Re: restless let syndrome; anesthesia; pain thresholds

[Guest guest]

My daughter has " intermittent leg movement " , some variation of RLS. She

takes Mirapex at night and Provigil in the AM. She was on Zyprexa, but it has

had some pretty scarey reports lately.

I am just withdrawing from about 15 years of Klonopin (Clonazipam - a

benzodiazepine) which was begun after I developed neurological jerking after

being

exposed to billows of insecticide at burg on vacation one year. It

was the only thing that kept me from jerking awake repeatedly throughout the

night.

However, all the central nervous system depressants, over time, start

breaking the CNS down, (i.e. your brain goes to jelly) and begin to CAUSE the

symptoms they were to cure. I am now back on 1 mg of Klonopin a night. It has no

calming effect - my body is to used to it, but if I don't take it I am

agitated. The docs say " we just don't know enough yet about how slowly you have

to go

off benzodiazepines (which are what they use in anesthesia) to do it without

dangerous side effects. " Nice. Should have thought of that before, no?

I'm now off everything but the Klonopin, Adderall for ADHD and asprin.

Celebrex is a no-no, and I cannot tell you how painful every joint in my body

is.

I am so stiff I can hardly move, and this is waking me up at night!

My mother's pain threshold was really pathologically high. She walked around

with a broken back for two weeks, just " achey " . My threshold is in the

basement somewhere. I feel everything.

Back in the 70's, right out of college, I began a doctorate in

psychophysiology. I wanted to do my dissertation on the " body's " memory of

sensations:

pain, etc, during anesthesia - even deep anesthesia. I was going to program

some

things during operations, and measure galvonic skin response (all we had

then) and so forth both during the anesthesia, when the doc said something like

" woops! I shouldn't have done that! " - just kidding. And then by playing

back the sounds and maybe lighting and smells in the same order, seeing if the

patient anticipated stressful events or nice ones or whatever.

Well, I never became Dr. Myers, alas and alak. (I cudda been a contenda)

However, someone else did the research and found my hypothesis was good - that

the " body " and " psyche " do have some realm of memory of pain - even when you

aren't coming up out of the anesthesia. Pretty scarey stuff. And they all know

this now.

When I hurt, I want to be free to cry or scream. Like when I went through

labor. I just wanted a sound proof room and to be left alone for heavens sake. I

was hard at work and people kept coming in and interrupting me and expecting

me to pay attention to them!! The nerve!! (I remember the nerve

specifically).

[Guest guest]

> She was on Zyprexa, but it has

> had some pretty scarey reports lately.

> I am just withdrawing from about 15 years of Klonopin (Clonazipam -

a

> benzodiazepine)

> However, all the central nervous system depressants, over time,

start

> breaking the CNS down, (i.e. your brain goes to jelly) and begin to

CAUSE the

> symptoms they were to cure.

The issues you raise, amung other things, is exectly why I'm anti-

med. The problem with meds, they arn't perfect and by causing harm,

they can cause you to require more meds than you originaly needed.

The process repeats again, requiring even further meds. It's a

vicious cycle and it's easy to wind up utterly dependent on meds

while at the same time feeling worse (overall) than when you first

started taking them. I'm sure there are some lucky people out there,

who get exactly what their body needs, correcting their problem and

without causing any harm.

What I have found in my life, is that it is possible to get better

without meds. Even since I weened myself off of Tegratol, I have had

some rough times but on most days now I have no problems at all.

Zyprexa is tough for me to get rid of completely because I need a

little extra something to get to sleep at night, however im on 2.5 mg

once a day, which is the lowest possible dose. Maybe down the road

things will change and I will be able to lose that even.

Later,

-Matt