I am taking three types of drugs at the moment in two pill formats, one is Sustiva which is my Efavirenz and the other is Truvada which is a combination of both Emtricitabine and Tenofovir. They are not bad sized pills and quite easy to swallow so taking them is not a problem.

Well, I stopped eating around 9pm last night just in case the tablets made me sick.  There is nothing worse than bringing up your entire stomach content as it leaves you feeling worse than ever, so I am erring on the side of caution tonight.

It was just over and hour ago from taking them along with my regular pills that I started to notice a slight tripped-out feeling, as though I were coming up on them; that pleasant feeling you get on a good night out with a little drug-induced help!  So, at that stage I thought it best to try and get some sleep just in case that trippy feeling turned into a drunken room spin state, you know that feeling when you go to bed and you have to sleep with one foot on the floor to stop the room from spinning?

Now this is where it all changed!  By this time all of the lights were out in the flat, but we all know our way around our environments in the dark and even when a little inebriated.  Last night I felt extremely disorientated: I knew where I was in the flat but had to aid myself with the walls and furniture to get in to the bedroom and finally into bed.  When I got to the foot of the bed, I had to let go of the wardrobe to turn around and get on to the bed, That was my most frightening stage because I fell on to the bed, feeling as though I had missed my footing.

It was my partner that taught me to always embrace these feelings in order to turn what normally would be a problem into something positive.  Problems that invoke panic can make the problem worse, but positive experiences you can learn by!

I finally got into bed with the covers over me and it did not feel like I was in bed at all. At one stage, I had to reach out to feel for the wall to make sure that I was not only in bed but in the position that I regularly lay in (that was a comfort and safety thing).  I inclined the head of the bed as I normally do but this time a little higher, not quite sitting up but more ‘propped up’, so that I was not laid out flat.

I was half awake for most of the night and this was a new experience for me. I am able to remember vividly most of the night and it was not all bad.  I can only describe the nights events in patches as at stages I must have really drifted off in to something quite deep yet very relaxing; I wish I had been in that place all night.

It is going to sound really strange for anyone who has never been in that slightly high state and probably will not understand.  It was as though I had been picked up by something and placed in a large open field or a tunnel of air, all around me was empty, yet I felt extremely cushioned and protected.  I know I was suspended because at one point, I reached out to touch the wall and could not feel anything.

As I acclimatised to the feeling of being suspended, I slowly moved down this imaginary shaft of air and then I must have put up some kind of resistance against the feeling because I suddenly felt as though I was being pushed on to my left side. I realised that I was not being pushed but instead that I was turning around a corner. It did not take long to get used to this feeling and I embraced it.  All of a sudden I stopped feeling anything, which must have been the time when I finally fell in to a deep sleep.

I experienced this a few times in the night and that must have been because at several times I awoke to use the bathroom.

This morning when I woke, I felt that I had been spark-out all night but thankfully without those dancing aches and pains.  Let’s hope that the next few weeks are going to be the same and, in all honestly, if those side effects do not go away, then I am happy to keep them, with the hope and challenge to be able to take better control of them.

If anyone is going through this kind of starting point, whether it be a new drug regime or additions to an existing one, then I can only suggest: embrace the feeling, do not be frightened by it and use it to your advantage… enjoy it!