Pain is a pain in the everything.

Originally, I was prescribed Tramadol four times a day. I found that Tramadol keeps me awake though, so I reduced this dose to three times a day. This of course meant that I needed a different pain killer at night. I was prescribed Gabapentin by my specialist, last year.

It worked well to start with, but over the year it's diminished. Rather than increase the dose I requested, last week, to change to a more commonly used medication; Amitryptiline. He had no problem with this, but along with everything else he forgot to do, he forgot to write the prescription for this. (I hasten to add that this was NOT Dr Patel at the George Eliot). I left a note for my GP on the way home from the specialist appointment, telling him that I now had no pain medication for night-time, asking him if he could write the prescription for Amitryptiline for me. It's a commonly used drug, one which he's prescribed for me before under different circumstances.

So, I expected to spend the weekend without pain medication. Come Monday though, there was no prescription for me, and of course I can't get an appointment with, or speak with, my GP about it for weeks.

At the same time, of course, my Tramadol is running low. So I put in a request for a repeat of Tramadol on Monday, too. For some reason it seems particularly difficult to get a repeat of Tramadol. I don't know why it's so controversial. I've been assured that it isn't the cost of the drug. So, because I know it takes ages for the Tramadol prescription to come through, I've reduced the dose of Tramadol, to twice a day.

So, for a week now, I've been on less than half the pain medication my body has become accustomed to. It's very easy to say that I'm not addicted to these pain medications. I'm not ... not specifically addicted to Tramadol and Gabapentin, anyway. However, my body now requires pain relief of some sort. Last time something similar happened, I sought relief from Codeine Plus, or something like that, which helped a little. I only have Ibuprofen available at the moment though, which doesn't seem to do much at all.

So, I AM IN PAIN. I have a stabbing pain straight through my head (withdrawal no doubt). My entire body feels horrible. Obviously, the pain that the medications help with has come back with a vengeance. But, my body feels like it's starving, too, an experience I have never desired to repeat. Standing up feels uncomfortable, as if I'm unable to breath. Yet my breathing is unaffected.

I can't remain in one position for more than a few minutes, but I cannot explain why. Nothing feels right. This is the hypermobility. Before taking pain medication I was used to this feeling, and hadn't even realised I was in such significant discomfort. Every joint in my body feels ... loose. I can feel each tiny movement, some feel like they're grating, some feel like they're swimming. Subluxations have become a lot more common throughout this period of pain and discomfort.

And of course, with pain and discomfort comes the lack of sleep.

I'm so tired of fighting to live a normal life. Not just striving, but fighting the NHS and DWP. I have to argue my case over and over and over again, to get the simplest of things. This medication change is just one example, among many. I do at least have a GP who is working with me now, despite it feeling as if he's doing it so slowly. I've been ill since 2002: This is the first time someone is taking me seriously.

GPs to no longer sign people off sick

This is a long article (click title to view), and I have a lot to say about it, so I'll just give you a few snippets below. I like my snippets recently don't I!

People should be signed off for long-term sickness by an independent assessment service and not GPs, a government-backed review says.

The review also calls for a new government backed job-brokering service, to find work for people cannot stay in their current job because of their condition.

If the recommendations are accepted people who are signed off sick would also be put on to Job Seekers' Allowance, instead of Employment Support Allowance, for a period of three months.

"What the GPs say is they don't have time to do an in-depth functional assessment and nor have they had any training in occupational health so we think it's providing a new unique service that both employers and GPs need."

And welfare reform minister Lord Freud said: "We just don't get adequate help for people early enough when they need it and what we are creating in there is an incubator for lifelong idleness for far too many people."

He (Dr Richard Vautrey) said: "If what is being described is a proper health, occupational health assessment at an earlier stage in the patient's illness then that would be helpful.

"But if it turns out to be a punitive process just to try and save money without the best interests of the patient at the heart of the process then it will fail."

So, just to summarise for you, in case it is not clear from the above; the latest government proposal is to stop peoples personal doctors being able to sign them off long term sick from work, and to put the responsibility on a new body, which as yet does not exist. This body would consist of occupational therapists, who no doubt will give you a twenty minute assessment which does not give them any true insight into your condition at all, just like the Atos assessments. It would not in fact surprise me if they employed Atos to do it.

Why on earth are they making a fuss about 300,000 people being off work sick? That's a drop in the ocean compared to the unemployment figures. Perhaps if they focused on creating jobs, bringing markets back to this country, and preventing JSA fraud the country would be in a lot less dire straits; and they could stop picking on the sick and disabled!!

Seriously, the population of the United Kingdom is approximately 60 million. 300,000 being ill long term is less than 0.5%. I would say that was almost a miracle in itself.

Where do they think all of these jobs for the sick and disabled are going to come from? If they cannot employ the nearly 1.5 million who are claiming JSA, how do they think they will find jobs for people whose health is unreliable.

I may have been ill for ten years, but I've seen how all of this works; if you're ill at work, you get penalised. You lose out on bonus's and those with poor sickness records are the first to be made redundant. Why would employers take on someone who is uncertain when they'll be in work, or how much they can do, someone completely unpredictable, when there is a healthy person equally qualified that they can employ?

The most ridiculous thing about this is that our GPs know us the best. It did not say as such in this article, but the news item on the television last night apparently said that many GPs feel pressured to sign patients off long term sick when they should not. This, I can understand to a certain extent, as when you are familiar with someone it is human nature to not wish to do them any harm. There in lies the error though; if your GP cares about you they would not sign you off as long term sick, taking you out of the work place, and earning better money, if it were not necessary.

I know for a fact that my own GP feels a lot more pressure from the government to have me returned to work, than he does from myself to sign me off sick.

Well, as one of my friends says, this may simply be an exercise in keeping the public happy again. Show the public that the government is doing what they want, then actually do nothing about it. I hope he is right, as these measures would lead to even further suicides.