So a grassroots support system has sprung up as ordinary people try to help each other go through a terrible and painful ordeal.

Many of the symptoms are the same except that my recovery time will be much shorter and there will be none of the tendon problems. The twitching, anxiety, “cycling”, muscle pain, headaches — all of that is the same. So I have been extrapolating from their stories. And today I was surfing the stories of recovery on floxiehope.com, and in most of the stories, the person, at some point, quit being bitter. They accepted their journey and let go of the personal witch hunt that was going on constantly in their heads.

And as I let the bitterness go — as I let the thoughts of hatred, anger and revenge towards all of these institutions and doctors go – I instantly felt better. It happened. And it’s happening to other people right now as they innocently and trustingly take their antibiotics, so I do think it’s important to get the word out, to be a voice. But I have to let the bitterness go. It’s hindering my happiness, my recovery and my health.

I want to live and love and be healthy again and be with my family, and, as long as I’m deeply and intensely filled with anger and bitterness, I’m impeding my own progress. I’m my own enemy. So instead of staying focused in the past, I choose to trust in my future. It’ll all be okay. I’ll be a different person — I’m already a different person — but it’ll all be okay.

And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.

— Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

Health

Pharmaceutical drugs: My story of naive addiction

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I have been through a very painful and transformative journey since the end of November of last year. Only four months has passed since this all began on November 20th, the fateful day that I took Zithromax.

I’ve already written several blog posts about my recovery from the horrific side effects of Zithromax, so I’m not going to rehash that part of the journey. I want to relate my unexpected and unintended rehabilitation from pharmaceutical drug abuse.

First of all, I didn’t realize that I even had a problem. I’ve been taking Maxalt and Vicodin for seven years to control headache pain. My headaches began in my early 30s. At first, I used Excedrin Migraine to control the pain, but the headaches were chronic. Eventually, I discussed the problem with my doctor, and we attempted to fix the problem with pharmaceuticals.

He prescribed Maxalt and Vicodin to manage the pain, and we tried three different beta blockers as a preventative measure. The side effects of each beta blocker was worse than the headaches (that’s why we kept trying different beta blockers), and eventually, after the third beta blocker which made me feel miserable, I told my doctor that I didn’t want any more prescription drugs. I told him that I was going to try to clean up my diet (which was terrible — I ate lots of fast food and sugar) and exercise. But I kept the Maxalt and Vicodin to handle the pain. That was seven years ago.

I knew that Vicodin was addictive, so I monitored my use of it. But I still used the Maxalt and Vicodin frequently. Out of every month, I was using the drugs maybe 10 to 15 days out of the 30. Since I wasn’t using the Vicodin every day and I had the blessing of my doctor and the pharmacy, I thought everything was good.

But I won’t lie to you: I did enjoy the high. When you’re stressed out or sad, you get high and everything is okay. You’re okay and the world is okay and you’re happy and everything is going to be alright. I don’t judge people who use drugs. I understand where they are coming from: with drugs, you quit emotionally hurting for a little while. But drugs always always make the problem worse. But I understand the temptation and appeal (and ultimately the illusion and destruction) of drugs.

But that wasn’t me… or so I thought. I was taking my drugs as prescribed by my doctor and condoned by society. Now fast forward to November 20th of last year. By this point in my life, if a doctor gave me a pharmaceutical drug, I quite happily and with trust took it. I had walking pneumonia, so I took the prescribed Zithromax.

The pain is truly indescribable. I can no more describe the pain of an adverse reaction to Zithromax than I can describe the pain of childbirth to you. Only those that have been through it truly understand the intense pain. And after going through such extreme physical and mental pain, I developed a phobia — a true phobia — of pharmaceutical drugs. So I quit taking the Maxalt and Vicodin. I was terrified of them and didn’t know what they would do to my body.

The headaches were so bad. But I was already in such extreme pain from the Zithromax that I just endured all of it. (I say I endured it, but the truth is, for the worst six weeks of my recovery, my husband and my mother carried me. I had lost hope, and I was physically exhausted and in constant pain. They took care of me, held me and encouraged me, and carried me.)

Now, four months later, I’m still recovering. I still have “bad” days, but I’m 90% back to normal. But something has changed. An apathy, that I was completely unaware of, and lack of energy have lifted. My husband noticed it as well. Even though I didn’t take the drugs every day, there was enough of the substance in my system for the apathy to be continuous. I would always choose to play video games or watch TV or surf the internet. I was never motivated to do anything that required any energy.

Also, my headaches have diminished. I still have them and they still are painful, but I don’t have them nearly as frequently and they are not as painful. I understand how difficult it is to give up pain medication though. When a headache comes on, I want the Maxalt and Vicodin so much because it hurts so much. But my phobia kicks in and wins.

Also, I find when I’m stressed out or sad, I crave the Maxalt and Vicodin. I want to get high. I want that feeling that everything is alright with me and the world, and we’re all going to be okay. I didn’t even know I had that craving until I quit taking the drugs. It’s weird when you have something as important as that going on with yourself and you don’t even know it.

There is no lesson to this story. It is simply what it is. But this is such a common story for modern American life that I felt it was worthy of sharing. There is connection, shared experience and truth in this story, and I wish everyone who is wandering this road all the best.