::Griffblog::

I’m now 9 days in and it’s been far far harder than I had anticipated!

I’d optimistically thought that the worst would be over after 3-4 days but over a week in and I’m still struggling with the side effects of the morphine withdrawal.

With 24hours of stopping I was suffering the expected symptoms of aches and pains, headaches, flu like symptoms etc but the worst was the agitation and a weird feeling in arms and legs which caused me to shake them continually for hours at a time. A mix of pins and needles, a buzzing feeling etc.

It meant sleep was very difficult and for the first few days I could only sleep when pure exhaustion took over, sometimes grabbing a few hours at most.

Most of these symptoms are now much less severe but the restless legs/arms hasn’t gone, it has subsided a a little which helps but sleep is still difficult albeit I am so tired now that it happens sooner!

A new symptom now is I have little energy and anything I do saps what little I have left. We travelled to Wales last week to visit my folks and within 30mins of setting off I had to hand over driving to MrsG as I was struggling to concentrate.

From all I have read (and once the symptoms kicked in I did the research I ought to have done beforehand!), it seems that the worst should be over anytime soon with symptoms subsiding after 2wks. I hope that this is true as, had I known how bad this would be, I would never have contemplated attempting it!

MrsG discussed options for alleviating some of the many side effects with a local pharmacist and he said I should never have stopped dead even at the low dosage I had reduced to. Instead I should have continued to reduce much more slowly, too late now!

Thankfully, my decision not to leave any Oramorph in the house has meant I can’t cheat, had there been any here I would have given in on day 2/3 without doubt. Indeed I’m not sure I wouldn’t give in now if I could get access to some of the medication. But as it is, I’m not going to go back and ask for a new prescription as I’m sure the worst is behind me.

Those of you who have followed the progress of my operation will know that I was taking morphine, tramadol and voltarol regularly to deal with the pain of the ilizarov fixator device.

Whilst I could never have coped without the help of the pain medications, the downside is of course that, now the procedure is complete I have to go through drug withdrawal.

I had been taking tramadol and morphine at 4hourly intervals for over 6mths. Both are very strong opiate based medications and both have known addictive side effects. So I was somewhat prepared for the fact that my body would have developed an addiction and I would have to suffer the symptoms of withdrawal.

I’ve been here before, when I had the original accident and broke my back I was on strong opiate meds for over a year. And so my GP agreed that I should undertake a slow progressive withdrawal. This involves my reducing the meds by small amounts in gradual stages.

I started with reducing the Tramadol, a tablet based med. This was relatively easy. Reducing from two tablets to one and then none over a week . But the morphine reduction is proving much much harder.

I started out at doses of 10mg 3 times per day. Now after two months I’m taking 5mg three times per day.

Initially I was able to reduce the dose by 1 or 2mg without any noticeable side effects but as I approached 6mg they kicked in with a vengeance!

Now, each time I move down a step and reduce the dose I have to endure a range of symptoms including nausea, anxiety, clamminess and various aches and pains.

Even describing the symptoms doesn’t come anywhere near to how awful it actually makes you feel but I know there is an end game. It does make you realise how hard it must be for heroin addicts to give up.

The hardest part for me is that I have a large bottle of the medicine to hand. I know that I can all too easily resolve all of my symptoms by taking more morphine and so it takes a great deal of will power not to succumb.

For anyone who has struggled with a diet or given up cigarettes, think back to how easy it was to cheat. Then imagine the hunger pangs or desire for a cigarette were replaced with nausea, pain and all the other nasty side effects of withdrawal. Hard eh?

It’s been a quite a while since I last blogged. Whilst I was in the midst of the ilizarov treatment I found committing my thoughts and progress to the blog was quite cathartic but now I’m on the mend it’s much harder to find the time.

My last leg update at the beginning of March concerned my knee bend, or lack of. That is still the over riding issue albeit I can now achieve almost 90 degrees range of movement at the knee.

It has been very slow progress with twice weekly hydrotherapy inter mixed with a weekly visit to a private physio. The cost has mounted up and as the operation to lengthen my leg was elective, my medical insurance won’t entertain covering the costs unsurprisingly.

The knee itself is much stronger now but it seems to have stuck at almost 90 degrees. It would seem I am unlikely to enjoy any great improvement past that mark without undergoing another operation to free the stuck tissue that, it is believed, is preventing further bend.

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It’s already 5wks since the ilizarov frame was removed and in most respects I’ve recovered rapidly and life in a frame already seems a distant memory.

I say “almost” as there is still one issue that is holding recovery back; my knee.  Although there was nothing wrong with it pre-op, the frame fitting required four pins to be inserted through my knee to stabilise the lower part which effectively locked my knee straight.

This has meant that my knee joint has partially seized.  The tendons and ligaments have all become stiff and the muscle has stuck to surrounding tissue.  This is expected after being immobile for so long but was a side effect I hadn’t truly prepared for.

I had foolishly expected that the knee would bend as soon as the frame came off but not so!

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‘What a difference a day makes’ are lyrics from a well known song and never have they rung more true for me than over the last 24hrs.

Yesterday I blogged about my op and my rather optimistic hopes for my post op mobility. Last night I was sat on the settee quite relaxed and as bedtime approached I got up and, with the aid of crutches, made my way to the stairs.

The moment I got up my leg started to throb badly and as I left the lounge I felt a severe chill and started to shiver. This wasn’t just a slight chill, it was a full on, teeth chattering and body shaking uncontrollably type shiver.

Continue reading…