Tag: physical pain

the thing

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

The thing

I am up past my “magic” hour because my thing aka my ankle/foot is causing me severe pain. I have taken all the meds I could possibly take and have just put on some lidocaine. I’m waiting for it to dry so I can possibly go to sleep.

I emailed my psych because I can’t sleep. It seems if I am up past 0200, I don’t go to sleep until the hours between 0400-0600. It’s a guessing game. I took an Ativan but I am so overtired, I don’t think it is going to calm me down enough to sleep. I really think I need a sleeping pill on nights like these, but I am afraid to take it because of the sleep walking or other strange things that people experience while taking it.

I am not expecting my psych to respond to my email, but she might. I was going to make a sauce today but I don’t think it is likely as I will want to sleep. I have therapy at 1600. As long as I can make it out of the house by 1400, I should be okay. Then I can have my espresso at Starbucks, which I hope will keep me up for a little bit. I think I might fry the ground beef and then refrigerate it until I make the sauce so the meat doesn’t go bad.

I am so tired but my damn thing is being a fucking bastard. I have decided to call it thing because different parts of my foot/ankle will hurt so it’s just easier calling it thing. I’m tired of having to differentiate what hurts and what doesn’t. The pain likes to hop around and go up and down and all around. It’s so infuriating. My physical pain was taken cared of by my pain meds and then it changed to nerve pain which isn’t taken cared of by my pain meds. I have to take Neurontin and that works whenever it decides to work. UGH. So in the meantime, I am suffering and can’t fucking sleep.

My toes are now part of the thing. The last three always fucking hurts and it’s like I am stubbing all three at once. It’s so painful. I guess I am not going to make any phone calls today. I will be too sleep deprived to make them. I wish I could move my therapy appt to another time but it’s too late to change it. I have 24 hours before the time to move and/or cancel it and it’s less than that time. I really don’t want to keep going to therapy. I just think it is a waste of time. I am fine handling things on my own. I have for a very long time.

I am getting hungry but I don’t want to go downstairs to make something to eat. I don’t think standing on my foot will help the pain any and I really don’t want it get worse. I won’t sleep until later and that won’t be good. It’s supposed to rain off and on all the day and tomorrow it’s supposed to rain all day. I have a dinner date with a friend of mine tomorrow night. We are going to my favorite restaurant for Thai food. I can’t wait. I haven’t had Pad Thai in a long time. It should be a good night out, despite the wet weather.

Did I mention I have songs shuffling in my head? It keeps jumping from one song to another and back again. It is driving me crazy. There is nothing I can take to stop the music playing unless I actually turn on my MP3 player but it’s too late for music and might keep me up rather than help me sleep.

I really need to call the dentist to reschedule my appointment. They had called me a few weeks ago saying that the dentist is no longer seeing patients on Tuesdays. Apparently he moved his schedule to Thursdays and Fridays, I think the message said. It’s fine with me, but I just need to call to make the appointment, which I have been procrastinating about. I hate going to the dentist. I hate the scraping of my teeth. I used to like it when I was a kid but now that I am an adult, it bothers me. I do have a cavity that needs to be filled, which further makes me want to postpone the appointment. I know that isn’t good because it could get bigger and cause me more problems, which is why I try and brush my teeth every day even if I don’t feel like it.

I need to lie down. Maybe if I do lie down, I will fall asleep. My back is starting to hurt from sitting the past several hours. I will write more later.

burrito fix satisfied

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

Burrito fix satisfied

It was cool in the house, so I thought it would be the same outside. I wore my new Sox hoodie and I was sweating by the time I reached the bus stop. My cousin saw me and gave me a ride. While we were talking, I told him I was trans. He accepted it better than I thought he would, though I don’t think he really got it. He just thought, I think, that I meant I was gay. I told him I was going to transition to being a male. He seemed ok with the idea, much to my relief. I told him that my mother just pushed me over the edge and I had enough of not being who I really am.

I got my burrito at Chipotle and took it to Starbucks where I had a iced tea Lemonade. I didn’t want more caffeine because I just had coffee. The burrito was good. And then I wrote in my journal for a bit. I wanted to go to the butcher shop to get some ground beef. My mother wanted me to check the price of the chicken wings and fish. The fish was too expensive and the chicken was too fatty. I’ll get them at Stop and Shop.

I’m feeling really good that I came out to my cousin and him accepting me. I wish my mother could. My foot acted up on the bus ride home and got worse when I got up to my room. I’m going to rest and then try to take a shower. I think that will help my mood a little bit. I really want to change my sheets so they don’t keep coming undone but I am too tired and I really don’t want my back to hurt. I’ll do it sometime next week.

Another hit to the chronic pain community. I just read an article that stated addiction treatment centers do not routinely test for drugs because of various reasons, mostly due to the “cost”, yet it’s perfectly acceptable to test a chronic pain patient at random or routinely. This really pissed me off because I am one of many chronic pain patients that get tested, even though I do take my meds the way I am supposed to. I don’t use more, I don’t sell or give away my meds, I adhere to the policy in the contract that I signed because I need these meds to function and want to have some kind of life outside the four walls of my room. I am so sick of pain patients going through this rigmarole because addicts have taken over the truthfulness of true chronic patients. It just saddens me.

I’m going to have some ice cream. I have been thinking about it since leaving the Square. Until later…

when you wake up at 0100

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

When you wake up at 0100

I woke up around 0100 because of pain and allergies. My nose was stuffed up and my eyes were tearing. I took some Flonase and pain meds for my foot. I just put in eye drops so my eyes don’t feel so sticky. I can’t go back to sleep. I am awake. I was dreaming about something to do with arachnoiditis. It’s a painful condition in which the nerves are clumped in the spine. It can happen anywhere and it usually caused by steroid injections in the back. One of the many reason I will never have an injection in my back is because of the risk of this condition, that and the fact it’s not going to help. The evidence is mounting that epidural steroid injection are becoming useless despite the pain doctors continuing to practice this. They rather do that than write a prescription because it cost more to have an injection than write out a piece of paper.

I don’t know why I was dreaming about this condition. I guess it was the last thing I looked at before I went to sleep. Sometimes that will happen. It’s so weird.

I took a strong pain pill to help with my foot pain. I also took an Ativan to try and calm me down some because I am just freaking out over being in pain. It’s so bad that I just want to die. I guess I am going to be sleeping today as I am going to be up half the night. I wasn’t planning on doing anything today anyways. I need to rest my ankles. I did a lot this week and I am paying for it.

My psych told me that my PCP did send off the referral to the CRPS specialist, but because of the new “wonderful” system, she is not sure when they will get back to me. I don’t have my hopes up and I am not looking forward to seeing her anyways. I am just done with docs and I know she isn’t going to do much for me other than either say that I have CRPS or I don’t. I will be devastated if she says I don’t because if I don’t, what the fuck do I have? I know the swelling isn’t severe like most cases of CRPS. People in the Facebook group that I belong to show their ankles and the swelling is unreal. In some people, they don’t even have an ankle it’s just a leg and a foot! I might just have a mild case of it. I know there are different grades of the syndrome. But something has to be causing me this pain. And I refuse to believe that pain meds are increasing my pain because if that was the case, why the fuck did I wake up from a sound sleep in bone crushing pain hours after I took my meds? Just doesn’t make sense to me.

Today is my uncle’s birthday. He died 11 years ago. He was my favorite uncle. He was funny and kind. I miss him a lot. I hope he has good cake up where he is. His favorite saying was “for Christ’s sake”.

After I had my Chinese food for dinner, I had raspberries. NEVER again. The burps were horrible and upset my stomach. I thought I was going to throw up. Thankfully, some antacid made it go away. I’m never going to buy raspberries again. They just aren’t very good and the seeds get stuck in my teeth. I like the jam better, seedless jam. I bought it on my last grocery order so I can make it with peanut butter. It’s really good. I might have it for breakfast later today.

I really need to shower today. Even though I don’t have much hair, I need to wash it as it’s itchy. I last took a shower Tuesday night so it’s been a while. Sox lost again. I hope the next two games with Baltimore are the last for the season. It’s been rough playing with them. Seems we have been playing them all season long. One of my favorite new pitchers was placed on the disabled list (DL) yesterday because he hurt his knee. He is out the next 10 days. I don’t know who is going to take his place in the rotation. The Sox are really hurting for starting pitchers. They still have a winning record, for now but if they continue to lose games, they won’t.

frustrating doc appt and cookies

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

Frustrating doc appt and cookies

I had my quarterly appointment with my PCP this morning. It didn’t go well as the jerk didn’t listen to me or pain concerns. He was reluctant to give me a month’s supply of my strong pain meds and things I have “hyperalgesia”, which means the pain meds are increasing my pain. I don’t think that is happening because pain it brought on when I stand or move my damn ankle. He gave me a referral to the CRPS specialist and wants to hear what she says before making any treatment changes. I see him again in four fucking months.

I am so frustrated. Idiot won’t give me a month supply, fine, I’ll just request a refill every fucking two weeks until he changes the damn count of the meds. I emailed my psychiatrist but haven’t heard back from her. He didn’t want to listen to how bad the pain was, especially when I told him it was bringing on suicidal episodes for me. He just asked if I was in contact with my psych and that seemed to make everything okay. WTF. I don’t see her for pain control. I see HIM! If my damn pain levels weren’t so damn high, my suicidal episodes would be less. Sure I would still be suicidal but it wouldn’t be every time my pain is a 15, especially when my flares are becoming more frequent, with no rhyme or reason.

I was hurting and tired when I came home but decided to make cookies anyway. It was a recipe I haven’t tried before so I didn’t know what to expect. The recipe said it would take 15 minutes to cook. It turned out to be close to a half hour or so and my mother increased the temp of the oven 25 degrees above what they said. Then they cooked. I made them a little bit too big and thick. The smaller ones were cooked more than the bigger ones. I am disappointed because they didn’t come out right. I might trash them. I was going to give them to my psych but I’m not now because they just didn’t cook right. I am frustrated because I aggravated my damn Achilles while making them. My back is also hurting, but it was hurting since this morning. I somehow aggravated my sciatica and it didn’t help that the doc was poking me in the back to see where I hurt.

I am really tired. There wasn’t much of a mess and I tried to clean up the best I could. My mother is making dinner and I am not hungry because I had two cookies plus the dough so I am full. I loved the dough more than the cookies. I might have some of the teriyaki chicken breast that I bought the other day if I get hungry later.

I think my mother’s taste buds are going because she couldn’t taste the butterscotch in the cookies. I put 2 packages of butterscotch pudding mix in the batter. I could taste it. She said all she tasted was dough. I don’t know. Just pissed me off more than I was already.

I sent another email to my psych and now I am crying out of the frustration of being in pain and not having a caring doc. He isn’t a jerk or anything, just inexperienced I think to deal with the complexity of my situation. I miss my former PCP so bad. I rather be nervous about my weight with him than deal with this incompetent young doc who I don’t think trusts me enough to judge my pain and how I manage it. I really think if he saw me more it would increase his awareness of just how bad my pain is and how to deal with it. The meds work and I don’t think I am getting hyperalgesia from them. I also said so in my email to my psych. She should know what this young doc is saying. I get his hesitancy to treat me but is it worth him signing my death certificate because he is under treating me? I was very up front with my former PCP about this and he understood that even though I was under the care of my psychiatrist and therapist I still had low suicidal moods that centered around my pain and suffering. He really wanted to help me and make me “better”, though there was nothing more that could be done. I have tried PT and injections. They just made my pain worse. I have seen countless docs. I hope the specialist can offer me something worthwhile but I am not holding my breath. The worst thing she can say is that I don’t have CRPS but just a pain syndrome. I think that will devastate me and might put me over the edge. I have been fighting this pain for so long now that I am just so sick of it. It makes me tired and cranky and suicidal at times. I can’t just stay at home all the time and stare at my four walls or write endless blogs. I need to go out some time and have a routine of some sort.

Tomorrow I don’t have nothing on my agenda and I am just going to rest. I see my psych on Friday so I want my Achilles pain to calm down some. I really don’t have a treatment for that other than taking ibuprofen and resting it. When it’s really bad, I have to take a couple of strong pain pills to quiet it down. Baking didn’t help it any but it’s not as painful as it was yesterday.