Adventures in meds

Being in the trade, when I start a new medication I read the list of side effects and apply what I read with discretion.  For people on anti-convulsants, this isn't light reading. When I started Gabapentin (aka Neurontin), for example, I found the list very nearly filled one side of a sheet of paper: single-spaced.  Much the same is true of Carbamazepine (aka Tegretol), the default drug for TN, except that the list is a bit shorter. After several years on these rather useful drugs, it's easy to forget that volume of precautions, until the stuff turns on you.

Last Friday I went for my frequent Friday ritual of sharing a beverage with the regular crew. The weather was vile and my face began to show signs of annoyance, so I took a sliver of the Klonopin, trusting to past experience that such a small dose would get on well with a social quantity of refreshment.

Klonopin, yes: the others, not so much. By the time I got home I was feeling most unpleasant. The  token Klonopin had merely postponed and modified the episode, which is a risk at low doses. But also,  I got blindsided by the most-discussed side effect of Gabapentin, a form of vertigo unique to this drug and widely called "the goofies." This may or may not have been associated with my socialising, since the goofies can occur at random.  That's one reason they're such a regular topic of conversation. The other is that abusers of this drug actually want to feel this way: go figure.)  Better to err on the side of caution, though. This would have been a very different business if I had not got home when the goofies arrived.

Adjusting to this new world of enhanced TN is somewhat trial and error, I'm finding. Henceforth, if I pub-crawl, it'll have to be on shandies, Arnold Palmers and wine spritzers, max. Or I could belly up to the bar and order a sarsaparilla, just to see the bartender's reaction.