Back in April the internet was blessed with this little anecdote about a woman who has suffered from migraines since her teenage years. Experience taught her to react to the signs of an oncoming migraine & take her prescribed painkillers before it fully took hold, & providing she did this, she didn’t suffer the symptoms any more. Her boyfriend, having never seen one of these migraines as she always nipped them in the bud, decided that she no longer suffered from migraines. He got it into his head that she had some kind of psychological dependence on her drugs.
One night, when staying over at his place, she felt a migraine coming on. She went for her painkillers but couldn’t find them, so crawled to bed in a vague attempt to sleep it off. It wasn’t until several hours had passed that her boyfriend admitted he’d taken her medication to prove that she no longer had migraines, & only returned it to her after having seen her struggle for several hours. He was, apparently, remorseful.
Words cannot sum up how angry I was after reading this post. I was appalled. Disgusted. Enraged.
Those of us who suffer from invisible chronic illnesses such as migraines, fibromyalgia, or ME, or mental illnesses like depression & anxiety, are constantly being told that we don’t need the medicines prescribed to us by a doctor. In fact, many of us have great difficulty accessing the medication in the first place, so the thought of it being swiped away by some know-it-all with a homeopathic kale enema is beyond terrifying.
Even if it transpired that we didn’t need the medication, removing it completely without warning is straight-up dangerous. Many medicines require a weaning-off period where the dose is gradually reduced. For conditions like asthma & allergies, removal of the medication could easily result in death.
Even those who work in the medical profession themselves seem not to understand the need to nip symptoms in the bud before they escalate. When staying in hospital multiple nurses seemingly objected to the volume of pills I was taking. One temporary prescription I had been given the week before was even removed without my knowledge, let alone consent, & once the pain had escalated beyond control the doctor refused to come to the ward or give me anything to help, claiming without having seen me that I was faking it.
If even inside a hospital, our access to effective medication cannot be depended upon, it is no wonder so many of us guard our medicines so fiercely. They are often kept under lock & key, & it is rare that we let anyone but those who we trust most anywhere near them.
Had Jarred ever tried to wean me off the medication on the pre-tense that I don’t need it, & all I really need is spinach & happy vibes, the relationship would have been destroyed right there & then. Every day I trust him not to meddle with my medication, & after reading this anecdote I realised that I take his reliability for granted.
Unless you are a doctor with knowledge of the patient’s medical history, illness, & prescriptions, you are in no position to make these decisions. Even then you need to listen to the patient, and properly address any concerns they have. No one knows a patient’s illness better than the patient themselves, yet often our needs go ignored.
Think. You wouldn’t take away an ex-smoker’s nicotine patches because you’d never seen them smoke, & you wouldn’t take away a cancer patient’s chemotherapy because it’s essentially a deadly concoction of poisons & therefore you believe it won’t do any good. If you want someone with a chronic illness to trust you, you must prove that you can be trusted.
