On side-effects.

Before I say anything: this isn’t directed at any particular person. It’s a pattern I’ve noticed over the last while- there isn’t any single incident that led to this.

Recently, I’ve been in the interestingly prosaic position of dealing with an incredibly irritating, but also harmless, eminently (and cheaply!) treatable, and not in the least bit icky, sort of condition. A bit of an inner-ear thing, I gather, which is a very lovely and simple (and did I mention treatable?) explanation for the last six months of strange hearing, balance and general oddness issues that had been worrying me quite unduly*.

So for the next couple of months I’m on a cocktail of cheap and easily-available OTC meds. Grand, so. I’m sure that many of you pop these things on a regular basis without a care in the world. In fact, I’ve been hearing all about it, pretty much any time I mention anything to do with this.

And you know something? I don’t want to know. I really, really don’t want to know. I don’t want to know that you can take these things that I have to take every day for the next couple of months without side-effects. When I’m trying to find a balance between the pills that will make me sleep for twelve hours straight and wake up exhausted, or the ones which leave me anxious, jittery, flying off the handle at a moments notice and in a constant low-level state of panic? I don’t want to know that you can pop either of them and barely notice a thing. It doesn’t help.

What would help? If you’ve been in a similar situation, tell me about how you dealt with it. If not, then just agree with me that it sucks, and listen when I tell you that yes, I really do need you to talk more quietly. I’m not saying it to be annoying, I’m saying it because certain sounds make my head feel like it’s going to explode.

But you know something? I have it lucky. I have a temporary condition which I expect, with any luck, to be sorted by Christmas. I can easily afford any meds I need, and I don’t need any gatekeepers to give me access to them. Dealing with affordability issues and gatekeepers as well as balancing effects and side-effects? Owch. That must suck.

*Yes, I went to the doctor expecting a diagnosis of Advanced Imminent Painful Death, or at the very least Untreatable Condition, Just Live With It. Don’t we all, though? ……Don’t we?

On side-effects.
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