Tag: chronic pain

Ankle Chronicle Rant and Other things

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Ankle Chronicle Rant and other things

For the past several hours, I have been in severe pain because I decided to walk down a ramp instead of level ground. I had no idea it was going to cause me this much pain, but it is. All I want to do is sleep but I am so tense that my neck is hurting me. Being in this much pain, is causing havoc. I seriously want to amputate my ankle. I have thought about this a lot of times. But fortunately, I don’t possess the power tools to get the job done.

I forgot to mention some stuff to my psychiatrist in my appointment today so I emailed her. She is so worried about me getting severe side effects from my anti psychotics that I had to remind her about the more simpler side effects like constipation and urinary retention. I haven’t been on this medication since before my nerve injury so I don’t know how it is likely to play out. So far, I haven’t noticed anything worse, except possibly, starting my flow of urine. I didn’t mention this to my psych because I really do not want to see a urologist.

Anyway, she seemed fine with my description of the matter and what I am doing for the constipation. I didn’t tell her about the starting the flow of urine because I knew that might raise some eyebrows. I am okay with it unless it becomes worse. I hate having a nerve injury that causes these things. The nerve injury is what is causing my foot and ankle to be a dick. I swear that if I didn’t get my second diagnosis of Cauda Equina Syndrome, I would not be disabled today. Or maybe I would be, but it would be because of mental difficulties rather than physical ones.

I am very exhausted from dealing with physical pain all the damn time. It seems the pain syndrome is just getting worse and trying to control it is getting more complicated. I have to time my pain medication accordingly or I am in severe pain. And when my regular pain meds don’t work, I have to take the stronger pain meds. If neither of these meds work, then I know it’s nerve related pain so I have to take Neurontin. It is a true juggling act managing my pain.

I know that my pain flare up today was caused due to me doing to much the last few days and not having a rest day in between. I have been out of the house since Wednesday and have not slowed down some. Yesterday, I walked more than I should have because I didn’t want to wait for the bus for an hour. I walked four blocks home and that caused my ankle to falter. Today I had my doctors appointments and couldn’t cancel them so I walked around the hospital to go to the two appointments that I had before my ankle had enough. It didn’t help that I stood on the train for five stops. I have been taking more chances and in the end, it just causing me more and more pain.

I was supposed to meet up with friends tomorrow but I canceled that engagement after my ankle basically said fuck you to me on the ramp. I really was looking forward to seeing my friends as we don’t get to meet up that often. But I needed to take care of myself and that means ordering pizza tomorrow and watching (hopefully) college football games. Last week the games I wanted to watch were not on in my area. This week, I am hoping at least one game is in my area.

I also need to shower. I wanted to do so tonight but my foot was having no part of standing whatsoever. Even standing to take my meds was a hassle and that was for less than two minutes.

Depressed Because Pain Sucks

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

Depressed because pain sucks

I thought I would escape the pain demons tonight but I was wrong. Zaps started a little while ago and now my foot is throbbing uncontrollably. I just took some pain meds, which I was hoping to avoid because most of my day has been pain free. I should have known that around 2300, my pain would increase.

I am deeply depressed. I am thinking of suicide again. It is the only thing that helps me to relax and gives me hope that my pain will end. I know that it will cause others pain by my death, but I just cannot go on living like this. I would say that I am too young to die, but there are kids dying every day because of cancer and other horrible diseases, or by stupid parents that leave them in hot cars.

No one knows what causes my pain. I am terrified of seeing another PCP because I am afraid he or she will not believe my pain because it very rarely happens during the day. I have most of my pain at night, when I don’t have an appointment with a doctor. Even then, I am sure they won’t be able to diagnose what is wrong. This has been going on for more than 4 years now. My quality of life sucks. I vacuumed the rug near my bed because I was tired of little shits of lint and other stuff getting on my bed because my feet track them there (I am barefoot most of the time). Most of it is lint or pebbles or paint chips from the stairs. Where the pebbles come from, I have yet to figure out. I found one on my near my “office”. How it got there is a mystery as I don’t have my feet anywhere near where I found it.

I am thinking of increasing the Zoloft but am afraid to ask my doc about increasing it, only because the stupid “wonderful” system that they have might screw up the dosage change again like it did before or totally delete it once it has been changed. It’s a very fucked up system. Even my pain meds have to be “added” though I have been taking it for years now when I go for a refill. So damn stupid. Yet the stupid system still has the abilify there even though it has been months now that I haven’t been taking it. Go figure that one out. Or rather don’t try. It will give you a brain cramp.

I have noticed the last few months how much my moods and suicidality have been surrounded by my pain. I think my therapist finally got it today after she read the letter that I wrote to her on Aug 24th. She saw how devastating my moods can be when my physical pain is at its highest level. I am in pain tonight but not at a suicidal level, thank goodness. The pain I feel now is just a mild, annoying throbbing due to the electric zaps that I had. These zaps are terrible and can go on forever or just a little while. I never really know but the longer they persist, the deeper the pain levels are once they stop. It’s worse than a severe cramp in my foot.

I should be sleeping now but pain is keeping me up. I have to get up in about 8 hours. I will be lucky to sleep at least 6. I am very tired. My head wants to rest. For the first time in weeks, I don’t have music drilling my head. It’s just playing softly, like background noise. I wonder if my neurologist can figure it out. It will make for an interesting story in my book. A nice short chapter. Most of my chapters in my book are short. I think the longest story is the first one and the rest are 1200 words or less. I am striving for at least 850 words per chapter. It is fun to write. I hope my readers will buy my book once it is published. If they don’t that is okay too. Most of the stories are on my blog anyways, with a few exceptions. So basically, the book is a blog production that is in paperback. It will also be on Kindle for those that have e-readers.

I didn’t think I would finish my book this year. I am getting closer to it. 80 pages shouldn’t take me long, if I keep at it for the rest of the month. Maybe the beginning of October I can start looking for an editor again. My last editor just flew the coop and I have no idea where she went. I have a Twitter buddy that has agreed to work with me. I have no idea how much she will ask but I will pay her around $300. My book isn’t that long (word wise) so it might work out. If she wants more than that, I will have to wait a while to raise the funds. Course that will mean no Amazon spending for the next few months. I miss shopping there and getting “presents” when the orders come in. But sacrifices need to be made. I do have to place one Amazon order my next paycheck as I need my senna and eye drops. Getting them at Walgreens or CVS is just way expensive.

How Darkness Seeps In

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

I didn’t go to sleep till around 3 am. I had the itch to write but all that I wrote was “it’s late”. The rest of what I wrote was boring and I am going to toss it. I really wanted to write about the psychosis getting out of hand and switching antipsychotics but all I did was outline my thoughts. I guess it’s a start.

Around this time last year, I was signing and faxing papers for the New York Times as I wrote an article they would be publishing. It was exciting as I never dreamed of writing for the Times. It was an extremely high ego boost. But it didn’t last long as I crashed into a deep depression afterwards that stuck around and is still lurking around. I guess I have been depressed for almost a year now, my longest episode. The psychosis didn’t really affect me until November of last year. That was when the abilify stopped working for me and I just thought things were still going okay.

It wasn’t until my back went out and I got scared I would have to have surgery again that my depression really worsened, causing the psychosis to also worsen. Add in the stress of my father’s ill health and it was a perfect recipe for disaster. I started having the physical symptoms of depression and lost some weight because I wasn’t eating. It’s easy to reflect on this as time has passed but it wasn’t easy while I was going through it. The psychosis really got worse after the Orlando shooting. That is when I stopped taking the abilify because the voices told me to. I was under their command. I just thank my lucky stars that I didn’t call the FBI like I wanted to because I was so delusional. I wanted to let the FBI know that they should look for a parasite in the brain of the deceased gunman because that what was causing him to act the way he did. I truly believed there was aliens planted parasites in ISIS followers that was making them evil and do bad things. I still believe this.

The voices wanted me to take more medication than was necessary for a few weeks. It wasn’t until the paranoia got out of control that I decided to go to trilafon to help with all the craziness that was going on in my head. My therapist was fearful I was going to lose it or take my life. I also started emailing crazy stuff to my psychiatrist which she had to stop because it was not the run of the mill stuff I normally sent her. If I had to “talk” to her, I had to page her. I couldn’t understand but now I sort of do. What I was writing was a little concerning. But it was my new “normal”. It wasn’t until I was at an adequate dose of trilafon that I realized just how crazy I had been.

All throughout this psychotic phase I was going through, I didn’t think it was bad. I still don’t. I had become more distant from my feelings and empty. It was like I felt nothing. I was hollow. These feelings didn’t last long. They were then covered up with depressive feelings and sometimes suicidal stuff.

My chronic pain reached its breaking point. I had my last flare up and I was going to make sure that it was going to be my last. It hasn’t happened yet, but it will. I am tired of living from flare up to flare up and having little to no relief for days. The only way I can get relief is by taking pain medication around the clock, and sometimes I have to take the strong pain meds to break the cycle. I am hindered in my activities and it sucks. Even walking around my own house is troublesome during these flare ups. I can’t make myself something to eat, showering is next to impossible, even brushing my teeth is a chore.

Dealing with mental illness and chronic pain is very difficult. It requires a balance. I am grateful I am not working because I think I would be dead by now. The emotional toll it takes to work, I just don’t have anymore. It was difficult in the beginning to get used to all the free time in the world that I had. Going to Starbucks provided some routine for me but on days when the depression was bad or my pain levels were out of control, even that routine was soon broken. Now I go whenever I can just to get out of the house for an hour or so. It’s rare that I will be out for more than two hours. My anxiety and paranoia get too much and I have to return home.

I spend the majority of my time in my room. I write, read, and follow Twitter and Facebook all from the comfort of my bed. I have to keep my left ankle elevated to keep it happy. It’s not like it won’t flare up because it can and will. I still haven’t figured out what makes it happy and what makes it really angry. I thought walking and standing aggravate it but I can have hours where I am on the bed and the slightest movement can hurt me. It’s so aggravating and frustrating because what causes it to hurt today, won’t cause it to hurt tomorrow. It is very depressing, which only intensifies my suicidal tendencies.

Therapist is Back

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

Therapist is back

My therapist came back from vacation. She went to Ireland as she brought me back a spoon. It’s becoming our thing. We talked about a lot of things. I gave her my sauce and she wanted to eat it right then and there. She is too funny.

We didn’t talk about my suicidality, but we did talk about how my pain and the voices are contributing to it. I still need to page my psychiatrist so I can get some more trilafon. She encouraged me to page her though I am a little hesitant as it’s not an “emergency”. I just emailed her again. If I don’t get a response, I will page her tomorrow. I still have enough to last me the week.

My therapist doesn’t want me to kill myself in September because it’s a special month for her. I suppose I could wait till October. The weather is bound to be cooler then and maybe I can get some kind of suicide note out of the way. It will give me time to think of what I want to do with my stuff. I think it’s unfair that I am made to wait a month when I want to end my life so badly. She just doesn’t get how miserable I am.

I talked about the psychologist that was being a jerk to me yesterday. I explained what his thoughts were and she agreed with me that he was being an idiot. I don’t know why I follow him. Just for a laugh, I suppose.

We also talked about my other friend on Twitter. She asked if I met him yet. I told her no and I am not so sure I want to meet him because he is a therapist. He is a little looney but that is okay. I find him interesting and funny. I guess I don’t want to be disappointed with seeing him in real life versus what I imagine him to be like.

It’s funny that we kind of talked in circles all through out our session. Not really focusing on any issues. She did ask about my pain and I told her the situation with my pain meds. I have technically 9 days of meds and I don’t get a refill for 14. This is because I have had to increase the meds to get relief. I am no longer taking 1 pills at a time. I think I am taking around 6 pills a day when I am allotted only 4. That is when I am having a bad day. Lately, I haven’t had that much pain so I think it will even out. But I can’t control flare ups. I guess if I do have another flare, I will have to take the strong pills and risk my bowels being shut off for a few days, despite taking senna. It’s all the give and take of the pain syndrome. All the more reason why I rather kill myself now while I can possibly walk to my destination than not.

The drive there wasn’t too bad and I made it on time back. I didn’t hit traffic and listened to country tunes the whole way singing along. It was fun driving. I am glad I don’t have a car for daily use as traffic annoys me.

Just got a response from my psych about my meds: “yes”. I don’t know what that means. I hope it means she will call it in. Why do docs have to be so damn cryptic?