don't take the blue pills

I bought these blue pills a while back by accident. I meant to get just acetaminophen, which is a basic pain reliever. It’s what’s in Tylenol. But I was in a hurry and got the wrong bottle. 

Just to be clear, they are NOT Viagra.

These are acetaminophen plus diphenhydramine, and they’re for night-time pain relief. Diphenhydramine is what’s in Benadryl. It’s generally used for allergies and motion sickness, but it can make you relaxed or make you sleep.

The day that I bought them, I was on my way to a rehearsal. I felt a massive headache coming on, so I stopped at a drug store and grabbed these. I was back in my car, heading to my rehearsal, opening the bottle, and was about to take several (3 or 4 probably). But the color threw me. Normally, acetaminophen tablets are white, not blue. So, I looked more carefully at the package and realized these weren’t what I’d thought.

I don’t recall whether I stopped elsewhere and bought a regular, non-drowsy pain reliever, or if I just asked someone at rehearsal. But I did not take the blue ones. I may have that night, or sometime shortly after. I’ve tried them just a handful of times, most recently last night. I had a headache yesterday from around 4 or 5 pm until I went to bed around 9:30. I never go to bed that early, but the headache was pretty bad.

Well, I’m not gonna take these anymore. They just make me feel awful the next morning. Often I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, and after taking 2 of these blue pills, I still wake up in the middle of the night, but I feel really, really drunk—uncomfortably drunk. I’ll feel really tired, but not able to get back to sleep for a while. Then, in the morning, I feel like crap. 

I also just realized this morning, while looking at the bottle, that they’re past the expiration date. They’re probably okay to use. They helped me get to sleep last night, and didn’t seem to work any differently from when I’ve used them in the past. But I just don’t like how they make me feel.