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Probuphine implants are badly designed.
I have come to this conclusion since I pinched my arm, right at the implant site, between the foot of my daughter’s bed and the wall. (I was plugging in her electric blanket.) Holy Shit That Hurt! I saw stars. Thought I might faint. But it passed.
Now, several days later, I get a sharp stabbing pain in my arm if I move it a certain way or if the sleeve of my coat even gently pulls on my skin near the implants. Either they are broken, or they are pointy. The implants, I mean. Either way, this sucks. You’d think if you’re designing an implant meant to stay in someone’s arm for extended periods of time, it would be more durable, or flexible, or not sharp at least. Ding! I will be glad when they are gone and I am done with this.
Said goodbye to my awesome therapist today. We only worked together a few times, but I really gained a lot from those sessions. She had a mad talent for asking me exactly the right questions to make the bells ding and the lightbulbs pop. This is the worst part of not being able to continue in the study. At least now I know how fuckin effective therapy can be if your therapist is not a complete tool. My expectations for how therapy should benefit me are completely different now. Before, I thought it was good enough to just have a safe place to talk about stuff, now I realize that good therapy will help me make real, positive changes in my life. Woo! Look at me, finding the silver lining.
My explant (implant removal) is Wednesday. I had everything set up with my new suboxone program on time to make the switch, I thought. But of course my insurance company needed some special paperwork and autorization – because the actual prescription isn’t enough to prove that I need the drug, I guess – so the pharmacy can’t fill my scrip. And the insurance co got flooded over the weekend, so who knows what will become of me. Soooooo frustrating, after being on the phone for over an hour trying to sort this out today I almost lost it. But I went in my room and just sat and got myself back in control. Everything will be ok, and if not, freaking out doesn’t help. See how I’ve grown?
There is still so much work for me to do. I worry that I’ll lose motivation to do the hard work because I’m feeling so much better now. I should go to the gym tomorrow and get my week pass & sign up. Then I should do some exercise. I will do this, I’m making a promise to myself right now. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but I will do something.
I like feeling this way. I could get used to it. I really could. The only thing I don’t like is the fact that I get withdrawl sickness if I stop taking the suboxne. Which isn’t all that different from a lot of antidepressants, but the sickness is more immediately felt if my morning dose of suboxone is delayed. This morning my pupils were big, my nose was stuffy and I was a little sweaty. Nothing much, but enough to keep me cognizant of the fact that I am still drug dependant.
Still, for the way that I’ve been feeling for the last month, that is a tiny, tiny price to pay.
I took suboxone today, for the 8th time since I got my 5th implant. According to the study protocol, I am no longer eligible to remain in the study.
My ambivilance toward entering drug treatment so I can continue taking suboxone still hasn’t been resolved. I will try to make an appointment with another doctor who is closer to my home, and at the very least I have decided that I will meet with my counselor at the place where I’m signed up for treatment before I decide.
Friends keep telling me that I can just go along with their program, jump through the hoops and get my medication. I know that I can still benefit from seeing a counselor, but thinking about having to play along with the meetings and the “actively working for recovery” shite just makes me feel tired. I don’t think anyone at the drug treatment place is going to go along with my idea that I wanted suboxone to treat the underlying issues that I was trying to treat with opiates , mainly pain, and also depression. I didn’t go into this thinking that I’d be “working toward total abstinence” at some future point. I went into this looking for relief.
Relief. Which I have gotten since I’ve been on suboxone. This past month has been miraculous for me. My body doesn’t hurt anymore. I have sore feet at the end of a long day standing at work, I get a headache every now and then, I haved a cold and my throat hurts – I can still feel pain and discomfort – but the long-standing, all-over-my-body pain that made me want to stay in bed and cry or take handfuls of vicodin, poof! It’s gone.
And my moods have been so much more stable. I am not numb. On the contrary, I am feeling things much more distinctly now. I am able to realize when I’m annoyed by something, or when someone is crossing a boundary. I feel in touch with my self, and with my family and friends, to a much greater degree than I did 30 days ago. My therapy sessions are productive, and I’ve been able to begin to make changes in my life that will allow me to continue growing and healing.
My life is not perfect, but it is so much better. I think that if I tapered off the suboxone now, I would maybe be able to stay away from the opiates. But I know that my pain will come back, and my depression will too. I could try to continue working in therapy, and maybe go to a pain clinic, though I’ve been there and done that before, and it took a huge amount of effort and will to produce less than great results.
If I could have exactly what I want, I’d find a doctor who was sympathetic to my situation. One who understood that my untreated pain was the trigger for my use, and who would work with me on that issue. I would go to therapy, both mental and physical. I would work hard on fixing my life. But I wouldn’t have to go to groups or meetings, or call myself an addict, or work toward complete abstinence. The thing that burns me up about this is that if I had money, I could find that doctor with no problem. But because my healthcare comes from the state, I have to be in drug treatment to get suboxone.
There is a voice in the back of my mind though, that says that the fact that I’m so adamantly opposed to going to a 12 step meeting is all the more reason that I should do it. I wish it would shut up.
Already, I feel the balance in my mind tilting toward staying on the suboxone even if it means going into drug treatment. I don’t know if this means that I’m weak, or pragmatic.
I have other plans too. Because pain is a big issue for me, I want to use the time I’m allowed on suboxone to make my body stronger and healthier. I am joining a health club where I can swim and take yoga and tai-chi classes and do strength training. This will also help with my depression. I am also going to take some meditation classes, to re-focus my spiritual practice, which I’ve neglected for a long time. If I can, I am going to get help from a nutritionist or a naturopath, to find other ways to support mental and physical health. If I can’t afford that, I’ll get some books.
These are promises I’m making to myself. I know I can’t implement them all at once, but I can make a start. Even if I can only get 6 months of suboxone treatment, maybe that will be enough time to get a stronger foundation of health. Maybe I’ll get so strong and healthy that I won’t need to medicate my pain and suffering any more.
Little C hasn’t gotten the memo about sleeping late on the weekend, so I’ve been up since 6:30ish. Which is strange, because on school days I have to drag her butt out of bed at 7:30. Anyway, here I am.
Friday I was at the study site picking up my suboxone for the weekend and giving one of my obligitory, thrice-a-week urine samples for UA. While I was occupied peeing on my hand (note to pharmacutical co., you need bigger sample cups for the ladies) a woman struck up a conversation with me.
She asked me if I’d had the recent cold that seems to be going around, the one that won’t go away, seems to get better and then comes back. Absolutely, I have. She told me about this apple cider vinegar cure, where you drink vinegar with water and honey and supposedly it cures whatever ails you. She imparted all this information while pooping, somewhat noisily.
I guess that made a big impression on me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the whole apple cider vinegar thing. My cold is getting worse, and my throat hurts. I stopped at the market on the way home last night and bought a bottle of Braggs Organic Raw apple cider vinegar and when I got home I whipped up a drink that I was sure would be nasty and I’d have to choke down, but I thought it would possibly help with my cold. Because, according to the label on the vinegar bottle and about a million websites, apple cider vinegar is the exlir of health and youth.
I made ginger tea first by peeling and slicing about 2″ of ginger root and then putting it in boiling water (about 4 cups) for 5 min. I poured the ginger tea into a jar and added 8tbsp of vinegar (2 per cup) and the same of honey. I shook the whole mess up really well and poured some into a cup – the rest I put into the fridge for today.
Maybe I am just strange, but I actually enjoyed the drink. It was warm and sour and it made me feel better. I liked the acidity on my throat, kind of like the way orange juice can feel good on a sore throat. I woke up this morning and I couldn’t wait to heat up my vinegar toddy and get going. Hopefully it will have some positive effect on my cold. I wonder if it’s helpful for mental illnesses?
I am a little mad at Mr B right now. Last night I told him that I wasn’t feeling well, and that I would need him to be around today. He said he was exhausted from not sleeping on Friday night, but he still chose to go out with a friend last night. This morning he asked me for a muscle relaxer, saying he’s been having these awful cramps in his legs and he couldn’t sleep all night. He didn’t wake me up last night to ask for one, because he thought I would be mad. It seems obvious to me that I wouldn’t be mad at him for waking me up because he was in horrible pain, and I would rather have him well-rested in the morning, than just going to bed because he was up in pain all night. He said he’ll make sure I get a nap later, but still. I said I was going to be needing him today, beacuse I am sick.
This is all the more disappointing, because I was talking to him last night about work, and he was saying all of these supportive things, like my boss doesn’t appreciate me, or respect me. But right now I don’t feel respected by him either. He chose to go out, instead of getting to bed and catching up on his sleep, even though I specifically told him that I was sick and I needed to rest and and and.
Well, I can’t do anything to change that situation right now. Anything I would try to say would just end up provoking a fight which would be a huge waste of energy and end up with me crying and apologizing and having a really bad headache. I am going to try to let go of feeling angry that things didn’t turn out how I wanted them to – me sleeping in while he got up and did the dishes and made breakfast – and instead use my energy, such as it is, to make my house nicer and more appealing to myself.
The only problem is, I’m not so good at the whole letting-go-of-feelings thing. Sometimes I think I’ve let go, and I’ll get the kitchen clean or start playing with C, and then he will wake up and I’ll see him and I’m angry all over again. Maybe I’m not doing it right, or maybe I just need more practice. Maybe I have to let go over and over and over again, every time the feeling comes up. It’s hard, because I feel like I have a right to be angry and to have my feelings heard and validated. But I also know that I’m not going to change him and that when I’m angry it’s never constructive. Ah, I’m confused.
For now, I’m going to sit here and quietly melt my suboxone under my tongue and maybe surf some blogs for a while. C is watching a video, and maybe I’ll have some time to get the kitchen cleaned up and then get to work on the living room. I need to do it, the clutter and the mess of my house is making me feel defeated and anxious. I will try to be in a good head-space about cleaning it too. I wonder how I can accomplish that?
Today was a strange day. Half the time I was really enjoying being at work, talking to people, just appreciating all of the really great elements of my job. Like knowing so many of the customers by name, and watching their kids grow up or meeting their extended families when they visit. Or how the store is like a hub of the mama-community in our neighborhood. At the end of the day, an acquantiance who is starting to feel more like a friend stopped by and we talked for a while, and that was nice. She was one of the amazing mamas from the party the other day, and she invited me to go running with her. I told her this week was bad, but I would call her next week for sure. And I will. Also, one of my favorite customers came in and told me she’s pregnant, and she was just So Happy that it was contagious.
Then, the other half of the time, I was feeling resentful about certain things. I feel really unvalued and unappreciated a lot of the time. I have had a hard time saying no to requests to come in on my day off, to work for trade when I don’t think I should ever have to do that again, to drive all over the place running errands. I am also mad about not getting a raise sooner, and about the fact that I was getting paid the same hourly rate as an employee who’d been there for only a month or so and who I was training for fuck’s sake. Oh, and the fact that almost never do I have a day off when I don’t get at least one call from work, usually just someone needing some stupid question answered, but still.
I guess this is all part of the effect of me not constantly numbing my feelings anymore. Now I have to figure out the balance sheet and decide if what I get from this job makes it worth it for me to continue doing it. I don’t feel like I’m even qualified to evaluate my own life like that, which is pretty fucking sad. I guess there’s no time like the present to figure it out.
I woke up with a sore throat and the general malaise that comes at the onset of a cold today. As the day progressed, I was sweaty and achy. As I was driving home the thought briefly crossed my mind that I would like to get high. Then I realized – ding ding ding – that almost every time I have that thought, it’s because I’m uncomfortable in some way. My body hurting is probably my number 1 trigger, and then hating my life/the state of my house/the way I’m relating to MrB are all big ones too. And I realize that this is stuff that’s completely obvious to people who don’t have their heads up their asses, but the thought occured to me that it would be ok for me to let myself feel crappy for a little while, or hate my mess for a bit, or not have a perfectly harmonious relationship. It won’t kill me.
I don’t know when I became so afraid of pain, so invested in running away from it, avoiding it at all costs. I remember times when I welcomed the pain of exertion, or when I could at least sit with an emotional pain and think about it, try to learn something from it. Now, after a long while of eating pills and more pills to suppress every discomfort all it takes is a mild head cold to set my brain to thinking about oxycodone. A bit of overkill, no? Perhaps a hot bath and some advil is in order, and a soild night of sleep.
I did get the 5th implant on Wednesday. I forgot to bring along my headphones, and so was treated to a blow-by-blow description of the procedure as the doctor explained what he was doing to another doctor who was observing. It’s pretty surreal to listen to someone talking about “cutting down to the subcutaneous layer” and “separating these layers of tissue with a forceps” and being aware that they are talking about what they are doing to your body, right that very second, even though you can’t feel it.
I ended up turning on the tv to distract myself. Lucky for me, an episode of Little House on the Prairie was just starting! So hokey, I know, but so comforting at the same time, and so unintentionally funny. Fittingly, the episode was about a surgical procedure, it was positively synchronistic. Caroline had a badly infected leg, and she was gravely ill while the rest of the family frolicked the days away at the lake. A cataclysmic thunderstorm and a runaway cow added to the tension, but the procedure being performed on my arm was done and the nurse came to tell me I was free to go.
J, the med student who works with the study coordinator, was much ragging on me for being into LHotP, and I was denying my interest even as I couldn’t tear myself away from the tv. Soon enough, he was sucked in, and then the nurse came back in and we all stood there in the hospital room, watching the end of the show. Plucky Caroline consulted the Bible to for guidance on treating her infected leg, and of course turned to the passage that tells the reader to cut off your hand if it offends you. Into the fire she thrusts the butcher knife.
Holy Shit! We all thought she was gonna do it, especially when she started winding that tourniquet around her thigh. But she just lanced the infected area and then recovered after some sweating and praying on the part of Doc, the Reverend and of course, Charles. God, I loved that show when I was a kid, and it pains me to see how awful it really is as an adult. Every episode is an ode to Michael Landon’s enormous ego/daddy complex. Sheesh.
I still love the books though. j
The fifth stick doesn’t seem to be working. Or not working well, at least. Meh.
We had a lotta grumpy around here today. I was cranky because I stayed up waaaay too late reading The Junky’s Wife last night, and then woke up to find that Mr. B never came home last night. So I was underslept and the sole parent-on-duty, meh.
I hate yelling, I really do. This doesn’t mean that I don’t yell, I do yell though not as much as I used to, but I hate to be yelled at or even worse, hear someone else being yelled at. Especially if it’s my daughter on the receiving end of the yelling.
Mr. B finally got home sometime after 1 this afternoon, and he was grumpalicious as well. To make everything perfect, Little C decided she was going to act like a butt, and get up in my self-declared hour of me-time and then be all back-talkative and kick over my last can of Coke all over the carpet to boot. Mr. B blew his stack, which is not usually his style, especially over something so minor.
It was so hard for me to not jump all over him. C was crying, and looking like she felt really small, and Mr. B was still so mad that he was kinda trying to tell her that she was making him yell at her by not listening to him. This reasoning really triggers me, especially since it’s a really big deal in our house if I ever yell at Mr B, and if I do he would certainly never accept responsibility for making me yell at him, because that’s ludicrous. The whole yelling-dad thing is a big trigger too, I hate to see that dynamic in their relationship when they both just adore each other. It makes me want to cry.
He did manage to calm himself down enough to remove himself from the situation today. We talked about it a little while later and I told him that I don’t think we should be yelling at our kid, and that I know it’s going to take time and effort to undo that habit, but that I thought we should agree that when one of us looses our temper with her, we should just make her sit on her bed until the angry party feels safe to talk without yelling. Mr B seemed a bit non-plussed, like he thought that I didn’t understand how freaking infuriating dealing with a precocious and headstrong 5-year-old can be (especially one who was raised to question authority – what were we thinking?!) but somehow I managed to stay calm and the discussion didn’t turn into a fight. We actually ended up in agreement.
I seriously think all the reading I did about detatchment at The Junky’s Wife last night, while I should have been sleeping, helped me today. Then Mr B went into our room and chilled out for a bit and when I came in to get something he totally apologized, and really owned his part in the exchange with C and acknowleged that he was being pretty edgey with me as well. He said when he laid down he realized how much his ankle was hurting (he broke it badly this summer and is still in a cast), and that the pain was making him pissy. He has been really good about this kind of thing lately – if I just leave him alone, he will usually realize that he was being mean or whatever, and then apologize. And I have been working hard on letting stuff go and not nursing my hurts.
I am proud of myself today, for being a good mama even though I am exhausted, and for navigating that emotional situation this afternoon without letting myself get all freaked-out and upset, and for doing a bunch of housework that really needed doing. I was also able to let go of being mad that Mr B wasn’t here to help me out this morning, and that my hoped-for day of family togetherness just didn’t work out. I did have a lot of fun with C this morning though. Oh, and when I was cleaning up this morning I found an OxyContin and I just put it away and didn’t even think about taking it. I really want to be well, and that want is outgrowing the want to get high. Amazing.
I still don’t know what the hell is up with the Probuphine. I bumped myself back up to my regular 14 mgs of Suboxone today, and I felt fine all day. Then I ate lunch around 3pm (I took my pills at 9am) and suddenly felt overly-medicated and almost like I was going to nod-out, it was a most unpleasant feeling. I made myself get up and do the dishes, and it passed, but I don’t know what that was all about. I only have one more day of supplement before I get the 5th implant – and then I think I will try to hold out for as long as I can to see if the implants are working at all. I am also calling 2 alternative suboxone programs tomorrow, just in case.
In fact, I am starting to lean toward just doing that anyway. My arm is taking a long time to heal, and even if the implants are working, they are certainly not working as well as the suboxone does. I just want to feel ok, so that I can fix my life, go back to school, hang with my man and my kid and not feel shitty all the time. I’ve been trying to let myself think that that is an acceptable thing for me to want for myself. My therapist had to tell me so – I’ve so lost touch with what mental health feels like, it seems like too much to ask for myself. But it’s not.
I really should stop agonizing over the choice to stay in the study or not. I know I will know what to do when the time comes. I should stop worrying about it.
I do deserve to feel well, to not be in physical and mental pain all the time.
I was starting to get excited, thinking that the Probuphine implants were starting to work, but now I’m back to doubting. If they are working, it’s only sporadically and not very effectively. I lowered my dose from 14, to 12 to 10 yesterday but when I woke up today I felt horrid. Aches everywhere, sweating, feeling like the flu was coming on. So I took 8 mgs and waited for a bit, then took 4 more. I thought 12 would be fine, but I was just feeling super crappy at work. I got an espresso, but that didn’t even help so I took the final 2mgs around noon today, and I’m right back where I started. Now, it’s just 9:30 and I feel faded. It’s so frustrating and confusing – because for a few days it seemed like my need for the supplemental suboxone was waning and I was feeling like I was maintaining a steady level, rather than crashing every night. But there’s no consistency, and if I can’t even get down to 8mgs for my supplemental dose, how is the extra implant going to cover me?
My arm (at the implant site) is itchy, but in that deep-inside, something-is-healing way that I’ve experienced after surgery before. When I press on my arm, I can feel a lot of swelling (I guess that’s what it is) around the implants – it feels like a big lump in there. When I saw A&J yesterday, I felt her arm where her implant is and I could barely feel it at all. I don’t know if mine is just still swollen because I had mine done a week after her, or if my body is freaking out in some way. ARGGG.
I also had a wicked headache today, though it’s hard to tell if that is an effect of the probuphine or suboxone or if it was unrelated. It was horrid though, and it still isn’t fully gone.
On the positive side, I haven’t felt like using except in the most fleeting way. If I’m under-medicated with the suboxone all I want is to get to the right dose so I feel normal, and if I’m on the right dose I just forget about it completely. So that’s progress I suppose. I’ve also been feeling more secure in trying to reach out to people around me & start to create a healthy social life & support network, and I’ve been doing lots of artsy-crafty stuff (folded a lot of origami this weekend) which feels so healing right now. It’s like my brain works stuff out on its own while I’m occupied creating something, and then I feel so much better and more able to deal with the hard parts of getting better – like cleaning up the messes, both literal and metaphorical, that I’ve made/allowed to happen while I was busy trying to get numb.
Well, I guess this wasn’t a quick post after all. I do tend to go on. And on.
I went to a party today (Saturday). I’d forgotten that it can be fun to go out and be with my friends – I’d had my head up my ass for so long, all I could think about was my pills, and I would only be soical if I was high, and not even then -usually.
There were more than a few inspiring women at the gathering today. Every one of them has big challenges in her life, probably more than I even know, but they were still excited about their lives & talking about all the cool stuff they’d been doing latetly. They all looked so kick-ass and strong and alive. One whom I’ve only really been an acquaintance of for years now offered to be an exercise partner if I wanted. I think I’ll call her. It feels good to be back in the world, if a little scary. Yes, definitely good. Maybe it’s time to spread my wings a little. Maybe it is possible that someone wants to be friends with me, maybe I can find some new ways to bond with people (other than drugs, eh?)
And again, I am so in love with my daughter. We have been having such a fine time lately, and I have suboxone to thank for that. I am thankful. It is a gift to be able to be here with her, able to give her my full attention because I’m not in pain, not miserable, not wasted, not dopesick, not distracted. With all of that lifted, it’s so easy to connect with her, so easy to remember why I’m trying to change my life.
Re: Supplemental Suboxone tally: Down to 10mgs today and that held me pretty well. Has me thinking that the Probuphine implant might be kicking in. I just wish I didn’t wake up feeling so fucking crapy every morning.
A strange thing happened while I was sitting in the bleachers watching Little C’s gymnastics class last night(Thursday). I was trying to read, and I noticed that I kept reading the same paragraph over again, not really comprehending what I was reading. Then, I couldn’t read at all because my eyes were going all crosswise.
I felt odd, until I placed the feeling. I was feeling like I’d just taken a dose of suboxone. Only I hadn’t. By the time I got home, I felt as good as I usually feel in the morning, about an hour or so after I take the suboxone.
Could it be? Are the imlants finally starting to work? I cut my dose down from 14mgs to 12 today, and I probably could have stayed at 10mgs, because after I took the second dose (4mgs) I felt a little loopy. And it’s 9:30 now, and I worked all afternoon and evening, and I’m still feeling really well.
I wonder if the strange reaction my arm was showing around the implant area on Tuesday has anything to do with this? Me and Mr. B have been sitting around theorizing about what the hell might be going on with this Probuphine thing, but who the hell knows. It does often seem that just when I’m about to give up on something, it starts to work out. So maybe that will be the case with the implants too.
Regardless of whether the implants are doing a damn thing or not, I have really been digging life lately. Feeling creative, emotionally stable, pretty much pain-free and having a lot of energy. I think I might be starting to like myself again. How weird is that?
This whole process is becoming quite tiring. Every day to the study site, conveniently located at the other end of the city from my hood, to get my drugs, and pee into cups far to small for the purpose, and get stuck for blood, and answer a bunch of questions and then go to therapy for an hour all before I even get into work for the day.
My arm is better, but now it seems uncertain whether I’ll be able to get the 5th implant or not. I just want this fucking thing to work. I like all the people I’ve been working with so far, and I don’t want to have to start over with a new program. So I’m holding out hope that the implants are not placebo, and the 5th one will somehow magically make all the difference.
Maybe I should just be smart about it, and get them removed and move on to a different suboxone program. I wish I knew what to do. I guess I do know – the doctor told me to start putting my plan b & c into play. Doesn’t seem that he has much hope that the 5th implant will be any help. Every time I say that maybe it’s going to start working he kinda laughs. Why is it so hard for me to let go? Truly a recurring problem in my life, this resistance to change.
And then there’s therapy, that whole can of snakes. My therapist at the study is rad. I love her. She seems like she could help me, if I can hang in long enough. Either way, I’m trying to make the most of the time I have with her. There’s so much to say about all the things in my life that brought me to this point, but I’ll have to save that for another post.
I’ll say it. I feel nothing from these implants. I take my 14 mg suboxone supplement every morning, and I feel swell until I pass out from exhaustion every night, and then I feel mildly shitty in the morning – like the begining of dopesick, but not quite there yet – so I drag my ass down to the place where they give me the drugs so I can function. Did I already say that? I do believe it’s past time for me to be in bed.
There’s a lot to life that’s not so exciting.
Something is wrong with my arm at the implant site. It is hot and red and hurts, and of course no one is calling me back. But it doesn’t feel bad enough for me to drag my ass to the ER, so I guess I’ll have to wait until my appointment in the morning to see what the fuck.
Today was a hard day. Not too many people know what I’ve been up to, with the study and the pills and the quitting and all, and I’ve been trying not to miss any work. I think I’m coming down with a cold, my back hurts from sleeping in Little C’s bed last night, I’m grumpy and tired. So I’m going to return to watching Narnia with my daughter and fuck all this for the moment.
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