Yesterday I was able to go and pick up this new cream that had to be specially made for my itchy arm. Took some finding, this specialist pharmacy.... and when I got there and asked for my prescription the pharmacist said 'Ah yes, this is definitely one of the weirdest creams I've seen'!!
The cream contains lots of 'proper' and strange medicines. It is comprised of
a) gabapentin - an anti seizure drug
b) clonidine hydrochloride - a high blood pressure medication
c) ketoprofen - a pain killer
d) amitriptyline - a tricylcic anti depressant
Weird.
But what these all have in common is that aside from their intended use, they all have a positive effect on people with neuropathic pain or itch, and doctors are beginning to prescribe them for people like me who have this unbearable and unending problem. If I were taking an oral version I'd probably be taking a low dose of gabapentin or amitryptiline, but because of the pregnancy I'm going the cream route instead and he's combined all of the possible relief forms into one big 'get lost itch' cream! He said it may not work... so we'll see. The pharmacist suggested applying it 3 x per day for a few days and then 1 x per day thereafter. I put two lots on yesterday and dare I say the arm feels a bit better? I don't want to tempt fate.
Meanwhile, school is closed AGAIN. 4th day in a row. All for less than half a centimeter of snow on the ground, FFS. This country is totally unable to deal with snow! All the locals are complaining that they've never seen weather like this, that it hasn't been this way for 2109831092 years, and it's a signal of impending doom. I can't really see what the fuss is about to be honest, it's a tiny amount of snow, the temperatures are cold yet not too cold (minus 6 overnight, plus 2 during the day), and it's winter...I don't think it's that peculiar, but then I've not grown up here so what do I know!
I do know that they're warning we're going to have the hottest summer on record after this freezing winter. This worries me as the lack of air conditioning in our house is beyond a joke in the summer. We have floor to ceiling windows through the lounge, dining room, and big windows again in the kitchen and our bedroom - all of which face south west and get the sun *all day*. This area typically gets non stop heat from June through to October without stopping, and even with all the blinds closed to stop the sun shining in it reaches about 95 degrees indoors without respite. Also an odd quirk of this area is that the hottest part of the day is around 5.30pm so there is no evening relief from the heat either as any cooling which happens only brings you back down to the low 90's after it's soared into the 100s'. We bought a portable air conditioner (500 bucks, supposedly quite powerful) last year and it made very little, if any, difference because everything is open plan. I'm worried about being pregnant during the heat, and I'm worried about the baby being subjected to that kind of heat when born. I've talked to G and we can't afford it but we're going to get some quotes in from air conditioining people. Thing is, it's going to cost a minimum of $5,000 and most probably something like $8,000 and we just don't have that kind of money lying around. I dunno what we'll do, but we're going to see how competitive the quotes will be. Seeing as it's freezing outside and the middle of winter, prices should be at their lowest right now. Sears are coming round tonight to quote and I have calls into a couple more places. Even if we have to somehow finance this... I think we really have no choice. We took Harry outside into 95 in the shade heat as a newborn in Canada and after only 40 mins he began to overheat in a quite frightning way .... if it's like that in the house there is no escape. Kids die being left in cars in the heat, our house is like an overheated car all summer.
Posted by katie at January 16, 2007 11:30 AM