Category: Chronic pain

more about nerve pain

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain

Watched the baseball game. It went to the 10th inning and my boys came through. They beat the Rays 2-1. It was the first extra innings game this season they won so I am hopeful for the season. The Sox improve to 6-4 and still are leading in the AL East.

Was happy to get an email about the blog I write for the American Association of Suicidology has made the news http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SUICIDE_SURVIVORS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-04-13-12-09-11.
It was good to see something come off of the hard work of the AAS president, Michelle Linn Gust to get the blog underway and now we have a voice.

It is not even six o’clock yet and I am exhausted. All I did today was run to the pharmacy to get my prescriptions and go up and down the stairs a few times to help my mother with some groceries. I have been up since seven. Seems I cannot sleep later than that. And I even stayed up late too. I didn’t go to bed until around midnight, after watching Lincoln and reading for a bit afterwards. I kept on going on twitter and facebook to wait for my meds to kick in.

Last night my foot acted weird because of the CRPS, complex regional pain syndrome. It got really cold, like ice and really painful. I put on some socks that were heavy and still my foot was cold even under my blankets. My bones were hurting really bad and if I had a chain saw, I probably would have used it to amputate. That is how bad the pain got. Then after it warmed up, it really warmed up. It got really hot and felt like it was on fire. I had to take the sock off and leave my foot hanging off the bed away from the sheets and blankets because it just was burning me. Nerve pain acts this way. The doctors don’t really understand why this happens. I am seeing a specialist on Tuesday to talk about this. I really hope she can give me some answers. All I can take is pain medication to soothe it or use a gel to try and calm it down some but touching it hurts like hell, which makes it difficult to use the gel sometimes. I find that oral meds work well for this type of pain, but the problem is that most doctors don’t want to prescribe it. I have not run into problems but I know I will soon enough. I’ll get the opioid speech how it is not good to be on these meds long term. But I have been on these meds for almost a decade now and aside from constipation which I control with some senna, I have no other side effects. It might make me drowsy but it’s not like I am operating machinery or driving like I used to. Now I just take these meds when the pain flairs up, which will be again tonight. Every night I am in this horrible pain but it’s never the same. Some times it is bone crushing, other times it is a burning sensation like my foot is on fire. Other times it feels like a barbed wire is surrounding my foot ready to be garroted. I can’t say what will be in store for me tonight after going up an down the stairs four times in a row this evening. I am not looking forward to it and there is no sense in taking the meds early. The pain hit unexpectedly, when I least expect it to so I can’t judge a good time. That is the most frustrating this about this condition. I have a HIGH pain tolerance and it usually isn’t until a pain is an 8-9 that I will feel it. Right now it is simmering on a 4-5 on a scale of 1-10. I have heavy thermal socks on to prevent it from getting cold because it is still winter in New England. My house is cold because my mother doesn’t want to pay a large gas bill, which we shouldn’t have to turn the heat on in the middle of April anyways!! So I try and protect my foot from getting cold anyway I can. But sometimes even having socks on will not prevent my foot temperature from dropping. My left will be cold as ice and my right a balmy 98.6. I hate this condition and wish I never got it but I got to learn to live with it and that is the hardest part.

midnight ramblings

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain

Last night I was in pain again though I don’t know why. It’s a late hour so my mood has tanked south. I don’t know what it is about the night that makes all the pain come out but it sucks. Thoughts of death are swarming around my head. I’m listening to The Band Perry’s new CD to try and relax. I haven’t listened to music in a few days. I do tend to feel nervous when I don’t listen on a regular basis.

I tried taking a break from my therapist this week. It didn’t happen the way I wanted it to. Usually I take a break and become more analytical and come up with these great ideas. But this time, it just didn’t happen. I guess being wrapped up in pain left no room for thinking about things. I usually end up writing her these long letters about how I am doing and what I am feeling. I didn’t so much as do that.

I came up with some idea to write about songs that I have a knack connection with but have not started that project yet. I just haven’t decided what songs should go into this. I guess I’ll know when I hear it.

Tonight I have my cousin’s wedding. I know I am going to get asked about my work and I’m going to talk about my disability. It gets old after a while but I can’t help but feel like a loser after I tell my family that I am no longer working and why. It kills me that I am no longer able to function to the point of working. And what is really tough is that I haven’t had surgery in seven years. That was the last time I was in rough shape. People usually think you get better by now. But I am not. Nerve damage takes so long to heal and no one understands that.

Monday I am to see another doctor for the same problem. I don’t know why I am bothering. It’s not like she is going to have any new answers for me other than to lose weight. That is the doctor’s cure all. If you lose weight, you won’t have this problem. Lose weight and you won’t be so depressed. Lose weight and your back will feel better. I wish I dropped a pound every time someone told me to lose weight. I would be skinny in no time. But I seriously doubt that my weight is the ONLY reason I am hurting. Even if I weighed 80 lbs I would still have a bad back and still have nerve damage. Weight cannot change the fact I have had four back surgeries. I have been trying to lose weight for the past three months. It is wicked hard. It takes a lot of work and with the depression it just makes it that much harder. I don’t always stick with it because I get the fuck its. But lately I have been having no appetite so I just been eating cereal as my caloric intake. Also been eating yogurt to try and get my bowels on track but that is the harder road. It sucks eating healthy or at least trying to when junk food is so accessible.

There has been a quote floating around twitter the past few days, that if a crush lasts more than four months, then it probably is love. Then I guess I am in love with my therapist. I have had a crush on her from the very beginning. Another quote fact that has been circulating is that relationships that last longer than seven years tend to last a lifetime. I have found this true with my therapist and psychiatrist. I have known my psychiatrist for nearly half my life and we just past the twenty year mark of working together. I’m screwed.

My left foot is on fire as I am writing this and I’m finding myself feeling empty hearted. Not really downhearted, just feeling empty, like I have nothing inside. And because I feel nothing, I also think I am nothing, that I don’t matter at all to anyone. I’ll just be better off dead.

What would being dead look like? Frankly I don’t know. I’ll be dead. I won’t be in existence anymore. The pain that I feel will cease to be. I will finally be free of pain and misery. Lest I hope I will be. Being free of pain is all that I want. If I didn’t have pain, emotional or physical, I probably would want to live. And I don’t know what that would look like. Probably the same as it does now.

pain and misery

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain

Eureka? I am in pain and want to do self harm to try and relieve it as no other pain pill does anything to take away or relieve my pain. I am tired of being in pain all the time, so much so I am entertaining thoughts of ending my life or drinking heavily to see if that helps. Crown royal mixed with some narcotics might do the trick in relieving the madness. It might also kill me but that would be a blessing and not a curse. I think I put too much pressure on my toes tonight while watching the baseball game. It’s hard to describe how I did this. I just realized this when my foot exploded. But then there are days when my foot explodes and I do not put pressure on my toes so I am at a loss. There is no rhyme or reason for my pain. It is nerve pain as clear as day, least in my mind. Tendonitis pain would be all the time while walking and going down stairs and such. But instead I have this pain while lying down in bed, while I am trying to go to sleep. It is as if my foot is saying “hello remember me? I am going to hurt you NOW because I CAN and there is nothing you can do to stop the hurting”. If it was my right foot, then I would say that there is a pattern but there is no pattern. There isn’t even a consistency in pain. Some nights I am tortured by burning, other nights I am tortured by vise like grips on my toes. Or like last night, I was tormented by zaps under my toe nail as if someone was trying to rip it off.

So I take my medication and I will be up for the next forty five minutes or so until it kicks in and I can hopefully find some slumber. I hope that I find slumber before I find a razor or get out of bed to get my whiskey. Maybe being drunk is the answer. I know that fresh cuts might help me but I have a wedding to go to this weekend so I don’t want to make a spectacle of my wounds. I have enough scars on my wrist that goes without saying. I just hope that I can stave off the impulses long enough to let the meds kick in and pray that it lessens the pain enough for me to sleep. I hate being like this….

ankle chronicles 3

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

I went to my appointments today for my primary and psychiatry. Neither had much to offer other than doing the same old same old. My primary wants me to see yet another doctor for the same problem I have been having. I want to refuse but I will make the appointment Monday to show that I am making an effort at getting to the bottom of my pain even though no one knows why I am in pain. They have different theories, each doctor I see has a different opinion or that there is nothing wrong with me because it doesn’t show up on an MRI or X-ray. I just want to be able to control my pain. Is that so wrong? That is why I see him, to get medication for my pain so that I am not suicidally inclined to end my life because of the physical pain in my foot and ankle. But let’s take it from my perspective. I have seen at least 10 medical professionals in the past year to find out what my pain is about. I have had countless sessions of physical therapy, all that have no helped my pain or ease the misery of it. And now he wants me to see my physiatrist to get yet another opinion on what is the reason behind my pain. He thinks that it is tendinitis. If that were so, I would have been cured of that within 6-8 weeks after immobilization. I have worn a boot for almost three months and still my ankle felt like it was going to fall off. To be up in pain night after night of doing NOTHING the past few months have shown that something nerve like is the culprit and not a mechanical problem like it was. Unless I am going up and down stairs wrong after 37 years. Then maybe I am doing something mechanically wrong flexing and reflexing my foot in the upward and downward motion of stair climbing. But no one know this for certain. Hell I don’t even know. I have to take the steps one step at a time to avoid falling. I have gotten so into the habit that I no longer do one step after the other on the stairs leading away from my bedroom.

I am tired of having to explain my pain every month but have decided that I am not going to take my pain medicine every day that I am suppose to. I have no appointment with my primary in a month like I supposed to either. So my little experiment will be can I go a few weeks without pain medication. I know this prospect scares me a little but I feel that I have to at least try this. My only fear is that it will bring on a pain cycle that will be hard to break once it starts. I know that if I don’t do this I might as well try and kill myself now. What is the point of going on like this if I am just going to have panic attacks worrying about pain all the time like I do. I have zap pain, I have burning pain. I don’t have pain down the leg. I don’t have back pain. I just have this fucking pain in my ankle and foot that does not go away except for when I sleep. It is with me 24/7. Some of it I am not aware of because I have gotten so used to it. But if I stop and think about it, it is there, buzzing like a bee.