Well, I did what I planned to do - I quit all my pain meds.  You remember this all began with the first knee replacement that will be two years in January.  The knee pain wasn't the factor - it was my back.  So later that year I was put on hydrocodone, Lyrica, Elevil, and later a muscle relaxant.  


I decided I was tired of all that.  As I said, G thought I was over medicated.  I tended to believe it too, and even though I didn't take the prescribed amount of the hydrocodone, I was anxious to quit.  I didn't really think the pain clinic was doing anything anymore anyway.  Just getting me hooked.


So - I stopped all of those pills, just as I had planned, never believing there would be any physical problems.  I was wrong, wrong, wrong.  Either that or I have had a strange flu.  Saturday I developed a splitting headache.  When I get one of those, I also get diarrhea (nice -sorry).  But my sinuses were clogged, so I thought it might be a sinus headache.   



We planned to eat dinner out with Daughter and SIL, so I just sucked it up, and out we went.  The headache was nearly blinding.  I slept fitfully that night.  Sunday morning came around, and there was no way I could chance church.  The headache endured.


Last night I really was not a lot better.  It was another night of waking every hour on the hour.  Today, there are still vestiges of the headache, and nothing is really "right" yet.  I just looked at some of the things of withdrawal.  It is a laundry list that could fit anything, but it fit me too.


I am in hopes that tomorrow is a new day because we are scheduled to pack up and drive the 5-6 hours to the SSB.  


And I thought I wasn't hooked.  I have probably 500 untaken hydrocodine pills.  That, to me, meant I was far from any dependence.  I don't know.  I  don't know, and I guess I will never know.  I am not going back to the pain clinic - that I do know.  I was in pain with the pills.  I do  not have the pain now.  Why???  Well, lesson learned.