Cocktails

It's a bit scary how easily one can become accustomed to something, how it's possible to become habituated to discomfort even pain.

On Boxing Day I had the opportunity to speak to a family member who gave me some very helpful advice. The nub of this was that there's no need to be in pain.

I've taken her advice and spoken to my doctor. His advice and recommendation was exactly what I was told on Boxing Day. He's prescribed codeine which I take with paracetamol and the high dose ibuprofen. It's been a few days now and this cocktail has relieved me of about 80% of the discomfort I'd become accustomed to. The added bonus is that I'm taking less ibuprofen as a result.

So far the relief has given me bit of a boost, it's nice to be without the constant background pain but as with everything there is a price. I do feel giddy at times and suffer from a little nausea occasionally. So far the other known side effects, constipation and drowsiness, haven't made themselves known.

So now it's been a week on this cocktail, I've just today renewed my prescriptions and I can report that the benefits have tailed-off slightly. The codeine is prescribed as four a day and I've been taking a paracetamol and an ibuprofen at the same time. For the first few days this worked very well but now I'm finding that to spread the dose over the waking hours means that I have a shortfall of an hour or so between taking them. I think that I will shorten the time between the ibuprofen again and see what that does. It will mean getting back to near the maximum recommended dosage.

I'm due another hormone injection in two days (8th Jan) and will make an appointment for another PSA blood sample to be taken a few days before my next oncology appointment on the 11th of February. Between now and then I'll give Chemotherapy more thought, I anticipate that it will be offered again at that appointment.

It will be interesting to see what a boost of the hormone blocker does. When it was working well it was accompanied by the hot flushes. Since then, the flushes have tailed off. They still occur but not as frequently and not as bad. I guess that their occurrence means that it is working to some degree?

The additional pain relief unfortunately does nothing for the need to urinate frequently nor does it seem to relieve the pain that accompanies it. I'll mention that when I see the oncologist next month.