Tag: complex regional pain syndrome

Pain and its Awareness

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, mood disorders, suicide

Pain and its Awareness

Pain in my ankle just hit a new level. I have been resting the last couple of hours in my bed. Just listening to music, reading Twitter and Facebook. Not really doing anything. And then I move my ankle just a little bit to get a little more comfy on the bed, and WHAM! I get hit with pain. And for some reason, I am wondering why it seems I can always feel my left ankle but my right, never a peep. I don’t even know it’s there most days. I know it’s attached and all, but I don’t feel it like I do my left. My left is constantly hurting and I am more aware of it than any other body part. I just find it a little lopsided. I try not to favor my limbs, but with this level of pain, it’s hard not to.

I am glad only one body part is affected. I can try to be more aware of my good ankle and notice that it is not bothering me. I wish my left would get the fucking hint and be like the right. But the left has been injured more than the right has. Suffering from a sprained ankle when you have foot drop is not a good thing. I have never recovered from it. See, before I went to the big hospital in Boston, I went to a smaller one outside of Boston because it was closer. I thought it was a good hospital. I couldn’t have been more wrong. So after basically doping me up and sending me on my way with no treatment or precautions if things got worse, I was wheeled to my friend’s car. It had started snowing and I couldn’t stand on my left side without pain. I fell and my ankle rolled. I should have known something was seriously wrong because I went one way and my ankle went the other. I didn’t feel a damn thing. I should have been smarting more than my back and leg pain. But nope. Not a thing. It wasn’t until two weeks later when I got feeling back in my leg after surgery that the sprain pain began. I was relearning to walk and my ankle hurt like a bastard. In the fall, I also sustained a nice bruise on the side that I fell on. I didn’t feel that either because I was numb. I thought it was the result of surgery as I had bruises everywhere.

Because I had foot drop and they were rushing me to get me on my feet, the sprain never healed correctly. This is all in hindsight. I didn’t know that the sprain would haunt me 12 years later and give me a pain syndrome. Course it didn’t help that I re-sprained it a year before the syndrome decided to take hold of my ankle. I remember thinking, during the day, that I was in a lot of pain. I almost always have my pain at night. It almost never happens during the day, but syndromes don’t care what time of day it is. It’s going to hurt you whether you are awake or in a deep sleep.

Once I noticed that this pain was different or possibly the start of something worse going on with my back, I got checked out. I must have seen 15 different doctors of different specialties and no one could figure out what was wrong with my ankle. They still don’t. Three have told me that I have CRPS, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. They were two physiatrists and my neurologist. But did my PCP believe them? No. He just kept sending me off to new doctors to see what was going on, to get me better. I don’t think I am ever going to be better. I don’t think I can recover from this much damage. And that is ok as long as I get my pain meds or the PCP is going to sign my death certificate. I don’t abuse my meds nor will I try to end my life on them. I am too fearful of the Tylenol content to wreck my liver before killing me to try and go that way. Besides, who needs pills when I have a rope?

Hyde here

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

Hyde here

I am feeling really suicidal. I am in pain and I just can’t take it anymore. I almost sat on my glasses and that set things off. Now Hyde is out and I can’t get him back in. He has been quiet for a long time but he wants to talk so I am going to let him. I am safe. This is just his words…

My heart is broken and I don’t know how to fix it. I have tried to with therapy and medication but it seems that no matter what I do, I can’t fix myself. So why can’t I just kill myself? I have no meaning here. I have no purpose. Sure I take care of my bastard father but he doesn’t care if I live or die. I don’t think many people will care if I die.

Tonight my feet were cold so I put on some thermal socks. They were on for a couple of hours and then my feet got really hot. I now have an indentation on my bad foot were the sock dug into me. My foot is still swollen from yesterday and it hurts really bad. I don’t know why I have to live like this. I thought I was a good person but I guess I am not.

I don’t want to be a writer like my psych team wants me to be. I can’t write for shit. Sure I can blog, but that isn’t the same as writing a book. I added owls to my story and it sucks. I don’t know what I was thinking. I am such a bad writer.

I am very tired of trying to stay alive. I should kill myself. It makes no sense to go on. My heart always hurts worse than my foot. Least my foot can get relief with medication. But nothing helps my heartache. I am trying to stay awake to write this. I haven’t been out in so long. I just want to die and push up daisies. Or not even that. Just spread my ashes behind the City Yards near the water. That is my favorite place in the world. I wish I could go there often but I don’t have a car anymore and it’s too far to walk. I didn’t want to live past 40 years. I had every intention to die but my stupid fucking loser of a therapist wanted me to live. She is such an idiot and Jack agrees with me. He hates her really bad. I don’t know why.

I got to go. Meds are knocking me out. Just know that I really want to kill the host and I hope I will succeed one day. Soon as I figure it out, I will do it.

Talking about Anger

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

Talking about Anger

I had therapy today and all we did was talk about my father and the stress of dealing with him. She read my blog I wrote about him the other day. She thought it was good that I was able to write about the anger of dealing with him because if I didn’t feel a sense of responsibility, I would just leave him. I could care less about what he going on. I don’t feel a connection to him. That connection has been severed a long time ago and never got reestablished.

We talked about how my ankle got messed up while walking with the wheelchair and how using my cane helps take the pressure off. She was annoyed that he needed a wheelchair instead of walking. It annoys me too but he wants the attention. She said that I should be in the chair instead of him. The guy only cares about himself.

We also talked briefly about my mother’s health issues and how it’s stressing my sisters and I out. My mother just has her own way of doing things in regard to her health. I know she thinks she is a burden to us but that isn’t the truth. She is just sick of being sick and in pain all the time. But she doesn’t do anything to help herself either. It’s just annoying and it’s only going to get worse as she gets older.

My therapist just wants me basically to stay in bed to rest my ankle. She encouraged me to write about my anger but I fear that it will be taken the wrong way so you may see more password protected posts. She also wants me to read and do stuff that doesn’t involve me walking around. I haven’t had lunch yet. I haven’t decided what I want. I have a few choices and that is the problem.

My therapist was vocal throughout the session, though she did listen when I was telling the story of how Thursday night went. I told her I was so aggravated with him that I didn’t get something to eat like I wanted to. She wasn’t happy about this. I don’t even remember if I bitched to my mother about him that night.

What really got me really pissed off and still does is the “concern” my aunt has for my father. She would rather piss on his grave than think more of him. Now that he is sick, she is “concerned”. It’s bullshit. She just wants to be in the loop to she can talk about him behind his back. I hate this aunt because she is just two faced. I don’t see her often and rarely see her at her house. The only time I will be at her house is if my mother is there and she needs something or I need something from her. It just pisses me off.

My therapist did talk about the safety planning thing that I wrote about. And she said that we didn’t have one in a long time. I told her I would bring the sheet the next time I saw her, which probably won’t be until the end of the month. She asked me when I was seeing my psychiatrist and I said I don’t have a time. This is the problem I have when I cancel a time with her. Trying to get another appointment takes several emails. I emailed her last night but haven’t heard back from her, yet. I said in the email that by the time the 15th rolled around I would need refills so I would like to see her by then. After the 15th is when things go back to normal for me. I am not spending all my time with my bastard father.

I need to see my father earlier than usual tomorrow before his appointment as my sister is taking us to the appointment. I figure I do his meds before we leave so that I didn’t have to do it after. I can just go home after the appointment.

I will have another rest day on Thursday. I also have therapy because I can’t have it tomorrow. I told my therapist about my panic attack that I had yesterday. I told her I took my pain pill soon as I got home and she asked if I took some Ativan as well. I told her I did because my chest was hurting and I was still having palpitations. I just get nervous when I am on the bus and the entrance or exit is crowded. More so if the entrance is blocked because I usually exit the bus that way. But it was the last straw for me having to deal with. My foot swelled up twice the size of my other foot last night and it was hurting like a SOB. CRPS in action. This is why my doctors don’t think I have CRPS because they don’t see me at night when these things happen. It took a while for me to get comfy and to get to sleep last night because of pain. I still woke up around 0400. I stayed up for a little bit went back to sleep and then woke up two hours later. I had breakfast at 0800 and then went back to sleep. I woke up around 1130 and made coffee. Now I am just going to make lunch and then read some Harry Potter so I can dissociate.

Energized and then caput!

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

Energized and then caput!

I woke up around 0700 after waking up at 0500. I was going to go back to sleep but wanted coffee badly and something to eat. I don’t know if I am hypomanic or not but I feel really good and energetic. That was until I hurt my foot and had to take pain meds. I was feeling goofy and ecstatic, which I rarely feel. I still feel good and in good spirits but I kind of lost my energy after eating lunch. I was going to go out today but I was so fearful of a flare up that I decided to stay home and watch movies. I have seen one movie today, The American President. It is my favorite movie. My next movie is going to be Bull Durham, but I am not sure when I am going to watch it.

I went down the stairs like a normal person today and paid the price. Just stepping in a downward motion caused severe pain. I usually go down the stairs step one step because of this but because I was feeling “high”, I decided to go down step after step. Wrong move. I couldn’t believe it. It kind of brought my “high” down a few notches. I limped to the kitchen to get whatever it is that I needed to get. I am just so feeling mixed feelings. I think I am in a mixed state more so than hypomanic. My moods have been shifting. I also want to do many things but I can’t because of bloody pain. Right now, my ankle/foot is throbbing up a storm. I am sure I will become depressed again once the pain meds kick in. They usually make me drowsy anyways. I only took one pill so hopefully it won’t make me too drowsy like two pills will. I don’t want to sleep like I did all day yesterday. It is so hard to put the brakes on my high energy levels when I am in pain. I almost never have energy and I want to use it up. But I don’t have the capacity to read. I think if I did, I probably dissociate. I just feel really weird. It’s not like me to have energy and feeling good. I don’t know what to do with myself. I probably would tackle the corner of my room that is aggravating me.

Because I am still waiting the decision on my SSD, I wanted to pay double for my cell phone and cable bill. I checked to see what my cable bill was and it went up six fricken dollars. I am like WTF. I checked my previous bill and it explained that the broadcast and sports fees went up. I don’t watch TV so I went to my mother to find out what channels she watches and to see if I could get a downgrade for my bill. I did. I am saving a whopping $17. It’s not much but it will be better in the long run. I hated paying over a hundred dollars for TV and I hardly watch it. I only watch it when my games are on. I can’t watch my shows because I am usually too tired to watch them and I can’t record them anymore because I don’t have TiVo. Another reason I changed packages was because they took away my CMT channel. The whole reason I went to the preferred package was to get country music. Now that I no longer have this, screw the package I am on. I hope they take away the sports fee because I no longer get the MLB channel anymore. It was a hard decision to get rid of a sports channel I love but I hardly ever watch it because they mostly show games I don’t want to see. Only time they will show things I want to see are the no-hitters in progress or something. That is exciting to watch.

Starting tomorrow, we are supposed to get a huge snowstorm. I really don’t think it’s going to be anything more than a few inches but they keep changing their stories as to how much we will get. I know we are getting something because my pain is through the fucking roof. My spine is aching, my hip pain is killing me and don’t get me started on my ankle/foot. That has been bothering me all damn week.

It’s weird to be in a positive state of mind. I just don’t understand it. Yesterday I was in gloomville, today I am the opposite. I haven’t changed my meds or anything, though I did take my night meds really late last night. I had fallen asleep after dinner and didn’t wake up till 2200 or so. It’s so going to mess around with my hormone pill by taking it late. I usually take my meds around 2000. That is because I am usually wiped out. I don’t think I will be wiped out today. I am still in an energetic mood. I so want to do something but I am in too much pain to really stand on my feet or walk. I might use my grabber to clean that area of my room that I is aggravating me. Most of the stuff just needs to be picked up and thrown away. I have decided that if it has been sitting in a place for more than 6 months, I don’t need it so toss it. Shit on my desk needs to be gone but I can’t reach my desk because of the damn shit in front of it. Once I can clear a space, I can put my printer on my desk rather than have it on my desk chair.

I hope this feeling good lasts a little while but I have a feeling taking my pain meds is going to knock out the feelings. It happened when I was in the hospital after taking remeron. I got a little hypomanic and then was down after taking my meds. It sucked but they probably would have discharged me if I was hypo. The crash was horrible though. I think I felt more suicidal than I did when I first came into the hospital. It was bad. Then Robin Williams died and so did I. I had no reason for living. Things just sucked all around. But things got better with the antidepressant. I gained weight, which my PCP was thrilled about and I haven’t been able to lose it. Docs don’t understand that when you are immobile like I am that meds can cause weight gain and then it sucks trying to lose it. They give you the rap like it’s not good for this and that but do they offer ways to lose it, no. Like you are just supposed to wish it away or something magical to happen to make you down to their expected weight guidelines. Bastards. I am lucky I don’t get the shit from my psychiatrist. I would go off on her because my psych meds are the reason I gained so much meds. And the Neurontin doesn’t help. I have been eating since I have been up this morning because I took a dose of meds yesterday.