I want to share why I am finding myself cornered into leaving this dimension sooner than later despite having been a successful photographer, relatively young (just turned 41), mother to a beautiful 11 year old... This story is stranger than science fiction and I need to tell it.
On October 18, 2022, I was poisoned/neurologically injured by a steroid called Kenalog-40 (four intermuscular injections in my back for minor pain) which destroyed my central nervous system, my sleep, my digestion, and my ability to be a mother/partner or work, leaving me alone to sit in a room basically 24/7, nearly unable to function. There are no words to describe the unbearable nightmare to which my existence has been reduced. From the day of the injections, I have had extreme other-worldly anxiety, debilitating insomnia (needed hospitalization), extreme panic attacks, depression, despair, pressure inside my brain, muscle twitches, muscle wasting, memory loss, paranoia, blood sugar issues, seizures in my sleep, excessive bleeding that lasted 6 weeks, leading to my having a belly full of blood and needing to have a fallopian tube removed (they said it was an ectopic pregnancy but so many others have had this same bleeding from Kenalog). I lost 26 lbs in 6 weeks and am still unable to regain it, I developed small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (can't eat anything besides chicken without pain), have lost at least 30% of my hair, daily crushing fatigue, compromised immune system and chronic infections, a sense of a decline in cognitive function, depersonalization/derealization, facial and body hair growth, and abnormal (giant) clotted periods. I had to go on Ativan for the anxiety and still can't sleep or function during the day without it a year later. I also have Lyme disease, a parasite called Babesia Microti, and now oral thrush, none of which will go away with antibiotics/anti fungals, which I can't tolerate.
Prior to these injections, I was back in school, studying psychology, double major with a 4.0, with only 9 courses left. Now my world has shrunken to something unrecognizable. I have visited every kind of doctor imaginable and all bloodwork comes up normal -an MRI and EEG also revealed nothing. My son was my everything, but now he stays with his dad, because staying here with me in a bed is too depressing and unhealthy for him. Other than this, I have no real support. My father is dead, my mother is very sick, my partner left because I couldn't stop begging him to help me go (most likely also agony from the benzo-induced akathisia). So now I sit here in this room, terrified, looking online for the best ways to end it… daily. It is unbearable, but I also feel that I deserve to die with dignity, not shot like an animal in a field, or poisoned with pills that may cause brain damage but not actually allow me to pass. Ultimately I landed on the Amiltryptaline/metoclopramide/benzo method from the PPHandbook... ordered those a couple of weeks ago but even as I am typing this, I realize how heartbreaking this sounds... and yet, I have missed every single holiday because of being trapped in a bed and spent 90% of the past year trapped in a bed in anguish. I can barely take care of myself anymore and as the days pass, I feel I am losing more and more of myself and my mind. My body burns from inside, feeling like I am sunburned below my skin. I have autoimmune issues (a positive ANA), extreme muscle wasting (Kenalog eats muscle), and it still burns where they removed my fallopian tube. I actually desperately do not want to die, but I already feel dead. I am already not living, and sadly, the memory of the person I was has slowly been overwritten for everyone who loved me.
This is not a rash decision. I have been extensively researching this for about 6 months now. I had hoped that my symptoms would improve but it feels as though with each day, the world is becoming more and more "tilted." It's like attempting to view the world through a movie screen or having a glass ball around your head. It is nearly impossible to put into words. I wish that I could get some help from doctors but they have tried every possible medication (even anti-psychotics) but they only made the terror and depersonalization worse. Prior to this, I was not on any psych meds. Sadly, no doctor has been able to give a meaningful diagnosis. I have been to a neurologist, 3 endocrinologists, 2 psychiatrists, 2 gastroenterologists, a kidney doctor, an allergist, 2 gynecologists, not one doctor has even heard of this drug causing this kind of systemic reaction. It is more like a vaccine injury - a reaction to the toxic excipients in the steroid injections vs. the steroid itself (benzyl alcohol is known to cause brain damage), or a reactivation of dormant viruses. Prior to this I never thought twice about my health. Now I have such bad fatigue/ringing ears it is difficult to even leave the house. I can barely grocery shop for myself. And the latest discovery after I finally began walking again outside was that I can't walk without crippling pain because of something called AVN of the femoral head (avascular necrosis of the hip bone) which is yet another known side effect of these steroids (it started 4 weeks after the injections last October but had gone away for a bit, now it's back and has put me back in this bed).
The bottom line is, every single day is AGONY, like being lit on fire... AGONY. And yet I don't want to leave my son (who I have already all but lost)... My poor son has even told me before "you're not the same person... when are you coming back?" which is just soul crushing to me because I know what he means. All too well. Even when he comes to visit that one day a week, it's like I'm not here with him. I'm just not. We could not be any more disconnected and previously, we truly did have a beautiful life. But it was stolen ... by Kenalog and the benzo Ativan, which I can't live with and also can't live without (headaches, seizures, more terror, panic, insomnia).
I don't even fully know why I'm writing all this, I guess I just wanted my story told. Big Pharma and my own stupidity in not researching Kenalog injections cost me my life... and will most likely ultimately cost my son a mother (already has) and I am heartbroken over this and am crying even as I type these words. I want to stay, I am just so weary and broken and my light has all but gone out.
"Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, 'He fought so hard.' And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong." -Sally Brampton
On October 18, 2022, I was poisoned/neurologically injured by a steroid called Kenalog-40 (four intermuscular injections in my back for minor pain) which destroyed my central nervous system, my sleep, my digestion, and my ability to be a mother/partner or work, leaving me alone to sit in a room basically 24/7, nearly unable to function. There are no words to describe the unbearable nightmare to which my existence has been reduced. From the day of the injections, I have had extreme other-worldly anxiety, debilitating insomnia (needed hospitalization), extreme panic attacks, depression, despair, pressure inside my brain, muscle twitches, muscle wasting, memory loss, paranoia, blood sugar issues, seizures in my sleep, excessive bleeding that lasted 6 weeks, leading to my having a belly full of blood and needing to have a fallopian tube removed (they said it was an ectopic pregnancy but so many others have had this same bleeding from Kenalog). I lost 26 lbs in 6 weeks and am still unable to regain it, I developed small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (can't eat anything besides chicken without pain), have lost at least 30% of my hair, daily crushing fatigue, compromised immune system and chronic infections, a sense of a decline in cognitive function, depersonalization/derealization, facial and body hair growth, and abnormal (giant) clotted periods. I had to go on Ativan for the anxiety and still can't sleep or function during the day without it a year later. I also have Lyme disease, a parasite called Babesia Microti, and now oral thrush, none of which will go away with antibiotics/anti fungals, which I can't tolerate.
Prior to these injections, I was back in school, studying psychology, double major with a 4.0, with only 9 courses left. Now my world has shrunken to something unrecognizable. I have visited every kind of doctor imaginable and all bloodwork comes up normal -an MRI and EEG also revealed nothing. My son was my everything, but now he stays with his dad, because staying here with me in a bed is too depressing and unhealthy for him. Other than this, I have no real support. My father is dead, my mother is very sick, my partner left because I couldn't stop begging him to help me go (most likely also agony from the benzo-induced akathisia). So now I sit here in this room, terrified, looking online for the best ways to end it… daily. It is unbearable, but I also feel that I deserve to die with dignity, not shot like an animal in a field, or poisoned with pills that may cause brain damage but not actually allow me to pass. Ultimately I landed on the Amiltryptaline/metoclopramide/benzo method from the PPHandbook... ordered those a couple of weeks ago but even as I am typing this, I realize how heartbreaking this sounds... and yet, I have missed every single holiday because of being trapped in a bed and spent 90% of the past year trapped in a bed in anguish. I can barely take care of myself anymore and as the days pass, I feel I am losing more and more of myself and my mind. My body burns from inside, feeling like I am sunburned below my skin. I have autoimmune issues (a positive ANA), extreme muscle wasting (Kenalog eats muscle), and it still burns where they removed my fallopian tube. I actually desperately do not want to die, but I already feel dead. I am already not living, and sadly, the memory of the person I was has slowly been overwritten for everyone who loved me.
This is not a rash decision. I have been extensively researching this for about 6 months now. I had hoped that my symptoms would improve but it feels as though with each day, the world is becoming more and more "tilted." It's like attempting to view the world through a movie screen or having a glass ball around your head. It is nearly impossible to put into words. I wish that I could get some help from doctors but they have tried every possible medication (even anti-psychotics) but they only made the terror and depersonalization worse. Prior to this, I was not on any psych meds. Sadly, no doctor has been able to give a meaningful diagnosis. I have been to a neurologist, 3 endocrinologists, 2 psychiatrists, 2 gastroenterologists, a kidney doctor, an allergist, 2 gynecologists, not one doctor has even heard of this drug causing this kind of systemic reaction. It is more like a vaccine injury - a reaction to the toxic excipients in the steroid injections vs. the steroid itself (benzyl alcohol is known to cause brain damage), or a reactivation of dormant viruses. Prior to this I never thought twice about my health. Now I have such bad fatigue/ringing ears it is difficult to even leave the house. I can barely grocery shop for myself. And the latest discovery after I finally began walking again outside was that I can't walk without crippling pain because of something called AVN of the femoral head (avascular necrosis of the hip bone) which is yet another known side effect of these steroids (it started 4 weeks after the injections last October but had gone away for a bit, now it's back and has put me back in this bed).
The bottom line is, every single day is AGONY, like being lit on fire... AGONY. And yet I don't want to leave my son (who I have already all but lost)... My poor son has even told me before "you're not the same person... when are you coming back?" which is just soul crushing to me because I know what he means. All too well. Even when he comes to visit that one day a week, it's like I'm not here with him. I'm just not. We could not be any more disconnected and previously, we truly did have a beautiful life. But it was stolen ... by Kenalog and the benzo Ativan, which I can't live with and also can't live without (headaches, seizures, more terror, panic, insomnia).
I don't even fully know why I'm writing all this, I guess I just wanted my story told. Big Pharma and my own stupidity in not researching Kenalog injections cost me my life... and will most likely ultimately cost my son a mother (already has) and I am heartbroken over this and am crying even as I type these words. I want to stay, I am just so weary and broken and my light has all but gone out.
"Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, 'He fought so hard.' And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong." -Sally Brampton
I truly want there to be another way. I don't want to leave him...I honestly just feel like I already have.
