the drugs don't work (properly)

singapore doctors seem to be even more fond of pushing out pills than the ones in england and, from what i've experienced recently, without due thought or warnings to the patient (in this case, me) about any unfortunate side effects

i left the hospital in june with three shopping bags bulging with three months worth of medication for my 'condition' as i've come to refer to it, if ever i have to - pills and powders galore which fortunately are doing the trick vis a vis my rather annoying intestinal disruptions

however the horrible little green ones i was prescribed for the symptoms of 'flux,' that's when a faulty valve in your stomach sends burning acid up into your higher regions resulting in severe indigestion and long bouts of coughing, caused me more discomfort than the actual complaint, which i only suffer from if i unwisely eat a large meal too late in the evening - and then it's only if there's pastry involved - having told the consultant who treated me that it's something i only get occasionally, he proceeded to prescribe three of these pills a day

the first few days were fine- but of course the effects of medication can often take a while to build up inside your system before they kick in, and after a few days i was beginning to get sleepy at odd hours - as k. is frequently away during the weekdays at the moment, i'm spending a lot of nights in front of the tv and on a nightly basis at about nine o'clock i began to nod off, only to wake up at midnight looking at a dvd menu and feeling wide awake and unable to get back to sleep once i moved from the sofa to the bed - this was accompanied by a feeling of dopiness and not being quite in tune with things going on around me during the day - people at work were saying things to me and by the time they'd finished i'd either tuned out or not taken in anything they'd said - then i was dropping things and forgetting things and beginning to get quite grumpy

then three weeks into taking the pills i woke up one tuesday morning feeling decidedly down - this feeling grew throughout the day until by the afternoon as i was in a taxi on my way up the ecp to work i felt extremely depressed - it was a strange sensation as it was totally illogical - i could reason it through in my head - a part of me was saying you've got absolutely nothing to be depressed. stressed or worried about, but at the same time i was feeling negative, sad and annoyed by nothing in particular

so i stopped that particular treatment, having googled the pills and found out that some of their common side effects are drowsiness, dizziness, loss of motor control and depression - more fool me really for carrying on with them as long as i did - i suppose it comes down to previous experience - i trust doctors implicitly, as most people probably do, never having had too much cause for doubting any of the ones who have treated me in the past - the fact that the doctor in this case is also a specialist in his field upped the 'he-knows-what-he's talking-about' factor for me - another in a continuing lifetime's occasional series of misjudgements i shall take into account should i ever find myself in a similar situation