Category: chronic physical pain

Baking Tuesday

by Midnight Demon, posted in baking, Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, mood disorders

Baking Tuesday

I had back pain throughout the night. I just woke up with pain that immobilized me. I couldn’t move so getting something to stop the pain was difficult. I woke twice hurting. I was late in taking my morning meds because I fell back to sleep after I shut off the med alarm. I got up around 11 or maybe a little after, I don’t remember. I went downstairs and my mother was sleeping sitting up. I woke her up to see if she was okay. Her back was hurting her too. I looked at the temp as I was waiting for my pancakes to heat up. Temp had dropped like 20 points in less than 24 hours. Fuck. No wonder. Didn’t matter what the barometric pressure was. Whenever a temp drops or goes higher than 10 points, I hurt. It is like my spine can’t take the change. I was determined to make this cranberry cake, though. I had to stop a few times as I just couldn’t stand. It came out okay, though I used too much butter. My brain was foggy so I couldn’t count tablespoons. I am very upset with myself because I love this cake. It is still good, just buttery. I will give some away to my barber and therapist in the morning.

I have decided I am going to use Uber for my therapy appointment. I am not messing with the bus getting there. I might take one home. I haven’t decided yet. It will depend on how I feel. I just don’t want to leave my house three hours early and not have a fricken hour to write in my journal when I take the bus and it being late. I am so sick of that. I haven’t decided if I am going to let the driver let me off at the Walgreens or Starbucks. Might be Walgreens as they have a little drop off there right at the bus stop whereas the Starbucks doesn’t.

It is supposed to be cold the rest of the week. Yesterday’s high temp was a tease. I took a nap after my baking. I was knocked out but then I didn’t sleep really good last night. I had another hard time going to sleep because of pain. By the time it settled down, it was after 1 am. I got into the book NeverWhere. I think it will be the last Neil Gaiman book I read in a while. I am going to read some more after I write this. I want to see if I can finish it by the end of the week. I don’t think I am going to complete my book challenge. I might have to lower it to like 18 books or something. I want to finish this book and then the suicidal helping book. The suicidal helping book is good but I need to reflect after I finish the chapter. There is just so much information in the short chapter and then I want the references that she puts in there, some of which I have. I am up to Tip number 19 and there are 89 so I have 70 to go. If I can read these two books for this month, I will call that a victory. I don’t think I can finish Trail of Tears as that book is very tough to read. If I can read some more of the White Fragility book, that will be good. It is not a big book, like maybe 200 pages or so. But it is not an easy book because it challenges your perception of racism towards people of color. I also want to start “The hate U Give.” So many books and I just bought two more, the Michelle Obama book and Crimes of Grindewald. I am a Potterhead! I should get Fantastical Beasts and where to find them first. The movies look amazing. I rather read the book though. Grindewald book is a screenplay so it probably is like The Cursed Child. I kind of don’t like that because it just doesn’t seem like a book where there is no description of the background or what someone looks like. I had such difficulty reading the Cursed Child because of that. I do have other books though. There is another John Grisham book, actually, I have like five books. Two hardcover and maybe three Kindle. I swear one of these days, I will get to them. I hope next year I will read more but I say that every year and it never happens. I seem to be lucky to read 14 this year.

Sunday Blog 2 Dec 2018

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, mood disorders

Sunday Blog 2 Dec 2018

It has been three days since I lowered my mood stabilizer dose by 300 mg and I am feeling better with each passing day. The first couple of days were rough, especially as Friday I had a flare that caused me to pretty much sleep all day yesterday. Today I was feeling better. I did some stuff, like empty my recycles. I went up and down stairs too many times as my foot is not yelling at me and the “glob” on my ankle is throbbing. I hope I didn’t cause another flare in the making. I also did my med boxes for the week. I have decided to keep my night med box at my bedside rather than on my bureau. It is just easier for me, especially when my ankle pain is exacerbated when I stand. The bones in my ankle just feel like they are being crushed when I bear weight. It goes away when I move about my room, usually by the time I reach my door, but I rather minimize pain when I can.

My mother made lasagna for supper. Not my favorite dish. I had a burger for lunch and then some watermelon rather than some cookies. I bought the watermelon last week so I had to eat it before it all went bad. I had it with my coffee. I bought Stevia in the raw as a sweetener so I can try to reduce my sugar. It tastes okay. I like that only need one packet but found that I need much less for a cup of tea. I think I will use regular sugar for tea as I am not sure how much to use. I just like it a little sweet. A friend of mine while I was working didn’t use sugar in her tea and sometimes I got the cups mixed up so was using less sugar and it stuck. I still need at least 2 teaspoons for coffee though. At Starbucks, I don’t use sugar in my espresso as the soy is sweet enough.

I am regretting canceling my appointment with my therapist for tomorrow as I am feeling better. Granted I have not been out of the house, though, since Friday. I need to go to the Square tomorrow to buy an ingredient for some cookies that my friend told me are made to help with constipation. I am not going to use brewer’s yeast like the recipe calls for but will use the flaxseed meal. I had some but gave the bag to my sister as I didn’t think I would use it again. Not sure if I will bake the cookies tomorrow or not. I still need to make the cranberry recipe as I don’t want them to go bad. I bought them the week before Thanksgiving hoping to make them for dessert but the fatigue stopped me. The baking dish has been in my kitchen since then and my mother yelled at me tonight to use it or put it away. (But it is okay for her stuff to stay as long as it wants.) I got to take my laptop downstairs when my foot calms down. She wants to get another freezer as the one we bought is not frost free and it is annoying her. Maybe I will do that tomorrow. I am not really feeling like being aggravated with her looking at specs and things (or her touching my screen!)

I read one chapter of NeverWhere before dinner. I am sort of hooked on it now as I want to see if the guy gets back to the real world. It is a really weird book. I will hold off on Neil Gaiman for a while after I finish this one. I wanted to read 25 books this year but cut it down to 22. I am up to 14. I don’t think I will meet my challenge. I think I read 20 books last year but pain really hindered my reading time as my concentration was lousy. I downloaded the History Channel app the other night when I was in a flare. I watched some show about Oak Island in Canada. There are a lot of seasons so I think they drag it out, like they always do. I am not a huge TV person and usually only watch an episode or two of something whenever. I still haven’t finished the Travelers season 1. I think I have 4 or 6 episodes left before reaching season 2. Season 3 is ready to drop in a couple of weeks. But each episode ends in like a cliff hanger so you have to watch the next episode! I usually watch when I can’t sleep and want to be up for a couple of hours. Usually by 3 or 4 am I call it quits. TV just keeps me up, which is why I don’t have one in my room. I would NEVER sleep! Or read!

I am almost done Christmas shopping. I just need to get my mother something, which is usually a gift card. I also need to get my kids something but no idea what. The only “kid” is 13, the other three are adults. I might get them gift cards too. The 13 year old likes snacks so maybe I will get some of her favorites. I am glad this year I have some cash left over for gifts. I usually don’t. I still worry that what I have left over now is going to dwindle some because my insurance is going up and I will have to pay for my prescriptions. And with the new insurance, I am not sure what I will be paying my therapist. If it is more than what my Medicare co-pay is then I will just stick with the Medicare and tell him to bill that and then just use the other insurance for the rest of my medical stuff as I think Medicare is getting in the way of my care. I don’t have proof, but just call it a gut feeling.

When you want to sleep but your brain has a million things to think of so you write a blog!

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, mood disorders

When you want to sleep but your brain has a million things to think of so you write a blog!

I had a good appointment with my psychiatrist today. We went back and forth over what might be the cause of my sodium being low or rather me feeling crummy (she too, doesn’t think it is causing me to feel fatigued and crummy, UGH). I am a medical mystery. Well last night I got pissed off because no one was listening and decreased my damn oxcarb! I felt a little better today but I am still so fucking tired from going out. I left early and the fucking bus was late which threw me in a tizzy because I can understand the bus being late once or twice, but all the fucking time now and I have no idea why!! And the T doesn’t fucking care or sends you alerts AFTER the bus comes to the stop taking you to your destination.

Anyway, my psych doesn’t mind decreasing the oxcarb. I knew she wouldn’t. She isn’t a drug pusher like some docs. She wanted to lower my Invega but I am really on the lowest dose and it is an extended release pill so I can’t cut it. I am not taking much Ativan. Other than my breakthrough meds, I am not taking many meds during the day to cause me to be drowsy. I think the espresso carries me through until it wears off and then I crash. The sucky part of all of this is that I am not seeing my therapist and I HATE this part of the feeling crummy deal. I have to cancel Monday because this isn’t an easy fix. I might be able to see him Wed. She wants me to go down to 600/day by the next time I see her. She wants me to lower the dose in like 4 days but I am waiting a week until going down further because I know my body and I don’t want to go through withdrawal. Trust me, I went through it a few times and it isn’t pleasant! I am going to do some adjusting on my part as I will need to take it twice a day. It was a problem before as I wasn’t taking things twice a day and I would always miss my dose so I just took it at night. I was at 600 mgs until about 4 years ago when the hypomania came back and I had to take the 1200 mg. Now that I am taking meds in the morning, it won’t be that big a deal unless my pain makes me miss a dose but I will just take it when I get up because withdrawal sucks!! So I will have plenty of Trileptal for a while.

My pain has been mumbling most of the day today. I thought I was going to flare when I got home as while I was walking, my ankle starting hurting really bad. But nothing bad happened so maybe the AFO was irritating it or something. It is still early in the evening though so pain o’clock hasn’t come yet.

Don’t know if I mentioned this in yesterday’s blog but my barber was telling me his 4 year old son is carrying around my book and asks that it be read to him every day. I thought that was so cute so I bought him Anne Wheaton’s kid’s book called Piggy and Pug. It is a very cute story about adopting pets. I think that will be better suited.

I am so tired. It will be another hour before I can take my night meds. Hope the Ativan in it calms my fricken brain! Nothing worse than thinking a million things and not sleeping. It is going to be really cold as the temp is going to drop during the night. There might be snow this weekend, then will be 50 degrees for a day just to tease us then back to cold. I hope that by Tuesday I am feeling a little better. I don’t know if the 1L restriction is still in place or not. But seeing as I haven’t moved my bowels in a week, that isn’t happening until I shit again. I feel so uncomfortable. I probably will feel better when I go. I thought I was going to go today but it was a false alarm. I was going to take some more Miralax when I came home but once I got into my bed after changing, I didn’t want to go back downstairs and tried the nap thing that failed! I took 3 fiber pills so I am hoping for either colon blow or a big dump followed by colon blow. I’d be happy with a little dump at this point just so I know something is moving!

Another blog by phone: doctors suck when they don’t know what is wrong

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, disability, medical, mental illness, mood disorders, physical pain

Once again I am a ping pong ball between my psychiatrist and PCP. He doesn’t think my feeling crummy and fatigue has anything to do with my sodium levels even though I explained to the jerk that when I was 2 points lower I felt sick. Now I feel sicker because the damn sodium is lower! He has exhausted all medical tests to cause this so I am going with my fucking gut this is due to my mood stabilizer lowering my sodium levels causing this. So I am decreasing the dose by 300 mg. I see my psych tomorrow and I hope she won’t fight me on this and just repeat my tests in a week to see if there are changes.

The asshole wanted to discuss this AFTER my appt. No, not happening. Because you know what is after tomorrow? The weekend! Nothing will get fucking done until Monday and I am sick of feeling like crap so this is happening tonight. Fuck him. I want to see my therapist again without it being a big fucking ordeal. It is bad enough I get flares after I see him but to be totally wiped out the day after? No. I am just not letting this happen again. I waited 8 fucking years for the CRPS diagnosis. I am not waiting another week of back and forth to figure this out. I know it is the med. And if I am wrong, then I am wrong and we go from there. I am willing to be unstable to stop feeling like shit. It is my fucking life last I checked!

The pain program called me this morning. I had talked to them Tuesday saying I was sick and didn’t know when I was going to feel better. I guess they felt I already had too many cancellations so they discharged me. Thank god. I didn’t want to go anyway but was forced by the pain doc because I felt they wouldn’t prescribe my pain meds otherwise. I also went because my PT felt it was a good program but the program changed because they were not doing anything she said was available. I just had OT (occupational therapy) and physical therapy. I honestly felt the PT didn’t understand CRPS. I really didn’t. And like the PT I was seeing, this PT’s exercises caused flare ups. And it wasn’t the muscles that I was stretching but my damn foot because I had to exert pressure on. I won’t be going back. Ever.

Today I felt a little better but after I got my haircut, did some shopping, I was fatigued again. I felt like napping but it has been so hard to wake up. I hadn’t eaten anything all day except for 4 cookies with my coffee until my mother made dinner. I didn’t keep my fluids to 1L. Only because I haven’t had a shit in a week. I am so backed up it hurts. I took Miralax today and felt stuff moving but still nothing. Going to take some more fiber pills and hope for the best at this point. Just hope I don’t get colon blow.