Posted by Couver on November 17, 2001 at 12:35:16:
I'm back. I spent the last 4+ weeks in hospital. I had been having a terrible time with my med interactions. Then I restarted having bouts of angina -- I took nitroglycerin -- it gave me severe CH's -- that, I guess, put more stress on my heart -- more angina -- a fucking vicious cycle.
Anyway, we sorted out the meds and I'm back home. I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed!
For some time now, I have been using butorphanol for the 9-10kips (Apo-Butorphanol in Canada, about 1/6 the price of Stadol). It wasn't in the hospital formulary so my primary doc allowed me to have a friend bring it in. It was kept at the nurses' station. The 3rd afternoon that I was in hospital, the Beast slammed me with a 10 while a resident was examining me. He looked really startled. I grunted that it was a CH and that I needed butorphanol. He started to lecture me on narcotics and offered me extra-strength Tylenol.
I'm afraid I lost it. I started yelling that I might as well stick the tylenol up my ass for all the good it would do, etc., etc. The nurse came in, saw what was happening and brought in the butorphanol right away (what an angel!). The resident couldn't believe the changes I went through from start to relief. We had a nice teaching session after that. His only question was how could I yell if I were in that much pain....hahahahaha We know, don't we.
The moral of the story: they let me keep my CH meds at my bedside (as long as I let my nurse know when I took them).