If it’s for fibro/illness related posts, here’s one.  I feel like shit.  In spades.  On the bright side, since I  quit the omeprazole (prilosec), my back is hurting much less.  It’s one of the side effects, back pain.  On the other hand, I have heartburn every time I eat anything, and a pill got stuck in my esophagus the other day (oh, painful is an understatement), which has never happened in all the zillions of pills I’ve taken.  Turns out, getting OFF the omeprazole is as bad or worse than being on it, because your stomach now has no defense against too much acid on its own.  So they give you meds that destroy a necessary part of your digestion, in order to keep you from having too much acid. Does this make sense?  ‘You take a lot of meds that are hard on the stomach.  Here, take this to help with that.  Oh, you can never get off it, because now everything you ever ingest will cause too much acid and you have no defense.  Or something.  The meloxicam side effects, aside from stomach bleeding, are bloating (your stomach keeps expanding and is hard as a rock)  and bad breathing, like you can’t take in enough air in a breath.  Among other things.  These are bad drugs, and they are still finding out just how bad, according to my pharmacist.  I seem to have forgotten the rule, somewhere along the line.  The rule is ‘never take anything that has not been out for at least ten years, because it takes that long for all the side effects to show up’.  And maybe even not all of them show up in the ten years, either.  Medicine is a profit-driven industry, it is not about the patient’s health and well-being.  Not anymore.

I wish you’d comment, people out there, because sometimes I feel like I may as well address the wall, but I keep typing anyway.  Oh, well.

God, I feel awful.  Really, really awful.  Weak, tired, in pain, heartburn, exhaustion.  I’m supposed to go out for dinner tonight with a friend I don’t see often, and I really don’t know if I’m going to be able to when the time comes.  Merry Christmas, Jean.  Yeah, right.