Tag: CRPS

Did too much and paying for it

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

Did too much and paying for it

Nearly every day this week, I have made a trip to Starbucks. And practically every night, I have been paying for it. I usually go every other day because I need a rest day in between. But I didn’t take a rest day because I felt “okay”. Now it’s the end of the week and I am hurting really bad. So bad, that it’s making depressed.

I wish I was seeing my psychiatrist earlier than next Friday. I feel like I am hanging by a thread today. The voices have been non stop since I let them in. They just won’t shut up. I don’t understand it because I haven’t been stressed and we were just having a normal conversation. Nothing stressful or triggering. Now my brain is just firing away and the voices are wicked loud. I am in serious pain and I just can’t quiet them down to think of what I can do to ease it. I have music playing to try and distract me.

I took some pain meds once I got a break. Then I was quizzed on how many I took and why I was taking them. They always want me to take more than what I need, like more is better. More isn’t better. It’s no more effective than taking a handful of Tylenol for a headache. They just want me to hurt myself. I will do it with other drugs but not my pain meds. I don’t want to die like my father, with liver problems due to the Tylenol that is in my pain meds. I am not stupid like the voices think I am.

I haven’t told my therapist about all this. Not much she can do about it anyways. Even if I text her to talk to her, the most she is going to say is for me to page my psych or go to the ER. If I go to the ER, chance are I will be admitted. I don’t want to be admitted so the ER is out. I can be admitted after the 17th when I see my psych and get my pain meds appointment. I really was hoping that I wouldn’t need another admission so soon after my last one. But then, I wasn’t expecting to become psychotic either.

Being in pain is not helping my thoughts. I feel really depressed and it’s feeding the suicide demons. For the first time in two months (?), I am thinking of taking my life again. It’s not serious. It is just in passing, like what if I would take my life? Then I think of the plan that I cooked up a few months ago. I can still go through with it. It could work this time. A more lethal medication. Only question is, do I actually have enough to kill myself. The LD is 10 mg and I am not sure I have it. I have to count the pills and I am scared to because it will just mean one more step closer to killing myself when I want to.

After my father died, I was thinking about getting a life insurance policy. I got a response from the one I applied for online. They want medical documentation for my illnesses. Nope. Not getting it. Chances are they will have this information just to deny me. I will find another policy holder. I thought it would be too easy to get on the first try. I never got life insurance through my work. I did have insurance in case something happened to me while I working. It was something like $100,000 coverage in case of injury or accidental death and it was for something ridiculously small amount of like $6/wk. There were higher amounts but that was the cheapest and in my line of work, the risk of me losing a limb was quite low.

I wanted to get the life insurance just in case something happened to me. Then my family wouldn’t have to scramble like we did for my father with arrangements and such. I do have a pension with my work but I don’t know what happens to it when I die. Maybe I should find out. It most likely will die with me.

Soon as the pain meds kick in, I will take my night meds. I was going to listen to the game but I don’t feel up to it. I will follow it on Twitter or the MLB website until I can’t fight sleep any longer. Or I might just read something so I can feel like I did something productive today. Today just feels wasted. Voices are loud now. They are pissed I am typing and ignoring them. Maybe I will take a trilafon, too.

Ankle Chronicles 12

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

Ankle Chronicles 12

I haven’t written a chronicle in a while so I thought I would as my ankle is being a fucker right now and I don’t know why. I didn’t do anything like I did yesterday so not sure if this is a delayed reaction or what. I just know that I am in pain.

I ordered my Chinese food tonight. My stomach is nice and bloated. I don’t know why I was eating while standing. That might be why my ankle is upset with me. I then stood to finish watching the game. Sox came back in the 11th inning to win 5-3. I usually stand in the kitchen because the box is hard to read, even with my glasses on, when I am sitting. I like to see the pitch count and other stuff. I finally figured out today what the fourth box was when they showed the score. It was LOB, left on base. I don’t know why they are showing this stat. It’s annoying.

Pain begins in my ankle and then trickles down my foot into my toes. It drives me nuts that this is the pattern every single night. Then when it is in my toes, I am in agony. I have yet to figure out the right combination of pain meds to stop it or at least decrease my pain. If I take it before it starts, I have a good chance but it’s hard to tell because I never know how severe the pain is going to be. It can be a 5-7 on a scale of 1-10 and then quickly move to a 9+. It’s worse if I get a cramp or a spasm. Sometimes I will get a “tic” where the foot will just jerk upward. It’s not really painful but it’s uncomfortable. I have to take an Ativan to calm these jerks down or I get no relief from them. It took me a while to realize I was having these things happen because they would be so far apart from one another. I still have no idea what sets them off.

After the pain settles down some, then comes the nerve pain. I really hate this part because I have to take gabapentin to settle it down or my foot will burn and feel like it’s on fire. It really is uncomfortable. Sometimes it is so bad that I can’t have anything touch my foot, like the sheet or sock. It just makes the pain worse. I hate having to take the gabapentin because the next day I will get the hungry horrors. It’s like no matter what I eat, I am still hungry afterwards. It’s like I have a bottomless pit for a stomach. I have to be really careful because I don’t want to gain back the weight I lost when I was severely depressed. I am back to eating solid food again instead of just drinking Ensure. I have three packs of it left because I didn’t think my depression was going to get any better. But with the increase in my antidepressant, I am feeling better and my appetite is back.

Because of stupid pain, I can’t walk like I used to anymore. Some days I can walk a few blocks and be okay. Other days, those same few blocks seem like an obstacle course for me. It’s hard to gauge when I will be in severe or moderate pain and when I will be in little to no pain. I think the weather has some say in it. Rain or dramatic changes in temps will cause my pain to flare up. Like yesterday it was 92 degrees. Today it has been in the mid-50s for most of the day, an almost 40 degree difference. Ouch.

Stair climbing is another reason my foot/ankle will flare up. I try not to but sometimes my mother will go shopping and need help bringing the shopping up the stairs. Other times, I am up and down because I need to use the bathroom or eat. I don’t keep food in my room because I don’t want pests. I do have some pretzel bites in a sealed plastic baggie. That is only in emergencies when I am hungry but am in too much pain to go down stairs. I keep it on my nightstand.

Being in pain all the time, makes you tired. It’s exhausting both physically and mentally.

Broke my Rule

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

Broke my rule

It’s over 80 degrees in my room so I had to break my rule of keeping the door closed. I can’t open the window because I don’t like it. Now the stuffiness is a little more tolerable than it was. I don’t know what I am going to do tomorrow as the temp is supposed to be 90 degrees and my bro-in-law hasn’t put my AC in yet. I think I might melt.

I got some reading done tonight. A whole chapter and a half. I had to switch to my reading glasses because the progressive lenses suck for reading. It’s like reading through a concave lens. I kept having to shift my eyes or my head to read the page. Annoying!

I complained to Amazon about my shipping problem. They were no help as they want me to contact the seller. There is nothing s/he can do about it as it’s already mailed. Hope they got their money’s worth of my $7 that I paid. As I usually send things via media mail, I know it’s the cheapest way to send books so s/he probably paid half of that. I am never getting expedited shipping again. It never works out for me. I am seriously considering getting Amazon Prime so I can get two day shipping for free.

I am in mega pain tonight. There has to be a storm coming because my spine is aching really bad and the CRPS is flaring up on me. I can see every vein in my foot and it’s throbbing big time. I hate being in so much pain. I just took my night meds so I hope that plus my pain meds knock me out. But I am in a hot room so I am not so sure I can sleep, even with the door open. I might have to take some nerve pain meds. I really don’t want to because I will wake up a few hours after I sleep and I will be up the rest of the night. I might be pain free but I will be wide awake.

I haven’t emailed my psych since the beginning of the week. I should send her an email saying I am doing okay. She is worried about me becoming manic. I think the depression has finally lifted a bit and I am just left with the sadness of the death of my father. I really didn’t think I was going to miss the bastard, but it happened. I saw a picture of him today when he was a little overweight. It was taken when my littlest niece was maybe six, so it was almost 5 years ago. He had the smug look on his face that I can’t stand. I don’t know why I miss him. It’s strange to me that I do. I guess it’s the one attachment in my life that I tried to cut out but never quite could and now that he is gone, permanently, it sucks. The “movie” started playing again today. It was in fast forward from the time the ambulance people transported my father to when I first noticed he wasn’t breathing anymore. That’s where it ended, today at least. Then I went through what happened afterwards with me panicking about what to do. I am usually calm in emergencies but this wasn’t an emergency. My father was dead and there had to be an official notification of his death. Here it is a month later and we are still dealing with him and his ashes. “Dust we are and as dust we shall return”. I don’t know the verse in the Bible but I think that is how it goes. It’s funny that Jesus didn’t return as dust. He just rose from the dead and was never seen or heard from again.

I seriously need to finish the story I started while I was in the hospital. I know I am risking PTSD symptoms and with this being a holiday weekend, there is no coverage. My psych will be on vacation next week and I am sure my therapist will be away somewhere with her family. Only place I can go is the ER or take an extra Ativan, if I need it. It’s funny that the chapter I was reading about psychopharmacology and PTSD included Ativan as a medication to control symptoms relating to anxiety. PTSD is of course in the anxiety family of diagnoses. I had forgotten about that. It works well with me and my symptoms. I am lucky to have a drug that works for me. I have been on so many and they have failed me. It’s nice to finally be on one that works. I don’t use it all the time, just when I am desperate and all else has failed me, like grounding and distraction. Lately, distraction hasn’t been working for me. Music has though. I get lost in the sounds and lyrics. I finally was able to listen to Mary Chapin Carpenter’s new album tonight and found it wasn’t as depressing as it was when I was depressed. It’s a pretty good album.

Breakdown here

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

Breakdown here

Today I broke down, while at the nursing home. My younger sister snapped at me and that was it. It started a cascade of tears and I couldn’t stop it no matter how hard I tried. Then I would get my composure, start talking and the tears started up again. I finally stopped but after I wrote to my psychiatrist about the ridiculousness of the day, I started up again and couldn’t stop. I was in my room and thought I had privacy until my middle sister came to check on me. Then I cried harder. It was such difficulty to stop when I couldn’t.

Found out my middle sister reads my blogs. So I kind of had to stop posting on FB my posts. I will lose some views per day but least she won’t be “spying” on me. She was reading my blogs to check up on me and I had no idea until today. She and my other sister were upset that I didn’t tell them my thoughts on how long my father had left. I told them that it could be a few days to a week to ten days or more.

I am really tired and in pain. I have been up since 0400. I left the house early because I wanted coffee even though I had made a cup at home. I just needed to get out of the house. I didn’t have a breakfast sandwich today because I wasn’t hungry. I had a black bean burger and some baked beans for my breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with a bottle of water. I just am not hungry today. Last night after we left the nursing home, my sister took us out to eat and I was still kind of full from that. My stomach is just not the same as it used to be. I lost a few more pounds though I am still not less than 200. I am working on it though. I will be weighed tomorrow when I go to my pain management appointment.

I did a stupid thing today. My father needed to use the bathroom while I was there. It was just me and I thought I would be able to handle it. Wrong. He lost control of his legs because he was so weak and I had to lower him to the floor because I couldn’t maneuver him back to the bed. I had to call for help and the nurses looked at me like I had three heads. I was like WTF. I hurt my back in the process. I think it’s just soreness and I hope it goes away. The whole episode left me very upset. Hence why I was so tearful.

My ankle is killing me and so is my foot. I feel like I should ice it but sometimes that makes it worse. I have already taken multiple doses of pain meds. I might have to take a strong one to calm it down. I think I might have twisted it without realizing it while dealing with my father. Course, I have been standing a LOT the last few days on it so that might be another reason why it’s so damn painful.

After I wrote my psychiatrist the email, I became really suicidal. I would have slashed my throat or something if I had the means. I was desperate to die. I texted my therapist that I was having a breakdown. She called me a few hours later to find out what was going on. I told her that I really wanted to be in the hospital but can’t because I have a meeting with the nursing home people on Tuesday and because I am the health care proxy, I have to be there or they can’t give out any information to my sisters. Next week is going to be really tough because the insurance my father has runs out and the state insurance is still in process. They are so damn slow. My father could die while waiting for the application to go through. I’m still hoping that he does die but an assessment today said that he could live for the next 10 days or so. It’s going to put a financial burden on us if the thing doesn’t go through. We don’t have the money to pay the nursing home fees. I don’t know what we are going to do if we have to take him home. I just worry that comfort measures won’t be so suitable in my father’s apartment like they will be in the home. Just add a little more stress to my life, why not!