Pain Clarification

[brightlotusmoon]

Disclaimer: This is not directed at anyone who reads this journal.

My main pain reliever for fibromyalgia and cerebral palsy is Soma (generic name Carisoprodol). There have been accusations that Soma makes me high, as in drug high, as in OMG illegal street drug high. No. This is not true. I may say, "Oh, hey, Soma kind of makes me feel like I'm high!" but the truth is that the reactions I have to the drug are not the reactions of someone on a street drug. Carisoprodol is an analgesic muscle relaxant that centrally acts on the musculoskeletal system. In a nutshell, it relieves pain and loosens tight muscles. (Yes, there is a potential for abuse. I am completely aware of this.)
When I take a 350 mg pill of Soma, this is what happens: The muscles afflicted by cerebral palsy begin to do something that they are literally unable to do on their own: Relax and loosen. Completely. This is such an alien feeling that sometimes all I can to is sit frozen in shock, following the sensation as it floods my body from head to toe. I call it air conditioning under my skin because that is the only comparison I can usually think of. Or rather... imagine how sore and tense and spastic and clenched a muscle group can get due to overuse and soreness, and the imagine it suddenly, violently loosening, almost a mico-explosion of relaxation. It makes you want to break down crying, doesn't it? It just feels so fucking good, doesn't it? No pain makes you feel ecstatic! All you want to do is lay there for a few minutes, maybe hugging a pillow as your senses implode. Sometimes I cry for hours, because I cannot describe what is happening to me, this wonderful thing that will fade in a few hours, this total lack of pain, this total lack of hypertonia!
This is not me being high. My body, which is in constant pain, will eat up the medication to try and bring me to normal. But my version is normal is permanent hypertonia and pain. So, what sort of normal does this medication get me to? It gets me to everyone else's normal. By everyone else, I mean people who don't have hypertonia or similar muscle issues, of course. And everyone else's normal is my high. I don't know what that feels like without a proper muscle relaxant.
Do you get it now? Low, normal, high. Basic stages.
So, quit insisting that this medication makes me a junkie, fuckheads. Better yet, please spend a week in my body, in my brain. Then tell me what it's like. Bet that would shut you up real quick.

I had more to say, but it has fallen apart. Those who know exactly what I mean are more than welcome to add things.

Comments

[tokio.livejournal.com]

I know, right? People are so surprised when I say that Soma barely helped me at all. Then again, I have a feeling it's one of those drugs that might only work if you're really in a whole hell-load of pain, and mine was only about a 5. It was only the panic attack compounding it. It definitely didn't make me high at all, though. Actually, most drugs don't, and, if they do, it's over really fast. I metabolize drugs really quickly.

So when were you diagnosed with fibromyalgia? Did you have it for a long time, unknowingly, or did it sneak up on you?

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

I had it for many many years, but never actually imagined it was fibromyalgia. I didn't even know what fibromyalgia was until 2006, when I had a particularly bad flare and looked up my symptoms. But I decided to wait a year to see if it really was what I thought it was. So I was not diagnosed until 2007. The going theory is that the fibromyalgia is linked to the cerebral palsy.

Soma doesn't do much for my husband, either. His doctor had put him on Soma in 2008 for back pain, and it barely touched the pain. But I tried it, and holy yay did it help.