☼ Martina23: Lyrica

[Martina23]

The last three days I feel very well. I dont know if it is a window but I almost feel healed. There are still irrational thoughts in my mind, but I dont know why they do not bother me. As if there were a filter which is now able to dismiss them as not dangerous, and thus I do not worry. If someone would ask me now I would say I dont have any harm OCD, but I still have a lot of anxiety in some situations. But maybe it is only a window. But it is something positive decidedly.

 

Today I had to send e-mails to my clients that there would be a new contact person. Two of them wrote me to say good bye. Actually there were almost twenty clients I had and only two wrote me to wish me everything best. But nevertheless, at that moment I felt to cry.  My boss is still ignoring me most of the time but I told myself that this is her problem not mine. As of Wednesday I am for three days at preparation  course for my licence exam, so this one day I can endure  it.

[Hopefull]

Hi Martina just poping in to say hi.

It has been a while.

Glad that you are having a window.

I am sure that your work situation will sort it self out.

First of all you should cut your self some slack and remember that you have managed pretty well to hold down a job andraise 2 kids on your own.

I could not imagine holding down a job,while enduring WD symptoms.

[AliG]

Martina ,

 

I'm so happy for you.  That is awesome, that you feel almost healed . You have been so patient and it is paying off, finally. You might still have a few " windows & waves" to go through yet , but it's a sign healing is happening.  

[Martina23]

The feeling of almost being healed is over. It is not so bad as it was last Wednesday to Friday (when I again thought if I should not go to psychiatry), but I still have surges of anxiety which shows itself as a row of irrational thoughts daily. Sometimes my mind can create so many catastrophic scenarios, that it is for me hard to estimate what can really happen and what not.

 

For example yesterday, I surfed through the internet with my mobile phone and it looked that I caught some virus on my telephone and it started to show on my telephone some payment confirmations I dont know for what. I immediately started panicking and imagined that the virus will make some order, for example for buying a crane, signs it in my name, and then they would want a lot of money from me as they would have a signed order in their hands.

 

A lot of people told me that the thought is irrational and it can not happen like this, so I calmed myself down, but actually I get a lot of thoughts which are quite exeggerated.

 

I started already to learn for the exams in january, I think, I will not pass, but I decided to try until I pass. I still havent look for a new job. For Christmas I will buy children bicycles.

 

I still havent been by the dentist as I still have such a big fear that under the anestezie my harm thoughts would get uncontrollable and that I do someone something. I get already almost to psychosis after one coffee. One beer I havent tried.

 

My boss still does not speak with me at all. Everyone got such gift cards in the work, only I have got none. Na ja, it is only three days and then I hope I will never see her in my life anymore.

 

I wish that everybody feels well during Christmas, gets a lot of presents and can enjoy some free days without stress or necessity to look for a new job.

 

Martina

[AliG]

Hi Martina ,

 

I hope you have a lovely Xmas with your children . This sounds like " windows & waves".   Take care over the holidays , Martina.  Hopefully , next year this will continue to improve.   I can see it , in  your writing and I wish the very best for you , over the holidays.

 

Hugs,  Ali .

[Martina23]

For me it came the time to take action to get rid of this OCD. I am sure there exists the way , I only dont know how. Please if anyone know anything really effective against OCD please write me. Till now I know only about Inositol, Exposure Therapy and yoga. I dont have by Inositol good feeling, I checked it in wikipedia and it is sugar alcohol. My feeling tells me that any alcohol I should not take. I will ask also by benzobuddies. I would like solve this problem by me once and forever and move on.

[Martina23]

I wanted to share with you last update how I feel. I thought there was already an improvement but this week I got again PGAD. This is the condition why they put on my Lyrica at that time. On one hand, I consider it also something positive as it shows me that the body tries to come back to its baseline, as it was my baseline before Lyrica. I already thought that it was from body solved actually quite long time ago, but it seems that it is not really solved. So I see on this that also people with PSSD or any other similar condition will heal and come back to their baseline as I did (now it is 6 months without Lyrica for me).

 

My baseline is sadly still containing PGAD. It is not severe these days. It is as if some nerve went awaken which is stuck somewhere in the scar from this caesarian delivery and it is cribbling and I feel it down there, it is kind like if I had a pulsating sensation there, and I get afraid from that, I immediately imagine this story in internet about Gretchen Mollanen which made the suicide because of PGAD.

 

I hope my PGAD will again diminish, even I think if there is a pinched nerve, it can not go away completely, first the nerve would have to be let free, but I went at that time to almost 20 doctors and I did not find any which would be prepared to research or work to find the cause, so I think I will not look for a doctor anymore. I will try to live with it and see how it goes.

 

My bad thoughts are still very bad and I am living only through hoping that they will vanish one day. Till now they did not vanish.

 

The only positive in the last time is that I got my first child support, it was a letter and I am looking at it, and I am thinking what is it? I asked everywhere and then my friends explained me that it is a check. I have never seen in my life a check before. There was a picture of white house on the check and it was like state check. So I went to the bank and now I am waiting if they will book me there the money, they told it takes one week until they prove if the check is covered. But it was so interesting for me, I mean, I have really never seen check before.

 

 

I hope everyone is well. It is so cold outside, isnt it? It is already better to sit before computer. We started to watch my fair Lady now. I am wishing everyone nice year, much healing, a lot of love, a lot of happiness and a beautiful rest of Christmas Holiday.

[Flowers]

Hi Martina

 

So sorry you are having problems with PGAD. Inspite of all your problems you seem very strong so I think you have the ability to overcome this.

 

It's great that you have your check - what a great start to the New Year which I hope is a better one for you.

 

Flowers xxx

[Hopefull]

Hi Martina,

I was thinking about you. Sorry to hear about PGAD symptoms returning.

The OCD will resolve at some point.

Research Neurofeedback, Exposure Therapy, Myo-Inositol etc.

At least something positive happened to you.

You got your first child support payment.

You are strong and you will overcome this.

Cheering you on, Hopefull.

[Martina23]

Hello Hopeful,

hi everybody,

 

thank you for thinking about me and a little update.

 

I am 8 (almost 9 months out) and there are things which went better. I used to get these scary pictures before falling asleep, these pictures almost completely dissapeared. Now I get them much less, and they are much milder. What I still have these are intrusive thoughts, I still get them mostly after eating, or in the evening, or when I get my period. Apparently they will be the last symptom to go. I am still afraid I might go schizophrenic, or these „what if „thoughts, what if I lose control and do something and get medicated, but they are now much more bearable than before.

 

Some time ago I approached our national agency which is responsible for authorization of medicaments and asked them to send me copies of clinical studies made by authorization of Lyrica  which observed the time period between cessation and one year after cessation. I wanted to know especially if there are clinical studies observing this period, symptoms, how many people, intensity and how long until recovery, and if it did not change the outcome of authorization. They said they did not authorize Lyrica locally, that it was a European market authorization and gave me adress of EMA (European medical agency). I contacted them and they send me some materials – half from them and half from FDA, almost 500 pages, and asked me to inform them precisely which studies I want to see. I am still by reading, even when I think the most clinical studies will be financed by the drug manufacturer, maybe I will find nothing. I will see.

 

What more about me. As I can not use my imagination now, it is ruled by OCD, I decided that everything nice what I want to imagine and cannot because of OCD, I will try to do by painting. I tried to do already some landscapes (please see some attached), most are from winter, I love winter, it is my favourite season, everywhere snow, and in the houses fireplace. I am now practising to put everything I want to imagine on paper with colours.

 

I even opened two e-shops with my paintings one on artfire (called Martina23) and one on etsy (called MyArtMG). So if someone wants to look there, he is welcome.

 

Martina

 

[Laura1981]

Hi Martina, 

 

glad to hear you have some improvement. 

 

Also good to hear that the EMA actually sent you some information. I had really nasty email exchanges with them already. They refuse to investigate the withdrawal issue. 

 

Let us know if you find anything interesting in the files. 

 

Laura

[Martina23]

Please anyone, I would to hear someone's opinion on following thing. I am still thinking about to sue either doctors or Pfizer for the problems they brought me with this "medication". But I am so much afraid of it, because by the court I would have to speak about my symptoms like thoughts of harming others, other irrational thoughts, so everything what they did to me. And I am afraid that if there is a pro psychiatry oriented judge, that they might say it has nothing to do with Lyrica and when I have thoughts of harming others (I would never do anything bad, it is OCD) I am dangerous to the society and therefore they can medicate me without my consent. Is this possible? Can they decide to medicate me by trial when I did not do anything bad, only based on OCD related harm thoughts? This is actually why I am so afraid to sue them before the thoughts are completely away. If anyone has an opinion if they can do it like that, I would be very grateful.

[Purplestars22]

Are you feeling well to have that kind of stressor to sue them? Research any court cases and see the success rate and the results. If I were you I would be very careful about telling people about the irrational thoughts especially in a court setting. Due to you have things to lose and it can go array( things could get worse). That's just my opinion though. Maybe others will think its fine.

[Martina23]

I have also this opinion, that it is not too safe. Only my friends meant that they can not forcibly medicate me even if I talk about my harming thoughts by the trial. I wanted therefore to doublecheck it what the other people think.

[Laura1981]

Martina, do you have a legal protection insurance (Rechtsschutzversicherung)? 

 

I don't have such an insurance as it doesn't exist in Ireland That's why for me the whole suing the doctor exercise could be potentially financially risky. I don't know the exact laws in Austria, but here in Ireland it is as follows: 

 

- You can sue the pharma company if you can prove that the side effects you had were not adequately listed in the leaflet. Suing a pharma company is very difficult, takes years and costs a fortune, so you can really only do it with a legal protection insurance. 

- You can sue the doctor if his diagnosis or treatment deviated from an acceptable standard of care or if you can prove that you wouldn't have taken the medication, had he informed you about the side effects. E.g. if you can prove that you said "I don't want a medicine that is addictive" and he gave you one anyway. 

 

It may be totally different where you live. I can attest that suing the doctor is stressful. I'm only in the phase of gathering my patient records and my blood is already boiling reading the brainless bulls**t that my doctors wrote down about me. I feel like suing them already for that. 

 

I guess contacting a lawyer doesn't hurt although I only found my current lawyer after 10 unsuccessful attempts. 

[Martina23]

Hello all,

 

today I feel a bit sad so I decided to write here. My children are by my mother for one week so I had time for myself this week. I was mostly painting and I had one job interview last week. I was again so dissappointed with my mother. She is always behaving as if she hated me and I tried always to find by her positive character features, but I am not willing anymore. I hope we will manage it with children also without her.

What happened: By Etsy there is this competition Etsy Awards and I thought I enroll also, sure I will not win it but even if I dont win it, it is good as a kind of advertisement for my shop. I told my mother and the reaction was: "Why do you always have to sell something? To be honest, it does not interest me that much".

 

I mean, is this a mother? If my son had somewhere a competition where he will take part, even if it is gathering of garbage on School yard, I will say oh, that is great and I will support him. Sometimes I think my mother would like if I die but she can not do it other way so she does it so passively agressively. But I think there are also other children from not wanting parents and had to learn to live with it. But yesterday I felt really to go to psychologist because it is burdening me.

 

My symptoms are unchanged. I have only one big symptom and that is OCD intrusive thoughts, various arts of thoughts mostly harm thoughts but also fobia triggering thoughts like pictures of spiders before falling asleep and also such like dialogues from movies repeating in my mind. I am waiting when the withdrawal ends and I would be as I was. But it does not seem to come in this life period.

 

The only positive thing which came with the withdrawal is that I started to paint because it makes me a lot of fun. It is actually great. I wanted to  paste the picture which I did today, but it was too big.

 

 

I hope everyone heals ok

Martina

[Martina23]

I feel today so terrible, I had to write it somewhere. Again in the morning the same harming, looping thoughts. And I dont have even anyone who would like to listen to it anymore. My friends are already tired to reassure me. But when I got prescribed this stupid Lyrica they were first to say "just take it, it would help you, you dont want to help yourself"and now when I have to bear consequences there is noone here. I can not take it anymore. Always only looping thoughts. I thought I would heal, but there is nothing healing there. I think I will not heal at all. There was this article with Dr. Jennifer Leigh who healed from benzos and some people wrote there who did not heal 7 years off. I can not handle it for seven years. And I dont want to live like this. And I should go today to the dentist. I am afraid that this anestetics will make all the bad thoughts even worse. I think I am on the end of my rope. I can not imagine that I will heal.

Sorry for the rant but today it it too much for me and I dont even know if it ends some day and such life is for me not valuable.

Sorry if I made someone feel worse, it was not my intention, this whole bad luck is just too much for me.

[Laura1981]

Oh Martina, I can understand how you feel! I'm the same. Over a year now since I have been poisoned. Sometimes I think I'm not making progress at all. 

 

I also sometimes feel I will never heal. I get very scared if I see people who are many years off and stills suffering. But I think and hope the people who take years and years to heal are the very unlucky minority.

 

If you look at the distribution of people here on the board, most people are somewhere between 1 and 3 years off.  There's of course people here who are many years off, but I think their numbers are smaller. I want to think that's because people eventually heal or at least regain some sort of functioning. 

 

I like looking at this when I feel I am not recovering: 

http://www.benzosupport.org/recovery_times.htm 

 

I have the same problem as you with my friends. They just don't understand how badly this affects us. They can't imagine that this is a full blown disability and most people would cut off a leg to make those horrible symptoms stop. I don't think they will ever fully get it. It's a sad fact of this iatrogenic horror. We're on our own with this. Support is only available from other affected people. 

 

Sending you a hug, Laura

[Martina23]

I read some videos from Baylissa and I feel already better ... Please hold fingers for me that everything turns well by the dentist, I will try to endure it without anestetics but if it does not go without that it does not harm me.

[Martina23]

I did not get any anestetic, that is marvelous, love to everyone!!!!

[Martina23]

Laura, now I saw a post from you, I will read it and answer you as soon as I pick up the kids from kindergarten!

[Laura1981]

Hi Martina, 

 

I just found a Facebook Group called "Lyrica Survivors". I thought about you because you mentioned that you're the only one here affected by Lyrica. I haven't followed the group, but maybe it could be interesting for you. 

 

Cheers, Laura

[Martina23]

No, I was there on the beginning, but I asked there some questions, which experiences with withdrawal other members have, and this main woman told me that dont have something like exchanging experiences between members about withdrawal. And then there were also other weird people which wanted to cash out on others like to get them as patients. So I am not there anymore.Something was weird with that group. Just my opinion.

[Martina23]

The Lyrica people come mostly here or to benzobuddies in my opinion.

[Laura1981]

Ughhh, doesn't sound like a good place to go then. Sorry to hear they weren't more helpful. 

[Martina23]

Today I made two pictures. They are abstract. I attached them. It is funny, but this putting various colours on a picture brings me such a peace, and then I dont think about intrusive thoughts or anxiety, I dont feel that these thoughts humble me. That is a pity that I did not find it earlier that such a small thing can bring so much self respect and satisfaction in life. I think I will continue painting also when I am healed (if I get healed, at this time it does not look so).

 

My daughter Emily did not like the blue picture, I named him "Moon river", as it actually should be the moon, and the colours of the night, but maybe my imagination was a bit other than the result. But I liked it in some way, I think these colours would make a nice dress for a woman with a silver belt, metallic blue colour on the sleeves and golden colour under the knees. This picture makes me so balanced as if I were sitting by the water. So I decided to keep it and not throw away. Art can show itself  in various ways, not only through perfect pictures of ideal things. I hope that someone would find my pictures nice.

 

The other picture should be the burning sun.

[direstraits]

Hi,Martina-

 

I think it's great that you get so much satisfaction from your painting...you seem very talented.

 

I used to be pretty good at art...don't know about now..maybe I'll try again someday.

 

I hope it continues to bring joy to your life and helps you heal.

 

hugs from ds

[Martina23]

ds, you should decidedly try. I use acrylic colours, but also oil colours are very good. I have heard that also psychiatrically there is an art therapy or colour therapy which helps against depression and anxiety. So this painting is also very therapeutic. If you start I would decidedly like to see your pictures.

 

Today we decided to go with the children for a trip. Such a trip to go to the forest, take sausages, bread and gherkins and make a food over the fire in the forest. I did not do it for a long time.

 

What is also interesting, I had an interesting morning. I had such an inner communication within my brain and my brain seriously told me that I have to do it with intrusive thoughts other than I am used to. The idea came that I have to stop thinking about always if I do something or not, I should start to live again and dont concentrate on the harming thoughts and images. Just let them come, say to myself I have temporary disorder, acknowledge them but not think about them anymore, just see it as something which comes and goes and shouldnt bother me. And the main thing start to live fully.

I decided to do it like that, I will see where it brings me.

[AliG]

Martina .  I also find a certain peace in painting . It has a meditative quality to it that can take you from feeling hyped to tranquil .There is really nothing like it. It's truly restorative and so absorbing that you can lose yourself in it , which for a short time can be very liberating and freeing ,  particularly if you are struggling with symptoms.  I think anything that can take you out of your head for a while , can be very healing . I liken it to meditation . I prefer the active forms such as yoga / walking and painting , and even music to a degree. To me this is " moving meditation ". It's healing in motion.

Ali 

[Martina23]

Hello Ali, I am happy that you wrote me. We did not speak for a long time, my friend. I like that you also enjoy painting. For me it was necessary to start to do something, as I needed something to forget the symptoms and to be able to take the situation easier. I still struggle most of the time. How are you? Congratulation to being a moderator. You really earned it, I think you are a really good person.

[direstraits]

Martina,that sounds like such a good attitude to take...I really hope it helps you to deal better.

 

wishing you well...ds

 

What is also interesting, I had an interesting morning. I had such an inner communication within my brain and my brain seriously told me that I have to do it with intrusive thoughts other than I am used to. The idea came that I have to stop thinking about always if I do something or not, I should start to live again and dont concentrate on the harming thoughts and images. Just let them come, say to myself I have temporary disorder, acknowledge them but not think about them anymore, just see it as something which comes and goes and shouldnt bother me. And the main thing start to live fully.
I decided to do it like that, I will see where it brings me.

[Martina23]

I also hope. But today I have not done any checkings. It is not easy, sometimes I get afraid but I try not to give these thoughts credit anymore. I would so much wish that I am already healed! I bought today this DVD "Some like it hot", so I am already looling forward. I love Jack Lemmon and Toni Curtis in this film.

[direstraits]

stay strong,Martina....you'll get there.

 

I love that film,too...a classic.  I'm a big fan of Marilyn Monroe.

[Martina23]

I am not sure if I turned the corner or I am in the window. I am 10 months off drugs. The whole yesterday I did not do any checking. Also today it feels good. I feel like me before drugs, there are only still coming the thoughts of harm somewhere in the background, but now I dont obsess about them. I try to go on as if they were not there.And it is possible to dismiss them. I hope it will not deteriorate again. I wish so much to live. I dont want to wait on recovery anymore, I want already to enjoy life, travel, look forward to meet other people and feel healed.

[Flowers]

That is such good news Martina. I hope this continues tor you - a sign of how your life will be. 

 

Take care and thanks for visiting my thread recently.

 

Flowers xxx

[Martina23]

Yesterday I had an exam for a licence for balance bookkeeping which is necessary to start my own company. The exam was sucessful, but I feel so tired, I lay at home now and stare at the ceyling.

I think I still did not reach turning point, it was more a window which I had. It is true that now when an intrusive thought come, I dont worry anymore so much. I am not so much afraid. But they still come a lot, I think therefore as I am not so much afraid anymore, this OCD looks for a way how to morph to make me be afraid. Therefore the irrational thoughts are very frequent by me.

I would wish that they go away.Also as than I can make researches to sue the doctors or pharma company. But when I am still symptomatic, I am afraid to go with the whole thing out.