I am curious as to how often it is used, especially those of us who had an AVM on the cerebellum. I use it for 14 months, and although it was good and effective for awhile, it has problems and I was on it way too long.
This is not the doctors' fault. When I was using the patch, I told doctors that I was afraid of not having it. The sickness and nausea were awful and scopolamine can help with that, but it can make you reluctant to try and go without it.
In that sense, it is "addictive". I dreaded the sickness and nausea and was afraid of not having the patch. Scopolamine is not an addictive drug, but I'm saying a person can be afraid of going without it because dizzines and nausea are so awful. The patch did not eliminate my nausea and dizziness, not by a long shot, but I was afraid it would be far worse without it.
My wife had a "Law and Order" episode on TV. It caught my attention when scopolamine was mentioned. It turns out the victim was killed with scopolamine! If you google the drug, you find many references to it being a dangerous drug, and many dangerous effects of the drug. Those are nonsense. However, it is a powerful drug. Don't avoid it--it can help, but don't use it for 14 months, like I did.
When trying to wean myself off of it, I tried to go 4 days before changing it rather than 3 days. I was told some people will cut the patch in half in order to wean themselves off of scopolamine. Both strategies only make it your problems worse. The only way is to stop using it "cold turkey", lie down, and let the resulting extra dizziness and nausea to run its course.
Scopolamine has some side effects, and it was great not having to deal with it anymore!
Thanks for the feedback, multistats. How is your nausea now?
It makes perfect sense to me how this could be addictive. You explained the dependence on this very well. Is there anything in a pill form that would do the same thing as this patch does? Or At least - lower the withdraw symptoms. You did say, You went off of it cold turkey. How are you doing without it?
Ben
It is much better but still there. I think it will continue to slowly improve, but I will probably always be more susceptible to dizziness than most people. I still vomit occasionally, though always in the morning. Still, much improved! I never want to go through that again.
I haven't heard about a pill. If used as medicine, I've only heard about a patch. When given to passengers on a ship to help with sea sickness, it is in patch form. When given to chemo patients to combat nausea, it's a patch.
When I withdrew from it, it was rough for about 4-5 days. The dizziness and nausea are worse, but there is no avoiding those after using the patch for 14 months. The only thing you can do is lie down, use ginger, and wait for it to pass. Once I was off the patch, it was a milestone in my recovery and was very glad not to have to use it anymore. Once past the "withdrawl", my dizziness and nausea returned to the level it was with the patch, but recovery continued slowly but surely. Not using it was a sign of recovery.
If you google scopolamine, you find medical message boards (not dealing with AVM) filled with comments from ship passengers who had used it to combat sea sickness. The great majority of the comments are regarding how awful scopolamine is. Many of those people view scopolamine as the source of a medical problem, but they used it for a few days! I took it for 14 months, so those comments scared me into getting off the patch. I never read about anyone using nearly as long as I did. Again, it is not my doctors' fault--all during the 14 months I told them I was afraid of not using it, and my dizziness and nausea were exceptionally bad. I wish I had gotten off of it much earlier. "Cold turkey" is the only to get away from scopolamine.