Man, I am messed up.

Turns out, the thing I thought would help me is probably the worst thing I could do.  And now I am paying the price.  I am talking about codeine.  I used to use the old chemical company slogan "Better living through Chemistry", and laugh.  Today is a whole different story.

Last night, even though I was dead tired, I couldn't sleep.  I was in pain as usual.  The weird thing though is I couldn't stop yawning.  This had been going on for a couple of days now.  But even creepier was that sometimes when I yawned, my hands would clench up of their own accord.  My ring and little fingers on each hand would tingle, like I'd hit the ulnar nerve in my elbow.  And damn, I couldn't sleep.  Not that that is anything new for me.  Or the pain.  But I can tell when something just isn't right.  I had thoughts of going to my doctor tomorrow and asking him wtf is going on.  But to be honest, I don't think he gets it.  I've been having these weird dizzy spells for over a year now, kind of like a  head rush, and no one can figure it out. I've been to neurologists and pain management.  My doc even put me on xanax because a couple of weeks ago I was freaking out at Costco because of the dizziness. 

I think I've found the answer, thanks to the internet and not being able to sleep.  The crazy yawning was the thing that helped me put it all together.  Excessive yawning is a symptom of opiate withdrawal.  That and the muscle pain, depression, nausea, poor sleeping.  You see I haven't taken codeine for a couple of days.  It's not like I would take the tylenol/codeine 4 or 5 times a day, only when I went to bed, because I knew that my leg pain from rls wouldn't let me sleep.  Only trouble is, codeine doesn't help anymore. 

I have asked my doctors time and again if this could be meds related, or if I was becoming addicted to codeine.  The answer was alway NO.  Dumb f*ckers.  Well, guess what.  They were wrong.  On both counts.  I can't use codeine anymore.  I am sooooo sick of feeling this weird dizzy shit.  I'm sooooo tired of being tired. 

So, no more codeine.  I guess I'll just suffer through the pain until I can find some kind of analgesic that doesn't screw with my poor brain.  Hope this helps some one out there.  Take care, children.