#Medications

[chronicillnesshumor]

[maculategiraffe]

so I have always been a bit boggled by the idea of "self esteem." like I have always liked myself and wanted the best for myself and thought I was awesome and yet therapists have constantly been accusing me of having "low self esteem"

and it's only very recently that I have worked out that by Self Esteem they mean more like-- trusting myself. to be able to do what I want done. and my whole life I have been real shaky on that not because I don't think I'm awesome but because I have become increasingly and miserably aware that I have a fucking neurological condition. or two. that make it extremely difficult to do certain things no matter how much I want them done

and now that I've gotten myself diagnosed and medicated I am more getting what they mean. like. now I know I probably CAN do the thing if I am properly medicated and have gotten a good night's sleep and deploy the right playlist. and everything is way less scary because of that

but it's not because. like. I just needed to esteem myself more?? it's like if I fought and fought and finally got a wheelchair and was like "okay NOW I know I can make it through an entire trip to the grocery store" and people were like "see! you just needed to believe in yourself!" no I needed Y'ALL to fucking believe me

[elizabethmerck]

It’s been a while since I posted Bridgerton funny memes. Here’s another product series (medications this time). Hope you have a giggle! 🤭

[schizopositivity]

I know too many mentally ill and disabled people to think that taking medication every day is strange. At this point it's more baffling to think that some people don't take any medication. Like people are really out here rawdogging life? People exist who don't have to constantly worry about refilling their meds? Now THAT is strange to me.

[like-this-post-if-you]

Like this post if you take daily meds

[sapphic-sprite]

It’s been record breaking high temperatures all over the world for the last couple months so I’d like to implore y’all to please check the warnings on your medications. I know personally one of my medications makes me sensitive to natural/artificial sunlight and the other makes me more susceptible to being dehydrated. SSRIs, commonly, can make you heat intolerant. Make sure you are checking the reactions that your medications can have so you don’t end up in the hospital as summer is not over and we will continue to have increasingly high temperatures.

[localdorkincombatboots]

Please Help My Family

Between handling my mils affairs after her death, rent going up another $200, my mother losing her job, and my bf's medical problems continuing to get worse and his job taking days away from him, we desperately need help.

Where our rent has gotten so high + my mother losing her job which also provided her housing, we're hoping to be able to use her vacation payout to buy the cheapest possible mobile home we've been able to find. It's in such bad shape that it'll probably take a month to fix everything but this appears to be the only way for us to set things up in a way that we won't have to worry as bad about money later on, esp considering lot rent there is 1/4 of the price of our current rent.

We're still behind on all of our current bills due to everthing that has been happening plus more recent events including my bf having another heart attack and his tumors growing to the point of a couple of them metastizing.

Please we desperately need help to catch back up on our current bills and to afford the materials needed to fix the floor in the trailer so that we can move there and not have nearly as many bills to worry about.

PayPal: crackerjaxx7@gmail.com

Venmo: jayep7

Cashapp: jayep7

If you can't send anything, please rebog this so hopefully someone who can help might see this.

[cleolinda]

Medications I am taking for my current ordeal

Prednisone: Steroid. Reduces the inflammation of my herniated disc. Knocked out 99% of the pain. MVP. Mood elevation for a couple of weeks (wanted to deep clean the whole house), then it started to make me kind of mentally scattered and easily agitated. Spinal doctor discontinued it so I can have a Big Steroid in two weeks.

Tylenol: A good time. Helps pain a lot. Does more for me than actual opioids. Watch your liver.

Flexeril: Muscle relaxer. Will make you (me) groggy for days afterwards without actually doing much. Mostly made me not care that things hurt. Did keep me from deep-cleaning the house. It was that or a tranquilizer dart.

Meloxicam: Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory. Leg is a little fussy but 90% of the pain is at bay. Makes me loopy and kind of groggy but it’s only for two weeks. Acceptable.

Tizanidine: Muscle relaxer. No perceptible benefit, feels like being drunk, makes me post about politics. Discontinuing immediately.

[cranquis]

https://www.dea.gov/everyday-takeback-day

A list of free drop-box locations across the United States where you can dispose of unwanted/expired medications.

[dsudis]

Hey the ADHD meds + vitamin C post is misinformation, that’s not true across the board and some adhd meds are fine even mixed into orange juice or yogurt

Ther Drug Monit. 2016 Dec; 38(6): 769–776. Published online 2016 Nov 16. doi: 10.1097/FTD.0000000000000343

PMCID: PMC5158093PMID: 27661399

Whoops! Good to know!

[maculategiraffe]

ooh ooh I thought of another metaphor for adhd medication

it's like if you were a bird, and you kept flying into windows, because you couldn't see the glass, and you thought it was just air, so you tried to fly through it but instead you got bonked and crashed by an invisible forcefield that you can't see even AFTER you bonk it

so you got REAL wary of invisible bonking forcefields. you never flew fast just in case. you brought a stick along in your beak so you could poke the air to see if it was really air. you developed alternate routes specifically to avoid head bonking. you still got head bonked. constantly.

but the medication takes the sheets of glass away so you can just fly like normal. you just keep flying along to where you want to go and sometimes you're like "I swear I got bonked RIGHT HERE before" because there was definitely a glass wall in that place before but now it's gone. but a lot of the ones that used to be there, you don't even notice. you just fly along. only occasionally stopping to marvel at how long it's been since you flew headfirst into an invisible barrier and gave yourself a concussion.

and all the other birds who never got bonked in the first place are like "see? it's easy! you just fly along! all that about the air crystallizing on you was just your imagination and your laziness and your lack of consideration for others. I'm glad you decided to get your shit together finally"

[macgyvermedical]

Reference Guide to Writing Drug Withdrawal

So your character has a substance use disorder (or physical dependence to a substance for another reason). This post will tell you how to write a scene (or story) in which they go through withdrawal.

NOTE: THIS POST DOES NOT INTEND TO COVER ANYTHING EXCEPT WITHDRAWAL, WHICH IS A VERY SMALL PART OF SUBSTANCE USE DISORDER AND PHYSICAL DEPENDENCE.

Substance Use Disorders and Physical Dependence:

Substance use disorders are chronic illnesses in which a person continues to use a substance (commonly nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, opioids like heroin or fentanyl, benzodiazepines, etc...) even when acquiring or using the substance can be dangerous or cause significant problems in their life (such as problems with money, safety, law enforcement, job security, child services involvement, or physical problems like wounds, infections, side effects, hangovers, and withdrawal). Substance use disorders are a common cause of physical dependence.

Physical dependence is also it's own problem and can occur for other reasons too. For example, many people take prescription medications that they would go through withdrawal from if stopped abruptly (say, because the pharmacy couldn't fill it in time and they ran out). Assuming that the medication is being taken as prescribed, physical dependence in itself does not mean someone has a substance use disorder.

So what is withdrawal? Withdrawal (sometimes called "detox") is the process by which a body stops being physically dependent on a substance. Generally speaking, it is unpleasant. This is because when a body is exposed to a substance repeatedly, it changes how it functions to accommodate that substance. When the substance is removed, there is a period of time where the body has to re-adjust to not having the substance.

For example, alcohol is very similar to the neurotransmitter (brain chemical) GABA. If you drink a lot of alcohol (more than about 4 drinks per day) for longer than about a month, the body decreases the amount of GABA it makes naturally to accommodate the "fake" GABA from the alcohol. If the alcohol is suddenly removed, the body doesn't have enough GABA, and the effects of not having enough GABA result in withdrawal symptoms.

The difference being, someone taking a medication they no longer want to take can slowly reduce the dose to minimize withdrawal symptoms. Someone with a substance use disorder usually finds cutting back nearly impossible. Because of this, managing physical dependence in someone with substance use disorder generally means giving them a similar substance which they get from a pharmacy and take continuously (methadone, buprenorphine), or a similar substance they can then taper off of in a controlled way (benzodiazepines, gabapentin).

Specific Withdrawal Syndromes:

Alcohol/Benzodiazepines:

These are the only two substances that result in a potentially life-threatening withdrawal syndrome, and it's essentially the same syndrome. As stated above, when taken for either 2 weeks for benzodiazepines or 4 weeks for alcohol, the body decreases the amount of GABA it produces naturally. GABA is the "brake pedal" in the brain, slowing things down and decreasing the amount of activity. If you don't have enough GABA, you get too much activity, which can result in severe anxiety, insomnia, seizures, hallucinations, high blood pressure, temperature, and pulse rate, heart arrhythmias, and confusion.

6-12 hours after a person's last drink, they will experience insomnia, anxiety, tremors, and headache.

12-24 hours after a person's last drink, if untreated with benzodiazepines or gabapentin, they may start to experience hallucinations (they typically know they are hallucinating at this point).

24-48 hours after a person's last drink, if untreated, they may start to experience seizures.

48-72 hours after a person's last drink, if untreated, they may start to experience a severe symptom known as delerium tremens. This is a state where they are hallucinating severely and they don't know they are hallucinating anymore. This is also a state where the person has heart rhythm problems that could result in death. This is the most dangerous period during withdrawal.

If a person makes it through 72 hours, they are usually in the clear as far as life threatening symptoms go, though they may experience mild symptoms like headaches and insomnia for long periods afterwards.

Note that medication for alcohol or benzodiazepine withdrawal like other benzodiazepines, phenobarbital, and gabapentin are given only for the first 5 days of withdrawal, tapering to lower doses each day. This gets the person through the dangerous part hopefully with no life threatening symptoms. It does not mean all symptoms are controlled, but they are hopefully kept on the milder end while the brain learns to make it's own GABA again.

Opioids:

Opioids include a range of drugs including prescription medications like oxycodone, hydromorphone, and morphine, as well as street drugs like heroin. Today, the street drug supply in many places is heavily adulterated. Many samples of heroin (and even "pressed pills" made to look like prescription opioids) contain the much stronger opioid fentanyl (which increases risk of overdose) and the sedative xylazine (which causes wounds) in addition to the expected heroin or oxycodone.

Opioids work by pretending to be endorphins- another neurotransmitter usually used by the body to reduce pain and stress. Similarly to GABA in alcohol use, the body reacts to having sustained high amounts of fake endorphins by decreasing the amount of endorphins it makes itself. This means, when the opioids are no longer present, the body can't make itself feel good or recover from pain.

There are many parts of the body that endorphins work in, including the brain, gut, nerves, and spine. When they are removed, symptoms include:

Nausea and vomiting.

Diarrhea.

Insomnia.

Anxiety.

Increased body temperature.

Racing heart.

Muscle and bone pain.

Sweating.

Chills.

High blood pressure.

There is not really a universal timeline for these symptoms like there is with alcohol. For someone who primarily uses short-acting opioids, withdrawal begins 8-24 hours after the last use (though anxiety and cravings can start much sooner). For people who primarily use long-acting opioids, withdrawal can take up to 36 hours to begin following the last use. Generally, symptoms peak within 1-3 days after they start, and acute symptoms last 10-14 days.

Unfortunately, someone who has an opioid use disorder will frequently experience cravings for very long periods of time (potentially the rest of their life) after they stop use. For this reason, people do significantly better at reducing or stopping use over the long haul if they are taking an opioid replacement drug like methadone or buprenorphine.

Methadone and buprenorphine are prescription medications that a person goes somewhere each day to get (methadone) or picks up each day from the pharmacy (buprenorphine). The drugs essentially make it so the person won't go into withdrawal and will have significantly fewer cravings for as long as they take the drug.

The management of opioid withdrawal is usually done by switching the person from a street drug to one of these opioid replacement drugs. However, it is important to note that methadone doesn't work immediately (usually it takes about 2-5 days of titrating it up to get it to a high enough dose to work, longer if the person has a very high tolerance). Buprenorphine requires a certain amount of time in withdrawal (usually a day or two) before it can be given, or it can make withdrawal worse instead of better (something called precipitated withdrawal).

Once someone is on one of these medications, they can choose to stay on them (recommended) or taper off (nice to be off meds in theory, but high rates of return-to-use).

Cocaine/Amphetamines:

Instead of pretending to be a neurotransmitter, stimulants like cocaine and amphetamines prevent the body from re-absorbing the neurotransmitter dopamine, leading to a whole bunch of it hanging out in the brain. This increases concentration and energy and boosts mood. However, taken over long periods of time, the brain kind of burns out and fails to respond to the high levels of dopamine.

You may have heard that amphetamines and cocaine don't have withdrawal states. That would be a myth. People who use stimulants repeatedly for long periods frequently have a withdrawal that is essentially the opposite of the effects of stimulants- they feel very tired, have trouble focusing, and feel depressed because their brains can't use dopamine the same way they did before the drug use. This may last for weeks after cessation of stimulants.

Unfortunately, unlike with alcohol and opioids, there's not a ton that can be done for this withdrawal. There have been several studies, including testing medications like the antidepressant mertazapine, the migraine medicine topiramate, as well as naltrexone and buproprion (also an antidepressant).

In Conclusion:

There is so much more to drug use, substance use disorder, and physical dependence than I am covering in this post. I am just covering a small part of physical dependence, however the cause, by discussing the effects and common treatments for withdrawal.

Thank you all for reading this far! I hope you learned something and will use it in your writing!

[crazycatsiren]

Every time I'm at the pharmacy I'm reminded from all around me the utter nightmare that's the United States healthcare system.

[earhartsease]

someone close to us who shall remain nameless ordered some grey market testosterone because their GP was dicking them about (resolved now)

it recently arrived and you know how when you buy stuff off etsy it often comes with whimsical extras like sticky stars or gummies?

well this came with free estrogen suppressants and viagra and cialis - and we're speculating that it's maybe a starter pack for people doing steroids or something because wtf

and we were like if they were doing this specifically for transmascs they'd include finasteride or minoxidil instead of viagra