I had a phone call from a lady suffering from Fibromyalgia and she wanted to talk to me about her medications. I am no Doctor so I could not give her medical advice... but I listened to her words.
She wanted to go off of her medication because of the weight gain she has been experiencing, she is on Gabapentin.
Why is weight gain such an issue?
I can tell you from first hand experience...
It makes you feel horrible about yourself, it makes you depressed and sad and anxious and paranoid. In short, it makes you a very grumpy, frumpy-feeling person. Weight gain is the last thing you need to be worrying about when you have Chronic Pain! But, what are the alternatives?
So many of these medications have the wonderful side-effect (weight gain) listed within the long, long, long side-effect listings.
I am no longer on medication like this.
I made the choice to go off of the prescribed medication (Lyrica) for the weight gain issue, but also because of the intense suicidal thoughts I was incountering. I was being bombarded by these intrusive thoughts when only a few months earlier I was completely not depressed and functioning rather normal (mentally speaking).
I have a history of depression and because of my history I knew the difference between 'real' depression and depression 'caused by medication'.
This was definitely 'caused by medication'. So, I went off of it.
I am back to the spice called Curcummin (derived from the spice Turmeric). It costs more money, and is not covered under our insurance because it is a natural product, which makes absolutely no sense to me; wouldn't our Governments want us to be healthy and off of our addictive pharmaceutical medications? Don't they want us to live long and prosper? How can we do that when we are stuffing so many chemicals into our body for convenience and financial sake? We are left with the chemicals or going broke paying for natural ways to make our bodies healthier.
The lady that phoned me is the perfect example... she has no income... she has severe Fibromyalgia and has no insurance. The Government will gladly pay for her Gabapentin that makes her gain weight and feel horrible about herself but they will not pay for something like Curcummin that has zero side effects with the potential to relieve her of some of her pain at least.
That is so depressing in itself!
What have I done to combat weight from medications?
One thing I did was change my diet, not only for losing weight but also to make certain I wasn't eating or drinking things that would make me have more inflammation.
I started juicing vegetables. I started off with three veggie juices a day, and I ate whole rich foods like kalamato olives and greek yoghurt, hummus, quinoa and a lot of veggies.
I ate the occassional meat but I am not a huge meat eater.
For the past year I have been maintaining that weight loss with one veggie juice per day, and eating a diet low on inflammatory ingredients.
That helped me, maybe it will help you too.
I still deal with a lot of pain. Curcummin is not a cure, it just helps combat that inflammation.
I am praying for a cure.
Praying also this helps you on your journey through Chronic pain.
Blessings
Kelly Watts
