October 16, 2012

October 16, 2012 will go down in the books as a milestone for me since my journey started with chronic illness. I am finally off the xanax I have been taking for almost four years. The reason I started it in the first place was because of the cervical spine surgery I had in February 2009. It is a long story I will condense the best I can.

I had issues with my neck for years but never realized how bad my situation was. The first MRI I had on my neck was in 2007 at the same time I was going through a million other tests to find out why I was so weak and why my eyes were so screwed up. The Neurologist read me the results of the MRI and said your neck is bad and close enough for surgery. You must understand at that time my head was spinning so out of control between the symptoms and all the tests the comment about how bad my neck was didn't really even enter in my brain. I remember telling him, "Don't tell me that. I don't even want to talk about my neck right now," so we both dropped it, he know it wasn't something we should touch at that time. I remember the exact moment like it was yesterday. I was so weak and so tired all I wanted to do was run out of that office and try to get back to the place where my "old" life was. Looking back now I can see I more than likely will never find that place. The difference is now I am okay with it, back then, not so much.

In the end of 2008 I began seeing a doctor for therapy on my neck as the pain was getting harder and harder to live with, excruciating to say the least. At this point I was on enough drugs to slow down an elephant. I was thankful for the drugs that helped to control the weakness and the pain of the Inflammatory Arthritis.
It was time to deal with the neck, the next issue. You see, when you are ill it is one thing after another. You get over one thing and it is another. Proof is right now. I have everything pretty much under control and I was bragging about it. Idiot, I should now better, now it is my eyes. A new problem, different then the other eye issues I deal with. It never ends and I will learn to deal with this new issue as I do with all the other issues, so the story goes. Back to the neck. When I finally had enough and and the pain was killing me I saw Dr Hayes a doc my daughter worked for. This is when it was a real eye opener as to how bad my neck really was. As soon a Dr Hayes tried, and I mean tried, to work on my neck I had a terrible reaction. He put his hands on the muscle by my cervical spine and the room began to spin instantly. I thought this is it I'm done. I was sick the whole weekend and it was horrible. I will spare the details of all that happened but lets just say it wasn't pretty. When I began to get a little better Dr Hayes suggested another MRI. I went the next weekend and when Dr read the results he said, "You need surgery your neck is terrible." I freaked even though I knew it was coming.

This was October/November of 2008. I went to see the surgeon who agreed with the surgery option as I had two discs which were completely gone. Bone on bone, no wonder I was in so much pain and had such a reaction. Of course my neck muscles were weak because of all the chronic illness so that didn't help anything. We made a date for surgery but there was a problem I was on prednisone and I was going to have to wean myself off it in order to have the surgery. Anyone who knows anything about prednisone knows you cannot stop it cold turkey you must wean off it very slowly. To make a long story short I was off it by February 2009 and was able to have the surgery. A few weeks before the surgery when I went for the pre-op I was having a ton of anxiety about the surgery so I talked to my doc and she started me on a low dose of xanax. Only for night time and only to sleep. It helped. The only problem is I should have stopped it after the surgery but I continued to take it which leads me to this day. The day I have have finally weaned myself off the xanax.

Weaning off any highly addictive drug is not easy at all. You feel like you are losing your mind, to say the least. It wasn't easy but I did it. I am now going to give it a few weeks and try to wean myself down on the medro, which is a form of prednisone. Getting off the xanax was hard but believe me there is nothing harder than weaning off prednisone. I am going to start in the near future working on the prednisone taper. If it isn't the right time my body will tell me. I have said it many times before that when you are ill you do not have control of your life like most people do, your body controls your life. It gets so much easier when you are finally able to accept that. It is a long hard process to finally accept it and live the best life possible, prednisone or no prednison. You do what you have to do to get through each day.

Today, October 16, 2012, I will celebrate. The normal world probably cannot understand my joy. It is a monumental day for me. I can still feel my body adjusting to the shock. The shock of having a drug ripped away from it, but I know as my body evens itself out it will be much happier off the drug. Being able to wean off the xanax gives me hope that the prednisone taper will go as well. I have tried tapering off the prednisone before and have failed miserably. I take 6 mg a day and even a little drop can send me into a tail spin of symptoms. I always have to outweigh the good with the bad. My eyes are always affected when I drop the prednisone so I have to decide do I want to continue the drug so I can see or do I want to sacrifice my ability to see or read? Right now with the other new eye issue going on I am trying to figure out when would be the right time to start the taper. I have decided it might be better to see what my Neuro-Opthamologist has to say when I see him in a few weeks that way it gives me a few weeks to process another HUGE change in my daily regimen and also gives my body the time it needs to adjust to no xanax. It is funny when you are ill it feels like you are two separate people. the person in your head and the body. It is hard to explain that concept. For me, my body does not fit my head or my soul. They are not a perfect match what so ever but you learn to deal with both and do the best you can.

God Bless!

Dianne