Pain, Pills, and Progress

I really don’t care to take medicine if I don’t have to. Its not a big conviction, or that I feel its wrong or bad or harmful to me to take medicine, but plain and simply, I’m terrible at swallowing pills! If all medications were chewable or liquid, I’d probably be quicker to take something when I’m in pain. Even as a young teen, folded in half with menstrual cramps, I fought taking Advil until I absolutely couldn’t get it together anymore. I’d finally try to swallow those stupid things, and I’d gag and shiver and cry and it was pretty much worse than the cramps themselves :/ I’m just bad at meds, and I’ve come to accept it.

With this fun strained muscle I’ve been dealing with, I’ve been taking upwards of twenty seven pills in a day. No lie. Twenty seven. And that is what I’ve been considering “standard.” Every once in a while, I’ll take my dose, at the right time and everything, and it just doesn’t touch me. When that happens, I have two prescriptions that are “take as needed” medications. Depending on the time of day, and who I’m with, I make my choice, and take something extra. So you can imagine how much fun I’ve been having loading my body with pills over the last few weeks. None at all. Two upsides, though. One is that I’m getting much better at swallowing pills! And the other, more important, upside is that I’ve been relatively pain-free thanks to my medicine. Wednesday, while I was out shopping, I fell a half hour behind in my dose, and I felt it immediately. It made me wonder when this crappy pain would end, and how I would even know when to consider possibly weaning off of everything.

But something curious happened to me yesterday. While one of our guests was over, I missed a dose. And I didn’t notice until 3.5 hours later when it was just about time for the next dose! I was incredibly shocked! Not wanting to fall super far behind, I took my full dose of meds right away (just a little early), and I took the next one four hours later. Aaand then I slept through another dose that I was supposed to take in the night! And I didn’t notice that one until it was almost time for the next one!

While I would love to just throw my pills out the window right now, I think we all know how bad of a decision that would be. But it did give me some hope that healing is coming! So I did some math, and chatted with my mom on the phone about it all. I think now is the time to start weaning off of at least some of these meds! Very, very slowly. That way, if suddenly I’m wrong, and I’m not ready to be off yet, I can catch back up faster than if I just went off of everything cold turkey. The change I plan to implement over the next two days or so will only remove three pills from the current number I’m taking, but its a start. I’m sooo hesitant to start going off, because guys, this pain is pretty much unbelievable, and makes it VERY challenging to do much of anything. Forget laundry and unpacking boxes! What about lifting my new baby from his bouncy chair, or just being in a sitting position long enough to read someone a story? Almost impossible, no lie. This cannot get out of control again!

I feel like I should just specify that nothing that I’m taking is too crazy. All over the counter, except the stomach protector I’m taking to avoid the possibility of developing ulcers from – you guessed it! – taking too many pills! My “as needed” meds are stronger, but I’ve only had to use them a couple of times. Definitely not abusing anything, I promise!

This is kind of a weird, jumbled post, but I’m writing it because I feel HOPEFUL that there is an end in sight! I expected some postpartum discomfort, of course, because its reality, but I never expected something like this, and I am SO anticipating its departure from my life!

Cheers to taking twenty four pills every day rather than twenty seven, haha!