Hi, I'm new to this forum and in quite a bad way health wise, it started approximately 1 year ago, I'm taking sertraline and mirtazapine for treatment resistant depression since the age of 15, I'm now 40 I would like to add. I gradually started getting pain and swelling on both feet and ankles, so after many doctor appointments I was diagnosed with having re-active arthritis in connection with a stomach bug I'd had very recently, very strange I thought?! I was told to elevate my legs and have baths in Epsom salts and the swelling and pain would gradually ease. I also did some research on my condition, turns out that it is possible that some of the bacteria from the stomach can reach different parts of the body and cause exactly the symptoms I was experiencing, but it not very common and only effects parts of the body which are already suffering someway and that you are unaware of?! Anyway the swelling did not get better and it was not long before both my legs were swollen. So again after many doctors visits I was sent to have an X-Ray's on both ankle's, the results came back and showed I had bone osteopytes and my diagnosis changed to ankle osteoarthritis, this was now about 4 months from when it all started, the pain was so bad I was put on codeine which helped at first but then just did nothing even though quite often I would take more than the prescribed dose of 240 mg. My symptoms continued to get worse with more swelling and pain, now in my hips and legs and started to put on a lot of weight due to inactivity, I had a blood test which came back fine, so as far as the doctor was concerned I was O.K?! Now I was put on Dihydrocodeine which helped tremendously and could go about my day no problem at all. Soon enough I found myself taking much more than 8 a day, more like 25-30! It was shocking and could not believe what I was doing to myself, I was far too embarrassed and ashamed to tell the doctor and just said I'd like to come off opioid medication and try something different to manage the pain. Then I was put on Pregabalin, so I started these right away. They worked so well I was able to almost stop my Dihydrocodeine completely, but after a while I found myself being addicted to both and I lost control of things completely. I now to this day take at least 600 mg pregabalin and 300 - 400 mg Dihydrocodeine! Obviously now I am buying elsewhere to keep my habit going. My health to this day is still the same with swelling in both legs with pain and have gained weight rapidly.
I hope I have made things clear as the last 1 year of my life has been all over the place and have not spoken out to anyone.