Tomorrow, Tomorrow.....

Tomorrow I'm off for my six-monthly visit to the Pain Consultant. He likes to be rid of me as soona s possible once he's decided on which drugs experiment he's going to inflict upon me because either the last one didn't work or the some of the drugs have stopped working but I'm hoping tomorrow will be a bit different. I want to be able to scrabble together what crumbs of my mind I can spare (I can't afford to spare a whole piece!) and give them to him. We have lost about six months of this year on the last drugs exchange, which hasn't worked and I'm now worse off than I was, although believe it or not I'm now mentally much sharper than I was under the old regime. What I need is a drug that flaming well works.

And to that end I have some updated information re Sativex. I've been in touch with the manufacturers. It turns out that my doctor could get in touch with them too. No need to to go through the Home Office now, that was overturned. The doctor would need to contact them directly, specify my condition and then they could advise him on how much Sativex he should prescribe me and it could then be arranged on a "named patient basis". Speaking in general terms, this puts a massive onus of responsibility on the GP - basically, he has to take personal responsibility for the patient using, and therefore potentially misusing, a controlled drug. Not only that, how in the name of sanity would the drug company know how bad the patient's pain is and thus how much of the drug to prescribe? Especially with RSD, when nobody knows very much about anything before you even start.

And another thing. I take several pills regarding high blood pressure (my blood pressure is now too low by the way, ha ha flipping ha). One of them also relates to my Raynaud's Syndrome - permanently freezing feet and hands, just the thing for RSD!! The manufacturers of this have decided in their infinite wisdom to cease packaging this drug in packs of 56 tablets. It will henceforth be in packs of 60. In the meantime they have ceased providing it altogether, leaving dispensaries and therefore patients in the lurch. There is no directly comparable drug, so I now have to take up a valuable GP appointment so that he can work out what to do for the best. As it turns out, I can discuss the results of hurling crumbs of my mind at the Pain Consultant earlier i the day while it's still fresh in my mind so it's no bad thing, but how ridiculous.... A rational person might conclude that it ought to be easy enough for the drug manufacturer to provide dispensaries with some blister strips of the drug in no packaets, leaving the chemist to use their own plain white packets to box them up, but I suppose that's far too sensible to be worthy of consideration.