I put a prescription repeat into the pharmacy and was informed that a pain killer I have been taking since 1994 has been discontinued.  Discontinued?!? A term usually trolled out in relation to your favourite nail polish or eye shadow or something! But medicines discontinued? This doesn’t bode well. So I asked Cindy Lou, my friendly neighbourhood pharmacy assistant “What’s the deal with the Digesic?” and in due course a message came back to me “It’s been discontinued and they’re not replacing it, sorry.  Too many side effects and it’s stuffing people’s hearts up.”  Oh, shit.

So I come home and (as you do) hit the internets.  Turns out Digesic and many other medications containing dextropropoxyphene have been discontinued… back in fucking 2004 by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the UK and back in 2007 by the Federal Drug Administration in the US! So why the hell is Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration only just discontinuing the distribution of this medication now – in 2012!?!

Apparently they are still available in the US for named patients only (people addicted to the stupid things) but they carry a ‘black label’ warning that reads

“Should be used with extreme caution, if at all, in patients who have a history of substance/drug/alcohol abuse, depression with suicidal tendency, or who already take medications that cause drowsiness Eg: antidepressants (tick), muscle relaxants (tick), pain relievers (tick), sedatives (tick), tranquilizers (Hmmm… maybe I need me some ketamine just for weekends, you know!) Fatalities have occurred in such patients when misused.”

So yeah, apparently they are contraindicated with nearly everything else that I have been taking for years. now They can cause/worsen depression, have been implicated in usually high suicide rates, have a high risk of fatal overdose due to the drugs innate toxicity and and can cause cardiac membrane damage and subsequently arrhythmias, particularly with extended or long term use! Oh joy of joys. Nothing like discovering the pain killers I’ve been throwing back like Tic Tacs for the last 18 years or so may have potentially caused heart damage – yay!

Oh and bonus fun fact – The high toxicity and relatively easy availability made it a drug of choice for right to die societies. It’s listed in Dr. Philip Nitschke’s The Peaceful Pill Handbook and Dr. Pieter Admiraal’s Guide to a Human Self-Chosen Death.

W00t!  Euthanasia drugs – fun for the whole family!!!

I can’t believe I’ve been taking this shit for years and it should have been off our shelves years ago. Maybe it’s time to go have a heart check up :S

In the middle of the night… I went walking in my sleep.. through a valley of fear… to a river so deep…
and I don’t remember the rest of the lyrics.

No that’s not what happened.  In the middle of the night, I got up and purposefully strode towards the air con controls in the back hallway because it was hot in the worm Bernard (read: my room was rather warm and the air rather still) to see what the temperature was set on… and totally forgot about the large boards we have placed in the kitchen to hinder the new puppy from getting into the living room areas without supervision.

Which resulted in me falling over at approx 1.20am onto my hands and knees.  So what?  Well, having a wee spill of that nature shouldn’t bother anyone too much I guess… give you a bruised knee perhaps.  Unfortunately that was not my experience.  I feel rather heavily on my hands and immediately felt nauseating pain shooting up my shoulders and neck… and it doesn’t seem to have settled down some 18 odd hours later. 

It better calm back down to it’s usual dull roar soon or I am so fucked …
.

Three days ago, a sixteen year old girl who lived around the corner from us committed suicide.

I dont think I ever met this girl who lived so nearby.
I don’t ever remember seeing her in the street.
I don’t recall what she looked like.
I don’t know what her homelife was like.
I don’t know any of the circumstances of her situation.
I don’t know her name even.
I didn’t know her at all.

But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since.

I do know that in some unspeakable and socially unacceptable way I admire her conviction.  No doubt this is my chronic pain and depression talking given I’ve spent many, many days wishing I could find a way out of my own sometimes overwhelming problems… but mostly I just feel sad.

I feel sad
… because she must have been dealing with seemingly insurmountable issues
… because they must have have been much larger than her maturity could handle. 
… that she may have felt very alone or perhaps like she had no one to turn to.
… that maybe no one noticed her desperation.
… that maybe someone did but may have passed it off as adolescent angst.

I feel sad because at 16 you don’t know that today’s mountains might be tomorrow’s molehills.

Didn’t sleep so good.
Feel dopey from the medication.
My back is killing me and my neck feels ‘crunchy’.
I still have that head ache from Tuesday week ago.

Not looking forward to another week that resembles this one….  but somehow they all seem to in one measure or another.
.