PAIN Guess what. That is what controls me every single minute of every single day. PAIN It sounds so simple and yet it holds the power to change your life. PAIN Such a short word to hold such power. Okay you get the point I think, at least I hope you do. See pain truly changes you. You start to divide your day into sections. Early morning is better than mid afternoon and by evening the pain has set in for the day so guess we will not be going out again. That's okay too. I always enjoyed staying home with a good book much more than going out to party as they say.
PAIN It will control your whole day. It tells you what you can and can't do. It puts limits on your activities. It controls where you can and can't work. Lately I have been having much more sciatic pain than before surgery to fuse my lower back from L3 down. Then I had some numbness in both legs and a little sciatic pain in my left leg. Now I have pain in both legs and feet. The front of my right ankle throbs and just at the base of the middle 3 toes it feels like someone is stabbing my foot with an electric knife transmitting electrical shocks with every stab. So freaking fun. My left leg is different The top feels like someone is crushing it while the bottom feels like it is being stabbed. Also right behind that little ball on the inside of my ankle feels like it has a red hot poker shoved into it. I also have more widespread numbness now than before. The Lyrica which was supposed to reverse this started to work but then just stopped cold. No freaking reason. I had feeling back in most of my numb spots for about 2 weeks then BAM here comes the numb again. Even worse in my own view is that I am having sciatic kind of pain in my right arm. Such a wonderful feeling of a knife slicing down the outside of the arm and then jamming itself into the base of my hand feels so great I just want to cry when it hits. Now my left arm is starting to go umb as well. I will be laying down on my right side and my left arm will suddenly go numb and tingly like it is asleep but even shaking it won't make it stop. I have to guess my spine has declared war on me. It is the only thing that makes sense.
That sure sounds bad. My spine has declared war on me. Sounds scary too. Maybe that is the wrong way to put it but it sure feels that way. How else can you explain it ? I realize it is a direct result of the Degenerative Disc Disease causing my discs to fall apart. It just seems like it keeps changing it's attacks. I just got used to the pain and numbness being gone after surgery and now t is back. Well that didn't seem to be enough. Hey I was still trying to live my life so what's next hmmm, Let's go ahead and attack the arms. Let's give him some new pain he is not used to. So the battle goes on and on.
Let's see how agile you are by showing me if you can swing down below that orange jungle gym.
Hey you made it safely. Good job. Now back to the show. My spine has gotten pretty good at causing me pain. It has attained all A's in class. Every time I get used to a new pain it decides to change it up. Have to admit it at least keeps it interesting. I never know what to expect. There are so many options. Too bad my pain medications can't keep up with all the twists and turns.
I mentioned above how Lyrica was working great then just stopped. Makes no sense to me. They upped the dose and it still isn't working like it did before. Wish it did. It was nice not to have the numbness even if I still had the sciatic pain. That did ease up a bit but it was still there. That is the way of it with my medications. I don't know if it is because I build up a tolerance or what it is but I quickly grow accustomed to my medications. They hit a plateau quickly. They ran some sort of DNA test on me recently at pain management. It said I metabolize drugs in a normal way. BS is what I say. Why is it that most of the drugs I have to take were not found to be effective at lower doses. It can't just be because of my size. I have read quite a few studies on the effects of being red headed and the resultant reduction in the efficacy of pain medications and anesthesia. That might explain some of it but not the rest. Even simple stuff like BP medicine and Statins to lower cholesterol needed to be jumped in dosage to work the way they were supposed to. Thanks to that tendency my pain management doctors look at me like I am a drug seeker. Stupid idiots. I follow all of their damn rules. I was scared to death of going to the ER when I was passing a huge 7mm+ kidney stone and a couple of slightly smaller ones that had gotten stuck. Why was I scared ? That's easy. My pain management contract said I couldn't get pain medications from any other source but pain management. I was having a fit trying to get a hold of a person instead of the stupid answering service. ( I got a call back 5 days after I was in the ER. ) They didn't toss me out but that should show them I am trying to follow their rules. I have passed every single piss test given to me. None have shown I wasn't taking my meds right or that I was skipping doses to sell them. None came up with illegal substances. Yet I am seen as a drug seeker because my medication doesn't work as long as they say. Last trip to them had the dragon lady stating flatly. "We are just trying to keep you even until 50 when we will put in a pain pump and we will never up your dosage from where you are now." Hmm seems like they made all the decisions with out any input or thoughts from the patient.
That was the last straw with them. I am now trying to find a new pain management clinic. That is a huge deal.PM clinics do not like to take a patent who is being treated at another PM clinic. They see it as a red flag. Too bad that you moved and that your PM clinic is now 2 hours away. Too bad your PM clinic has decided to cut you out of your own treatment decisions. So I may have to settle for my 2nd or 3rd choice. Waiting fingers crossed that my 1st choice will take me. If I could pay off my bill completely I would be the perfect patient. So instead I get to suffer at least until I can change from one clinic to another. That is also a fact of life for chronic pain patents. We get to suffer, a lot. All because we live with pain. Apparently that is not suffering enough. Nope let's make it hard to get real treatment and relief. I know that I can't have 100% relief from drugs. I am not looking to become a zombie. Too bad my current PM clinic doesn't understand I can handle a stronger dose and still function. Because of that I get to suffer with 2 hours of pain out of every 6 six. Even when it brings the pain down it is to a 5. Aint I worth it to try and get it lower ? Why the heck is 5 as low as I get to have it? Who made that freaking decision ? I sure didn't. Ths is what needs to change and soon. Why is it that some doctor gets to decide what my pain level should be ? Do they really think that a level 5 pain is okay ? I know I am getting tired of banging my head against the wall. I am getting tired of fighting. I am tired of being tired because I sleep like crap. I am tired of enduring pain 24 / 7 / 365. I want to relax and not have pain. I want to have some of my freaking life back. I am tired of contracts that they can break any time they want to but I must follow every stinking whim of theirs. I am freaking fed up with all of this fighting just to live my life. Is there some point when it will ever stop ?