::Griffblog::

My last post on the subject of my ilizarov op was last November. At the time I wrote that I had begun attending a gym and was well on the way to full recovery.

So what’s happened in the 8 months since then? I’m still a very keen gym user, I go three days per week whenever possible. I’ve even got into ‘spinning’ which is the high intensity bike exercise class. I went on a diet after New Year and have, so far, lost more than 2st.

I’ve also started running. I had to wait 12mths after the frame was removed to be sure that the new bone was strong enough before impact sports such as running. Because it has been so long since I did any form of running (other than dashing across a busy road) it was suggested that the ‘Couch to 5k’ programme may be worth a go.

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My last blog entry was a few months back. At the time I was struggling with morphine withdrawal and the blog wasn’t high on the to-do list.

I’m glad to report that I did manage to get through it. Given I had thrown away the last of the morphine prescription and I wasn’t about to go out and try and get some illegal drugs it was a foregone conclusion I guess!

But it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do and gives you a whole new perspective on the life of a drug addict. Mine was prescribed and controlled and still I became addicted so it is easy to see how a drug abuser can become hooked all too quickly.

Life is pretty much back to normal now, I’m still on the road to full fitness, knee still quite a way of full mobility but 120º of bend now which is great and means I can now kneel, run and ride a bike.

I’m now a regular gym attendee and am glad I had my leg sorted. So the main issues of life are not the more usual ones, the business, making ends meet and trying not to put too much weight back on!

I’m now 9 days in and it’s been far far harder than I had anticipated!

I’d optimistically thought that the worst would be over after 3-4 days but over a week in and I’m still struggling with the side effects of the morphine withdrawal.

With 24hours of stopping I was suffering the expected symptoms of aches and pains, headaches, flu like symptoms etc but the worst was the agitation and a weird feeling in arms and legs which caused me to shake them continually for hours at a time. A mix of pins and needles, a buzzing feeling etc.

It meant sleep was very difficult and for the first few days I could only sleep when pure exhaustion took over, sometimes grabbing a few hours at most. Continue reading…

Those of you who have followed the progress of my operation will know that I was taking morphine, tramadol and voltarol regularly to deal with the pain of the ilizarov fixator device.

Whilst I could never have coped without the help of the pain medications, the downside is of course that, now the procedure is complete I have to go through drug withdrawal.

I had been taking tramadol and morphine at 4hourly intervals for over 6mths. Both are very strong opiate based medications and both have known addictive side effects. So I was somewhat prepared for the fact that my body would have developed an addiction and I would have to suffer the symptoms of withdrawal.

I’ve been here before, when I had the original accident and broke my back I was on strong opiate meds for over a year. And so my GP agreed that I should undertake a slow progressive withdrawal. This involves my reducing the meds by small amounts in gradual stages. Continue reading…

It’s been a quite a while since I last blogged. Whilst I was in the midst of the ilizarov treatment I found committing my thoughts and progress to the blog was quite cathartic but now I’m on the mend it’s much harder to find the time.

My last leg update at the beginning of March concerned my knee bend, or lack of. That is still the over riding issue albeit I can now achieve almost 90 degrees range of movement at the knee.

It has been very slow progress with twice weekly hydrotherapy inter mixed with a weekly visit to a private physio. The cost has mounted up and as the operation to lengthen my leg was elective, my medical insurance won’t entertain covering the costs unsurprisingly.

The knee itself is much stronger now but it seems to have stuck at almost 90 degrees. It would seem I am unlikely to enjoy any great improvement past that mark without undergoing another operation to free the stuck tissue that, it is believed, is preventing further bend.

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