Posted by Geo (209.138.175.30) on August 30, 2000 at 13:41:42:
In Reply to: placebo and ethics posted by dougW on August 30, 2000 at 11:18:22:
Who is to say that CH isn't or has never been life-threatening! What medical examiner on earth is able to determine whether or not any suicide, heart-attack,stroke,siezure,or fatal accident is not due to the patient's history of severe headaches!This is the same bullshit "It's just a headache" attitude that get's on my damned nerves.
Years ago I was using heroin to get relief from CH after I told the neurologist that prescribed me Nortriptaline to go screw himself. I figured, hell, if the dope don't stop the headache, at least I'll be too damned stoned to notice it! Well it didn't turn out that way, after three weeks and not only did I have a massive CH attack, I overdosed on heroin as well! One night I staggered, stoned, into the emergency room with such a bad attack I thought I was going into cardiac arrest. I told her I had a history of headaches and she asked me had I been using any drugs. I said yes, I 've been snorting heroin. She said to me "Well no wonder your head hurts! What did you expect!" I screamed in rage, "You dumbass! I've been having headaches longer than I've been snorting dope, and if you had the pain I do, you'd snort dope too!"
I was so pissed off I just said to hell with it, left the hospital, went home, and spent the next two hours, screaming,crying and vomiting.
The tragedy in this is, had I dropped dead, noone would ever have suspected or given a shit about the fact that I suffered from a pain syndrome that might have contributed to my resolve to use drugs in the first place. I've been lucky, between massive amounts of cocaine, and just not really being aware of how a really bad attack can affect one's judgement about anything, it's a wonder I'm not dead. There's probably dozens of others who've been killed in car accidents, died from drug overdoses, or blown thier heads off, elderly people who've had heart attacks, and God only knows what else, because of this pain.
To assume based on the 'visible' victims of the disease that it is not life-threatening is a dangerous under-estimation of it's impact on those who suffer from it.