Accidental Self-Inflicted Pill Misery

by Kirk M

Friday, November 26, 2010 at 08:35 AM EST

One of the things involved with having to be on a constant, long term regime of medications over a period of many years is not so much the misery of having to take said medications (along with the realization that you wouldn't do very well at all if you didn't have them) but making sure that you don't accidently let one slip through your fingers and end up not taking it. Something that's fairly easy to do especially if you take several medications at different times of the day.

Take me for example. I have been on the same medications for quite a few years now, all spread out at different times throughout the day (morning, around 5pm-ish,  around 8pm-ish and at bedtime). These lovely pills come in all shapes, colors and sizes which makes for a wonderful variety of colors in each small well of my weekly medication dispenser. Now accidently missing some of these medications once in awhile due to having one slip out of my hand or stick to the side of the dispenser for example does not really cause any problems but certain other medications most assuredly do.

The king of these problem causing medications is called Requip (helps control my RLS). The medicinal equivalent of a mugging all wrapped up in a tiny blue pill* and that's if I take it on time. I must also ensure that I'm firmly ensconced in bed within a half hour after taking it since the act of passing out from a standing position is always painful and often dangerous to other life forms as I might land on one of our cats. Did I mention that it's just a wee thing of a pill as well? Just a tiny round blue thing that just happened to slip through my fingers the other day while taking my bed time medications.

And I thought taking the damn thing was bad.

Come 3:00 am I was thrashing around like a coked up break dancer. My skin melted off (or at least felt that way), my gut looked like a swallowed a beach ball, my face turned purple, my feet turned green, my spine ended up feeling like the whip in an Indiana Jones movie, my hair became lank and greasy, terrible flatulence occurred ... and then things really got bad**.

I won't relate what happened to my  poor wife during all this but I'm sure I'll have her coaxed out from under the house by suppertime.

*It might help to know that I happen to be oversensitive to medications of all types so don't take my reactions to Requip as typical. Close to it but not exactly typical.

**Of course it might also help if you don't consider the type of withdrawal symptoms as described above to be free from exaggeration either.

This article originally appeared on Just Thinkin'.