My Sister's Keeper

Below is my sister's story of how the medical community in this country not only failed her miserably, but came within the width of an eyelash of killing her. This is my little sister...my best friend...my playmate...my secret keeper...aunt and second mother to my children. They almost killed her at the ripe old age of 42. Sure, she probably would've been part of those statistics that the CDC puts out every year warning physicians against over prescribing narcotic pain medications and the like. She would've been a percentage, a number, a statistic. But the thing about statistics, and numbers and percentages is that they don't sound so bad when the numbers are small. I've heard it many times before-"Well only 10% of the population dies from taking medications AS PRESCRIBED by their doctors and 90% don't so they must be safe" Guess what...If my sister died from taking medication AS PRESCRIBED by her doctors that statistic rises up to 100% for me. 100 percent of my little sister-my only sibling, my children's only aunt, my brother in law's only wife-would be GONE from taking prescription medication as prescribed by her doctor. Please educated yourself. Chances are you and/or nearly every member of your family is on or will be on a prescription medication at some point. Don't let this happen to you. I'm proud to present my sister's story on my blog as we both hope that it will save someone else's sister or brother. My love to you all.



Trinka's Story~


For the past 10 ½ months I have been detoxing from narcotic pain meds. Due to a very painful disease of the bladder called interstitial cystitis, I was put on pain meds and remained on them for 6 years. There is no cure for this disease, only treatment. I was diagnosed with it 15 years ago and have tried almost every treatment available with very little luck. There were times when treatments would work for a while, but the pain always ended up coming back. The thing about narcotic pain meds is your body gets use to them and you have to take a higher and higher dose to take care of the pain. After six years the dose I was on was astronomical. I was sent to a pain management doctor that said she had never seen anyone on that high of a dose of pain meds in her 20+ years of practice. She made it her mission to get me out of pain and off the meds. So on December 28th she did a nerve block and it put an end to the pain. It took 10 minutes. That’s it! 10 minutes that gave me a new lease on life. I had a second one done this past June. I will have to get nerve blocks done in the future probably every 6-9 months because the nerve grows back, but it is nothing compared to the pain of this disease. So now the real journey began.


January 1st I began detoxing from a drug called Dilaudid. A drug 8 times more powerful than morphine and 3 times more powerful than heroin. The dose I was on was 20mg every 4 hours. So you can do the math. A few years back, doctors would only prescribe Dilaudid to end stage cancer patients because you were never meant to detox from it. It is so hard on your body to detox from, especially on your central nervous system, but somehow it is now prescribed to just about anyone in chronic pain that requires a higher dose of narcotic pain meds. At the time, I didn’t know these things. I just found out about all of this a few months ago after doing some research online and trying to figure out was going on with my body. This time detoxing was different than the previous times. This was my 3rd time detoxing from prescription pain meds over the past 15 years, but I was never on this high of dose of narcotics or for this long. The previous 2 times were bad but didn’t even compare to this time. The first time I did an in hospital detox. Boy, that was fun. The second time I did it in the comfort of my home. So this time I figured I knew what I was doing. I was wrong. I just wanted to get off the drugs, but had to step down slowly because it caused complete havoc in my body. I can’t even begin to explain how difficult it was for me to step down each week. I knew how bad things were going to be when I would step down. It’s not easy to make yourself do something that is going to cause you pain and make you extremely sick. The first 6 months were sheer hell. I muddled through the 7th & 8th. The 9th month I had to take a break because my blood pressure and pulse were too high for my doctors liking and my doctor thought it would be best for my body since it had been through so much. It was nice to have a break. It made me strong enough to tackle the rest of it. The past 1 ½ month was hell once again, because I was put on a more rapid detoxing schedule so I could be done with it. Somehow I got through it knowing I was so close to the end. I never dreamed it would take me almost a year to detox, but considering the dose of narcotics I was on I am lucky it didn’t take longer.




Withdrawal symptoms vary. They depend on the person, how long and how high a dose of narcotics they are on. The best way I can explain it is imagine having the flu (10 times worse), stomach virus, shakes, sweats, severe nonstop pain in your spine, constant headaches/migraines, insomnia, electrical shocks to the brain, your heart racing, emotional roller coaster, short term memory loss, and going insane all at once. Taking meds to counteract the symptoms doesn’t really work all that well. You just have to let your body go through it. At anytime I could have had a seizure, heart attack, stroke, go into respiratory arrest, or various other things happen to me while detoxing. After researching Dilaudid 8 months into it, it scared me to death. I was never told that being on pain meds long term could cause damage to any or all of my organs. Basically everything in my body could have had damage in one way or another. I am happy to report that after tests, there is no damage to my organs. Dodged a bullet there. I am hoping that my short term memory will come back soon. I’m sure there is several people that are hoping it does too.


Being on the pain meds for so long actually caused me to have other diseases. Two of them are gone and the third one will be gone soon. My body was slowly shutting down organ by organ. I was slowly dying. My liver was in such bad shape that I wasn’t aloud to even take Tylenol for headaches. I didn’t see what was happening to me because I was in pain and extremely drugged up. Yes, I still had pain even on that high of a dose of narcotics. My family saw what was happening to me and gave me the push I needed to go to the pain management doctor. Actually, the only reason I went is so they would quit giving me grief about it. I honestly thought there was nothing the pain management doctor could do for me, because I had had nerve blocks in the past and was told they wouldn’t work on me anymore. Thank God she believed differently. I honestly think she saved my life.


A couple added bonuses of being on narcotic pain meds long term are I have large chunks of my memory that are gone. I guess my brain was just to drugged up to retain the memories. Good thing I take lots of pictures and video everything. Another thing is I have a high tolerance to pain meds now. So if I have to have surgery or something it is not going to be a good situation. In time, my tolerance level will get back to normal.


The reason I am posting this is to warn all of you about long term narcotic pain med use and its potential dangers. The dangers that the doctors don’t tell you about. I took my meds as prescribed, but that doesn’t stop you from becoming physically addicted. I have never been mentally or emotionally addicted. Just physically addicted. And for this reason, I was able to find the strength and desire to get off of them with a lot of help from my family and friends.


My journey isn’t quite over because I will still have days when I will have withdrawal symptoms, but they will be less and less as time goes by. Now it is time for me to continue healing and live my life to the fullest. I am far from being 100%, but between physical therapy, working out, and getting back to a normal life, whatever a normal life is, I will get there soon. If this helps just one person out there from going down the road I just went down, I will be happy.


Much love and thanks to all of you who listened to me bitch, moan, and complain about the withdrawals this past year. If it wasn’t for your support and love, I don’t think I would of gotten through it. A big thank you to my guardian angels. I know I wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for you. You have saved my butt more than once through this whole thing. Thanks to my sister for bitching at me nonstop for months about doing something to get off the drugs because they were killing me. It finally sunk in and I can’t begin to thank you for every thing you did. Who would of ever thought I would ever thank you for bitching at me. Thanks to my mom for making a special trip out here to take care of me once again. Also, thanks for drilling a positive attitude into my head. I deeply appreciate it all. Tal, I can’t begin to tell you how much the help, care, & love you gave me means to me. I love you so much. Also, thanks for being so patient with the lack of memory thing. I know it was aggravating. A special thank you to my hubby. You were there through it all. You gave me strength when I had none. You loved me when I didn’t love myself. You made me believe I could do this when I wanted to give up. You made me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry. When I cried you were there to wipe my tears. When I just wanted to die you told me to keep fighting. You cheered me on through each milestone. It’s been one hell of a ride, one I never want to go on again, but because everyone was there for me..… I MADE IT!!!!


~Trinka Prince-Castle