Posted by sailpappy (166.62.187.99) on February 13, 2000 at 12:03:07:
In Reply to: Med. free people. A few questions. posted by Doug L on February 12, 2000 at 15:03:36:
Doug,
I have been off all medication for nearly 10 years now and I'm here now because I stopped taking them.
I've taken every medication that has ever been mentioned on the board and a lot that haven't
What made me make the decission to go drug free was seeing the pharmacolory record printed out.
For the 6 1/2 years prior to that I was taking 25 talwin every day just to keep the edge off the attacks, that breaks down to 100 pills every 4 days. Upon seeing them listed month after month and all the other maintainence medications I was trying it was just too much and the reality was it never stopped or even slowwed the attacks down. I was at 12-15 a day when I decided to go totally drug free, Through out the whole 30 years of 7-15 attacks a day the only thing that ever helped was running ice cold water over my head on the affected side. when the attack ends I don't have to deal with the after affects of the medication and I can funtion in between the attacks, when I was on the pain meds sometimes I would be out of it for the whole day because of the med's and not the attacks.
I started off by replacing the med's with a hand full of b complex vitimans,Vitiman E. C, lots of cold water. I started doing aerobics, jumping rope, riding the bike and swimming up to 10 miles a day. by the end of the first month I was down to 4 to 7 attacks and swimming 7 miles a day. I did this for an entire year, when the water got too cold to swim in the Gulf I went to the local heated pool. I spent the whole day keeping it at bay and the intensity deminnishe considerably.
I don't know if this will work for anyone else but you might start off with just the cold shower. If you fight past the inital feeling that you can't stand the cold and stay in there until you get you head chilled enough to give you goose bumps. I think you will find the attacks abate and leave you feeling almost normal? It takes the disire to achieve your goal to work past the demons. Your mind can play some real tricks on you and you will crave the relief of the drugs but be strong and wait it out and you will get an adulation that can't be acheived any other way.
If you have addictive tendencies you have to replace the addictive substance with something else. for me it was easy I just used jelly beans and adrenalin. Worked for me, If you want any help off the board just email me, Sailpappy