A girl can learn to spell and take dictation well, and never sit on the boss's left knee
Today I'm hoping to achieve two things with this blog. The first is to try out a dictation app on my tablet to see whether it helps the words flow. The second is to describe exactly what it feels like when my medication kicks in the morning. Well, so far so good with the dictation I only have to correct one in every two of the words that I type!
I can definitely see a benefit to this dictation malarkey. In the morning my fingers can be a bit stiff so typing is not always the easiest. Also, a good friend told me that dictation allowa you to use different parts of the brain than you would if you were typing. As far I am concerned and i'm the more parts of the brain involved the better, especially first thing! I am experiencing a few disadvantages though - the first being that if I pause and look away from the device and then start talking again quite often the app goes into standby mode so what I have said has not been recorded. That's definitely something that I will need to keep my eye on it might turn on. The second is that it does absolutely no punctuation or grammar at all so no capitalisation of letters, no full stops, etc. I'm sure there must be an easy way of doing it but it's not patently obvious. Those niggles aside i think it might be something that I find really helpful.
So on to the drugs and their side effects. I take a lot of pregabalin for neuropathic pain and then opiates on top of that for general pain. I take pregabalin morning and evening and an opiate around every 6-8 hours. It's now 950 am and I took my medication about an hour and a half ago. I'd say that the drugs are probably at their peak of effect right now. The first thing I noticed it is I get really thirsty, really really thirsty, and I drink a good litre of water at night or in the morning just to feel OK. Obviously, drinking a litre of water before going to bed is not a great idea and I'm often up quite late dealing with the side effects of heavy water consumption.
The the next thing i notice is a slight buzz, like the feeling something exciting is about to happen. I assume that's the noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor action of tapentadol. Next comes a tingle in all over my body. It feels like somebody is running a really fine grade sandpaper overall my bones and I can feel all of my tender spots and trigger points. After that I get a lot of tension my jaw and it feels the need to be pushed forward - almost like the gun you see ravers when they've been partying a bit too hard.
Then comes the good stuff. My eyes become more difficult to focus, I assume that's because of muscle relaxation, and find it quite hard to keep still. The atmosphere and my immediate environment to feel very soft and cosy, it feels like I've been inserted into a feather duvet. Like the soft mints Mr Soft advert. I have to fight the temptation to go back to sleep. I can get aural and visual hallucinations too, especially at night where mad patterns swirl when I close my eyes and I hear random sentences from the day repeated.
I do sometimes wonder with the side effects whether it's worth taking the the medication. But then I get a tummy bug or something that makes me physically sick so I'm unable to take medication. Then I really feel the pain and it can take days two to get my symptoms back under control.
I'd dictated a few hundred more words but was recorded was nonsensical and now I can't remember what I was saying. Oh yes, that's the other side effect - memory loss! D'Oh! :-)
I can definitely see a benefit to this dictation malarkey. In the morning my fingers can be a bit stiff so typing is not always the easiest. Also, a good friend told me that dictation allowa you to use different parts of the brain than you would if you were typing. As far I am concerned and i'm the more parts of the brain involved the better, especially first thing! I am experiencing a few disadvantages though - the first being that if I pause and look away from the device and then start talking again quite often the app goes into standby mode so what I have said has not been recorded. That's definitely something that I will need to keep my eye on it might turn on. The second is that it does absolutely no punctuation or grammar at all so no capitalisation of letters, no full stops, etc. I'm sure there must be an easy way of doing it but it's not patently obvious. Those niggles aside i think it might be something that I find really helpful.
So on to the drugs and their side effects. I take a lot of pregabalin for neuropathic pain and then opiates on top of that for general pain. I take pregabalin morning and evening and an opiate around every 6-8 hours. It's now 950 am and I took my medication about an hour and a half ago. I'd say that the drugs are probably at their peak of effect right now. The first thing I noticed it is I get really thirsty, really really thirsty, and I drink a good litre of water at night or in the morning just to feel OK. Obviously, drinking a litre of water before going to bed is not a great idea and I'm often up quite late dealing with the side effects of heavy water consumption.
The the next thing i notice is a slight buzz, like the feeling something exciting is about to happen. I assume that's the noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor action of tapentadol. Next comes a tingle in all over my body. It feels like somebody is running a really fine grade sandpaper overall my bones and I can feel all of my tender spots and trigger points. After that I get a lot of tension my jaw and it feels the need to be pushed forward - almost like the gun you see ravers when they've been partying a bit too hard.
Then comes the good stuff. My eyes become more difficult to focus, I assume that's because of muscle relaxation, and find it quite hard to keep still. The atmosphere and my immediate environment to feel very soft and cosy, it feels like I've been inserted into a feather duvet. Like the soft mints Mr Soft advert. I have to fight the temptation to go back to sleep. I can get aural and visual hallucinations too, especially at night where mad patterns swirl when I close my eyes and I hear random sentences from the day repeated.
I do sometimes wonder with the side effects whether it's worth taking the the medication. But then I get a tummy bug or something that makes me physically sick so I'm unable to take medication. Then I really feel the pain and it can take days two to get my symptoms back under control.
I'd dictated a few hundred more words but was recorded was nonsensical and now I can't remember what I was saying. Oh yes, that's the other side effect - memory loss! D'Oh! :-)