Medication Question

TMS is so difficult. For days I have had no neck pain. But TMS equivalents are happening with a vengeance: tremors, heartburn, stammering. For some reason I chose this time to go off seroquel. I am also using too much ambien, my wonder drug for shutting my mind down. I struggled to sleep last night, because I am out of ambien and my doctor refused to give me an early refill. I don't blame him, but it means I have to have two nights of calming myself. I practiced deep breathing, but it was hard with the gurgling coming up from within, and all the negative thoughts I have.
A trigger for me this time has to do with a project I am doing professionally, and the feeling that I will fail.

 

Swimming without goggles helps me sleep because it makes my eyes tired--although I don't like sleeping, it's BORING! Have you read the article on "BBC SEGMENTED SLEEP" I keep posting?

tt/lsmft

 

Segmented sleep unfortunately doesn't work with the daily demands of life. But I am going to do a 5 week cognitive-behavioral self-guided program for insomnia. It will probably mirror the tms work, but I think so many of my symptoms are TMS. My body is urgently signalling me when something is going wrong that I need to attend to. It's very insistent.

 

Hi Riv. I know that the FIRST thing that Dr. Hanscom suggests for any pain problem is to get at least 6-8 hours sleep solid for one month. He says that is paramount. Once you get that under your belt only then can you start on the mindbody work. He says medications for pain, and sleep and often anxiety often need to be prescribed to achieve this. Then you can start to taper off as you progress. Dr. H. Has suite a few blogs on this site if you want to check them out.

 

It's the "daily demands of life" that create TMS, get out of the rat-race, change your life to rid yourself of TMS.

 

Has anyone heard about the dangers of overusing Ben-Gay or Icy-Hot? I use them liberally thinking they are harmless placebos and someone alerted me to this.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19208195/...ports-cream-warnings-urged-after-teens-death/

 

I've used a product called China Gel that I really liked. It doesn't contain methyl salicylate.

 

They all have warnings on their labels to not use after a certain number of days. Salicylate is also in aspirin (or it is aspirin, I don't have time to look up the correct details), and everyone knows that you can OD on aspirin.

Note these quotes in the article:

Newman put the muscle cream on her legs and used adhesive pads containing the anti-inflammatory, plus an unspecified third product, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner.
Excessive use
“There were multiple products, used to great excess, and that’s how she ended up with high levels,”

​

As always, moderation and common sense will get you a long way in this life.

 

I wouldn't be too concerned about it, millions/billions on the planest have used such products including Tiger Balm from China and this is the first death. If anything it proves how SAFE they are! Anything can cause death if used improperly or overdosed on--including H2O. AND, there was an unnamed "third product" used.

The doc from Rusk sounds like he's being a bit dramatic, maybe he's looking for some face time on network TV:

“There has to be a heightened awareness that these products are something that needs to be used under medical supervision,” said Dr. Gerard Varlotta, director of sports rehabilitation at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University Medical Center.​

Really! Make a doc's appointment to be shown how to properly apply Ben-Gay--that should wear out the seats in the waiting rooms, not to mention wear & tear on the magazines. He's probably one of the doc's at NYU Rusk who shunned Dr. Sarno.

I feel very sorry for the girl who died but this story reeks of journalism sensationalism--maybe it 's a left-over from Brian Williams.

 

I will look into this China Gel thing. Tiger Balm gave me skin rashes, and Icy Hot is awesome.

 

I think it is risky to advise people about their psych meds on a forum like this. It's a matter for individuals to take up with their doctors, and from a position of strength.. But certainly, there is an over-prescription of pain medication, and some doctors do it to shut people up. My late father had all sorts of unresolved grief and depression, but his trusted doctor (a relative) responded to the chronic pain complaints by over medicating him. I know that the confusion and fog triggered his decline and death at 77 (not OLD old.) No medical professional talked to my dad about his grief over the loss of my mother, depression, his isolation in a not thought-through second marriage. When I realized what had been going on, I tried to intervene in ways that will take me too long to detail. but it was basically too late. The prescribing doctor said this..."WHEN SOMEONE HAS CHRONIC PAIN YOU GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT." It's over 15 years ago.

When I started experiencing chronic pain, I worried I would decline like my father. I found Sarno, and thank heavens I did. I'm still working on unwrapping the somatic complaints. Anti-depression and OCD meds help me stay focused.

 

Riv, your knowledge and insight mean that you will NOT follow in the tragic footsteps of your father.

Depression is the only thing that was wrong with my 92-year-old mother when she died two years ago. She simply did not want to live after our youngest brother died a few months before, at age 57. She simply gave up, and fought all attempts to keep her with us. Six days before she died, she assured me that she'd had a good life, which was certainly true, so I told her I loved her, and decided to let her go, but it was a sad thing to watch.

Later on, when I really thought about it from a mind-body point of view, I could see that she was classic example of how much power we truly have over our bodies, but it also shows just how powerful that pull towards the negative is in the human brain. It takes a huge amount of desire AND will power to reject the negative.