Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The Tolerance of a Small Elephant

Over the years I've learned that I have a very high tolerance for drugs, and today's colonoscopy (no, I'm not going into any details) reinforced that. As with my surgeries in January and February, the amount of sedative that was supposed to "knock me out" failed miserably, and a second dose was required. And even that wore off too soon. After the procedure, the nurse insisted that I would be "impaired" for the next 24 hours by the sedative...you gotta be kidding me. I'm not even mildly buzzed. It's the same with all medications that "may cause drowsiness"; I'm more likely to fall asleep from reading David Broder. When I had the shoulder surgery, I maxed out on the allowable amount of morphine and spent the night beating the security guard at chess (to be fair, he wasn't all that good a chess player).
It was true with the illicit drugs of my youth, and it's true with pharmaceuticals today: I have the tolerance of a small elephant.

4 comments:

Lockwood said...

High tolerance young, very low tolerance now. I had a bad infection a few years back, and in the aftermath, was prescribed some pain pills- oxycodone, if I remember... hydrocodone? The scrip said take 1-2 as needed. I found one was more than enough to just put me to sleep, which of course was effective at alleviating the (minor) pain and (major) itching associated with healing. As I was also having sleep troubles at the time, I adored those little stinkers. For about two months, I slept like a baby.

One Fly said...

Always been that way with me as well. At least it seems that way.

Demeur said...

Well if you quite doing it recreationally then they might work. Anymore if I take 1/2 of what's prescribed it knocks me on my ass.

pygalgia said...

Demeur, the only recreational drug I've used in over 25 years is herbal. No one but Michael Jackson uses surgical sedatives that way. I do think my tolerance level is more a result of genetics, as my Father also had an extremely high tolerance, despite being a life long anti-drug Reagan republican.