I suppose it was inevitable

     All of my adult life I have struggled with depression, but also drug use, alcohol and other forms of self medication. You name an antidepressant, and I have probably been prescribed it at some point. For ne reason or another they have all not done the job,

    Also, I have suffered from pain as a result of injuries suffered in the service, which have slowly gotten worse over the years. I dislocated my left shoulder doing the low crawl. A rock rolled under my hand and threw me on my shoulder which popped it out of joint. I put it back in joint by myself. After it happened once, it happened many times after. The Army decided I needed too be operated on shortly before I was discharged.

    when I got out my left arm had been in traction for several weeks, and was so damaged I could not lift my arm with its own muscles. I immediately went to the VA and they gave me a small disability (20%). It tool mr several years to work it back into reasonable condition.

    For many years I got by on over-the-counter pain medications, Ibuprofin was my pain killer of choice, right up until it wrecked my kidneys. I was ordered by the doctor to stop any use of NSAIDs, The only thing that worked was opioids. So I was given a prescription for Percocet. I really don't like opioids, but that was the only choice I was given.

    The two tales of woe recently converged. I had asked for a new antidepressant, so my Dr. sent me to the head shrinkers to see if they could find something that would help me. So I went to the mental health Dep. to be interviewed. The first question out of the worker was "Have you experienced any trauma?"

    Boy howdie was my reply. So I told him the whole mass murderer ,sanity attempted homicide, court martial story, His reply was that I was not suffering from depression as much as I was PTSD. He prescribed a medication I had never heard of before, and it works great.

    Because the underlying cause of my PTSD was service related, I have filed for compensation from the VA. I do not care about financial compensation, I just want treatment, of course the VA is fighting that tooth and nail.

    I was talking with my primary care provider with the VA about all of this and my prescription for Percocet and he wasted to try something else. He suggested Butrans, which is a patch you put on for a week. It started out just great, My first assessment was why didn't they try thin about 20 years ago. Everything went just fine until three weeks ago,

    When I took the old patch off I noticed the area under the patch was red and itchy, and felt weird.

    The next thing is it started itching. Not mildly itching, I will tear off my arm if this does not stop itching. It just kept getting worse until I called in to the clinic too see what I could do. They sent me to Urgent Care locally, figuring it was am allergic response, which could get worse with time to possibly include such stuff as trouble breathing and anaphilactic shock.

    So the magical bullet I thought was going to handle my pain issues was a dud. Looks like I will be going back on Percocet.