Side Effects Can Suck It

Over the course of about 17 years of searching for the perfect medicines for my various ailments it has become abundantly clear that my body has serious issues with medication.  It does not particularly like when foreign substances are introduced to it.  And my body shows its dissatisfaction with my relentless attempts to cure what ails me by making any possible treatments worse than what it is treating.

Whenever you get a new medication it comes with a nice long list of warnings and possible side effects.  It is quite baffling that we have so many pills for various issues and they all have a lot of the same side effects.  Dry mouth, weight gain, weigh loss, dizziness, headache, tingling in your fingers, etc, etc, etc.  I mean, how crazy is it that I get a medication to treat my headaches that has headaches as a side effect?

I think it is worth mentioning that my own body has yet to choose a side effect like weight loss to tell me how much it hates medication.  This is one of the reasons I believe it is a plot against me.  Never do I get what might be a useful side effect.

So let’s touch on a few of the lovely side effects I’ve had the pleasure of enduring.

Headache

Like I said, this one is crazy.  Most of the medications I’ve taken are for preventing my Chronic Daily Headache so when I read over and over again that these meds can cause headache I just shake my head and sigh.  I’ve had a few that immediately make my headaches more frequent and severe which is exactly the opposite of what they are supposed to do.  Sometimes I’ve been told to wait it out and see if it is just something that will go away.  That’s one of the awesomely annoying things about side effects, they may only last a little while and so you are supposed to wait around and see if they get better and then you get the good effects of the medicine.

Dry Mouth

Honestly this one is the mildest one.  It does have a good aspect of making you drink more water which is good for everyone, right?  So naturally I’ve had this one maybe once or twice.

Fatigue

Seriously what mother needs anything to make her MORE tired?  I hate when I can barely get up in the morning, especially if the medicine happens to be for depression.  I mean what the HELL?  Shouldn’t something for depression make me bounce out of bed dancing a jig?

Dizziness

This particular side effect has been the bane of my existence for about 6 years.  After having kids, this one has been the most common side effect of pretty much everything I’ve tried.  I can’t tell you the number of times I have had to stop driving for weeks as I get past dizziness from one medication or another.  And just this last weekend I went to the ER because I spent hours trying to control the dizziness and get my blood pressure back up.  Of course they found nothing wrong so I’m pretty sure it was the latest migraine preventative.

Allergic Reaction

I guess I should consider myself lucky this one hasn’t happened more often.  About 2 months ago I broke out in a huge and INCREDIBLY ITCHY rash after dealing with 3 weeks of dizziness from a migraine preventative.  That’s right, I had one side effect I was waiting out for 3 weeks then WHAMMO, I’m hit with an allergic reaction that makes me quit the stupid medication.  What a waste.  And it took another week and a steroid to get the damn rash to go away.

Suicidal Thoughts

Honestly this one was the worst.  And it was due to a medication for anxiety.  How’s that for ridiculous?  Luckily I recognized that the thoughts were out of my ordinary and stopped the medication immediately which made my brain back to my version of normal.  But that was scary.

Now maybe what I should be getting from all of this stubbornness from my body is that some medication is not the answer for me.  I need to find a way to heal myself from the inside.  I think deep down I know that is the right thing to be working on.  But, of course, it is really hard to heal yourself from the inside when I feel like utter crap all the time.  It’s a paradox that you need to exert so much effort when you have so little to give.  Even though we all know that if you give that effort, you will get back so much more.

I’m working on believing that wholeheartedly and turning it into action.  It’s hard though.  Adding all these side effects into the mix doesn’t help either.