Strong painkillers

nannytone_2

my advisor is great, but he doesnt have a clue what to do with me.
the fact that i want to work seems o have thriwn him a bit!

i live in a rural area so obviously the options for anyone with a disability are more restricted.

the number of jobs available that dont require you to be able to see what you are doing seems to be limited! ( not really a suprise lol)

my social worker says i should tell the job centre that i am an employer ( direct payment) just to confuse them that little bit more!

to a degree, the position i am in is of my own making. i had children very young, and always worked, but in jobs that fitted in with the famuly. shop work mainly. because of that i have no expertise to offer.
i suppose when youre young you dont consider what will happen later on, you just do what you need to do at the time.
isnt hindsight a wonderful thing!

mazza111

GlasweJen wrote: »

The scheme is called Access to Work, it's administered by the job centre but you need support from a doctor to be eligible for the taxi service.

I know there are many a time I wanted to fall asleep at lunch but I've got a store to run and a bunch of staff to worry about so it's just not possible. Surely if you know you'll be tired in the afternoon you should concentrate on morning jobs?

I'm not looking for any jobs at all atm. I'm not fit for work atm end of story I'm afraid. Mornings = pain. Takes me 2 hours to get out of bed in the mornings. Once I have the anti inflammatories and a cuppa from my flask, I can start to move. But this thread isn't about me and my conditions. The JC agree that I'm not fit for any work atm, and will reassess when my year is up on cb esa wrag.


I think this is what the OP fears, being placed in this group, I have posted just to show her it's not all doom and gloom to be placed in this group

samwich1979

I have a B12 Deficiency which causes extreme tiredness for which i am on treatment (i can fall asleep standing up!), i have lower back pain, extremely tight hamstring and calf muscles and Piriformis Syndrome which gives me terrible nerve pains in my bum/legs.
These things bother me on a daily basis, i take painkillers when it is particularly troublesome and get physio fortnightly.

I also hold down a very physical, stressful job in an NHS hospital and i just have to deal with it. If i didn't i'd lose my marbles!

I know there are disabled people out there who just cannot work and that is not a problem to me, they deserve all they get to help with their problems but what i do find slightly erksome is people who use poor excuses for not being able to do things.

I think for the OP a visit to the GP to re-assess pain medications is the number one priority as it obviously doesn't help her life at all, yes there are side effects but they should not rule your life and stop you attending meetings etc.

Also the point about arthritis and obesity is a good one to raise, i see the result at my workplace of this, when overweight people come to us for knee replacements. More often than not they would not need this surgery had they controlled their weight and kept a moderate exercise regime in the first place which suited their ability.
Yes skinny arthritis suffers will not get looked at the same but they haven't got themselves in a position to exacerbate their already painful knee condition have they?

I think there is too much focus on what stops people doing things, if people worked around their disabilities and tried to be more active in things they CAN do then the state wouldn't have to bare the brunt as much financially and disabled people's mental health would improve a great deal too.

I don't pretend to know what you are going through at all but this is just my point of view.

Horseunderwater

Now here's a funny thing. I am morbidly obese and have been for that way for many years. I tried and tried to lose weight following various diets, restricting food intake, exercising and nothing worked. If I lost 7lbs I classed the diet as a success, but then my weight loss would come back double fast and I just got bigger and bigger. Finally I'd had enough. I decided to eat what I wanted in sensible healthy quantities, but even that failed. Turned out that it was 2 medical conditions that caused it all. IBS and Polycystic Overy syndrome. Both officially diagnosed more than 20 years back. Nothing could be done. In fact my IBS got so bad that I could eat a meal and within an hour it could be out the other end. So what was happening? I was in starvation mode. Body was putting away any nutrition it was getting into fat and I was hungry all the time. Then I became diabetic in 03. NHS never once believed that I ate healthily, even though I knew I was. Finally I got sent to hospital as they were trialing a new injection called Byetta and I was lucky enough to get onto the trial. This injection has almost overnight cured my IBS and guess what, the weight started to drop off. Point proven. I do not exercise and the weight comes off. However, I now have another serious illness which cropped up in Feb 2011 and got diagnosed Sept 2011. Myasthenia Gravis is another auto immune but is quite rare and there are a few variants of it. I am lucky in that I have the serum positive antibody version. Blood test detected them - so I then got told that there is no cure and that NHS are not even trying to find a cure. Problem with this one is that if you try to exercise or do something, then you suffer for it later that day or next day. You literally run out of steam, body just shuts down and you end up having to take a nap. No choice. Technically it is not terminal these days, but it can be. And due to this lack of research into a cure/treatment, I am now stuck on a very high dose of steroids, which has now made my blood sugar even higher than ever and is now having the usual undesired effect of putting all my weight loss back on. I had got down to my lowest weight since 1988 around 20.8 stones, but I think I now have at least 3 of those back. Some of which is fluid based (lymphodema) in my legs. My muscles are weakening the more delay I get from not finding an immunosupressant drug that works. The 4 available - only one is licensed for MG, so the one they now want me to try has to be sanctioned by my Neurologist. GP cannot do shared on this one. Very high cost too. Had a bad reaction to 1st one which was the Licensed one. Currently as I write this I am having bad muscle spasms and pain in my hands. I am now disabled by this illness - get DLA - severe mobility problems and need some care help in home. Could get worse too. I do work 12 hours, but I find doing that a big struggle. Hence why I am trying to get ESA for the year. So far my medical has been cancelled twice. No date for new one yet. Hopefully, if the new drug works, then I can lower steroids down and the weight will I hope start going down again. So in my case it was medical conditions and now drugs that have caused weight gain. So please do not judge all obese people with they must over eat and if they ate less judgements. One thing I did find out though, double protein content of meals and halve carbohydrate contents and that will help with weight control. You might not lose much, but equally you should not gain much. Higher protein diets will stop hunger pangs and satisfy your body longer. Eating 5-6 much smaller meals will help shrink tummy size down. It is not that you eat less over the day, just in smaller amounts more often. It all helps.

samwich1979

Horseunderwater wrote: »

Now here's a funny thing. I am morbidly obese and have been for that way for many years. I tried and tried to lose weight following various diets, restricting food intake, exercising and nothing worked. If I lost 7lbs I classed the diet as a success, but then my weight loss would come back double fast and I just got bigger and bigger. Finally I'd had enough. I decided to eat what I wanted in sensible healthy quantities, but even that failed. Turned out that it was 2 medical conditions that caused it all. IBS and Polycystic Overy syndrome. Both officially diagnosed more than 20 years back. Nothing could be done. In fact my IBS got so bad that I could eat a meal and within an hour it could be out the other end. So what was happening? I was in starvation mode. Body was putting away any nutrition it was getting into fat and I was hungry all the time. Then I became diabetic in 03. NHS never once believed that I ate healthily, even though I knew I was. Finally I got sent to hospital as they were trialing a new injection called Byetta and I was lucky enough to get onto the trial. This injection has almost overnight cured my IBS and guess what, the weight started to drop off. Point proven. I do not exercise and the weight comes off. However, I now have another serious illness which cropped up in Feb 2011 and got diagnosed Sept 2011. Myasthenia Gravis is another auto immune but is quite rare and there are a few variants of it. I am lucky in that I have the serum positive antibody version. Blood test detected them - so I then got told that there is no cure and that NHS are not even trying to find a cure. Problem with this one is that if you try to exercise or do something, then you suffer for it later that day or next day. You literally run out of steam, body just shuts down and you end up having to take a nap. No choice. Technically it is not terminal these days, but it can be. And due to this lack of research into a cure/treatment, I am now stuck on a very high dose of steroids, which has now made my blood sugar even higher than ever and is now having the usual undesired effect of putting all my weight loss back on. I had got down to my lowest weight since 1988 around 20.8 stones, but I think I now have at least 3 of those back. Some of which is fluid based (lymphodema) in my legs. My muscles are weakening the more delay I get from not finding an immunosupressant drug that works. The 4 available - only one is licensed for MG, so the one they now want me to try has to be sanctioned by my Neurologist. GP cannot do shared on this one. Very high cost too. Had a bad reaction to 1st one which was the Licensed one. Currently as I write this I am having bad muscle spasms and pain in my hands. I am now disabled by this illness - get DLA - severe mobility problems and need some care help in home. Could get worse too. I do work 12 hours, but I find doing that a big struggle. Hence why I am trying to get ESA for the year. So far my medical has been cancelled twice. No date for new one yet. Hopefully, if the new drug works, then I can lower steroids down and the weight will I hope start going down again. So in my case it was medical conditions and now drugs that have caused weight gain. So please do not judge all obese people with they must over eat and if they ate less judgements. One thing I did find out though, double protein content of meals and halve carbohydrate contents and that will help with weight control. You might not lose much, but equally you should not gain much. Higher protein diets will stop hunger pangs and satisfy your body longer. Eating 5-6 much smaller meals will help shrink tummy size down. It is not that you eat less over the day, just in smaller amounts more often. It all helps.

You are obviously dealing with a lot and to work 12 hours whilst going through this is great, at least you are trying.

But most people who are overweight are that way due to poor food choices not illness, im sure only a small amount are this way due to an illness actually CAUSING the weight gain.

I do think some people use health problems as an excuse for being overweight and i think whilst being obese is disabling it should not be used as part of a claim for benefits, unless like you it is down to an actual illness causing it and not just poor choices.

mazza111

It's not an excuse. I'm doing what I can because of my knees. In the case of my daughter, with one dislocating knee, and the other slipping, still in pain from the fracture on one leg, what exercise would you like her to do? At the moment all she can manage is a walk up to mine, which takes her about 10-15 minutes, she's beaded in sweat, and it would take a healthy person 5 mins to walk (max)

We've been told what exercise she can do, we're addressing that and have order her an exercise bike. That and me taking over cooking her dinner so she's having one healthy meal a day, she can take over the control of her other meals.

God knows I've put weight on since I was medically retired because of my knees, and the lack of exercise has a big impact on it, it will come off now that we're addressing it, but it's easy to put on, not so easy to take off. I still maintain that if Maureen had just mentioned her OA and not the obesity this thread may have gone a different way and been a lot more helpful.

sunnyone

maureen_04 wrote: »

I am shortly due to have a medical assessment by ATOS.
I have completed the form, and got medical evidence from my GP.
I take strong painkillers for osteo-arthritis, Co Codamol and Tramadol. These make me very drosey and shortly after taking them I usually sleep.
My concerns are that ATOS may not be aware of the effects that these have and that I am considered suitable for a work group, What happens if I expected to attend meetings and fall asleep, it sounds silly but it is a worry to me.

Thes are not strong pain killers, they are for moderate pain and if you are having trouble with side affects you need to urgently see your GP for a reassessment of your meds or even better go to see a pain specialist.

Have you looked at the support group criteria to see if you fulfil any of them? It is very diificult and rightly so to get into the support group because it is for the most ill and disabled people in society.

Credit-Crunched

mazza111 wrote: »

Walk around the block- This is what we're planning for my daughter. I only live up the road, it will probably take her 10-15 mins on her crutches but it's a start, may be able to increase it once she gets her braces.
Press ups - A very difficult exercise for someone with a disability.
Star jumps - Are you having a laugh? I certainly couldn't, that would put more pressure on the knee. And if my daughter done that, she'd probably break something :rotfl:
Lifting a chair or tin of beans.... Strengthening exercises, not really for weight loss.
Bodyweight squats - No good for people with dislocating joints
Planks - I have no idea what that is other than bits of wood, sorry :rotfl:

I am not excusing obesity, just showing an opposing view to yours. It's great that you can exercise so much, I certainly couldn't. I point you to the star jumps. Can you imagine doing this with a knee that dislocates every step you take? How dangerous could that be?
We are doing the correct thing, in taking medical advice with my daughter's condition with the weight loss and exercise, I've already stated what she's allowed to do, exercise bike, nothing else. They don't even want her to swim at the moment, that's how bad her joints are, the exercise bike should arrive by wed-fri. And I hope and prey that it helps build up her quads

It's easy to fall into the obesity trap when your ill, especially with depression as a factor, you're then caught in the vicious circle of a battle.

Meds can effect people in different ways. They obviously affect the OP in a way that makes her sleepy. I know mine do, so instead I should go for a run? I am not able to run, some days I'm barely able to walk. What do you suggest I do then? Or the OP for that matter?

SDW - Well done on the 5lb weigh loss :T:T:T


Edit: Just to point out my dd is also recovering from a spiral fracture on the opposite leg from the knee, which was caused just from turning to run away from someone who had just thrown a firework. So excuse me if I'm not willing for her to try star jumps.

I am not surprised at this responses, a typical response from an individual who is not willing to face up to the reality if being obese. You have just re-enforced my views on this matter by listing an excuse for every option of exercise I have presented.

You also fail to appreciate that lifting light weights really does aid weight loss, you will not turn into a body builder over night and resistance training is essential for Muscular Hypotrpohy (leaner stronger muscles)

It also elevates your heart rate (which when obese needs to be working twice as hard as a healthy weigh individual)

Try swimming, yoga, pilates, aqua aerobics, there are so many forms of exercise to dismiss them all is not only ignorant but massively damaging to your health