Tag: physical pain

turn for the worse

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

Turn for the worse

I’m feeling extremely low right now. I just read a blog by my favorite actor, Wil Wheaton. He wrote about his depression and I feel so bad about it. It really sucks that he suffers from it like I do. I worry that some day he might take his life during one of his lows.

I am feeling hopeless. I got thoughts swirling around my brain about death and dying. I wish I never flipped through the book and found that stupid lethal dose table. I can’t get the thoughts of overdosing out of my head and now I have a handbook on exactly how much I should take based on my weight. It will take some calculations, but I can do it. I am so tired, just like Wil.

This has gone on for two months now. I don’t think I am ever going to feel any better. I know it’s too early to say whether the antidepressant is going to help me but I doubt it is going to work. I don’t know if I should bother taking it. I just feel so hopeless, like nothing is ever going to feel right again.

The heaviness is back in my chest again. It’s like this huge weight that presses upon me, making it hard to take air in and out. It lingers and stays put, never moving or altering it’s position. It’s just there. I hate it. I hate my life. I hate everything. Nothing brings me joy or pleasure. Food shopping is probably the only thing that I find fun. I order all this stuff and then go back over it when I am not hungry and take things off it. I ordered ribs at $17 a rack. But it’s been so long since I have had them, it might stay on my order.

I have such a strange relationship with food these days. I will either not eat anything or I will eat just small things all day and be bloated. I will crave a certain food but then when it’s cooked up, I can’t eat all of it. Even if it’s a sandwich, I will eat half and then be full. My therapist thinks my stomach has shrunk because I haven’t been eating regularly. But then, I need to lose weight so I don’t mind the give and take go round. I just wish it could be on a steady keel. Like eating small meals every day and not getting the hungry horrors any day. It really sucks.

The fatigue from the depression is the worse. I feel like I could sleep for days but I hardly sleep. Then I will have a day or two where all I do is sleep. I sometimes don’t sleep at night but I will sleep during the day. If I didn’t have to see my father today, I know I would have been in bed all day. I am just so exhausted and I haven’t done anything to warrant it. But then, being in chronic pain doesn’t help. It also sucks the energy right out of you.

I just don’t want to be anymore. I still wonder what it will be like to take my BP medication, all of it and see if it causes an event. I don’t know if it will kill me. Might make me sick and that is what keeps me from doing it. I have tried not to think about these things but being really depressed makes you think of these things. I just want an escape. I am feeling trapped, emotionally, like I am in a prison and there is no way I can break out. My heart hurts so bad. Yet it continues to beat like nothing is going on. My autonomic nervous system doesn’t know that I am dead inside.

I should kill myself. Maybe I should plan another date.

Stomach aches and other things

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

Stomach aches and other things

I had a two hour nap. The only thing I had to eat today was a burger. It was really good but now, eight hours later, my stomach is doing flip flops. I just took some Alka-Seltzer and that seems to be helping. I haven’t eaten anything else today, I just wasn’t hungry. And there is no way I am eating anything right now the way my stomach feels.

It seems that no matter what, I always seem to be in pain of some sort these days. It’s really making me exhausted. I read the instructions of the new nasal spray that I was given. You can take two squirts a day so I just took another dose to see if it helps my head. So far, I am breathing out of both nostrils. Hope that stays the same. I just am curious why I have to have a different ailment every day. Yesterday was vertigo shit and today a sour stomach. I am so tired of dealing with things other than my ankle/foot problem. My ankle/foot I know what to do to relieve the pain and suffering for the most part. The other stuff, it just takes some time and hydration to get my equilibrium back. I’m lucky I had Alka-Seltzer as I am out of tums and Mylanta. I would have preferred Mylanta or the Walgreens version of it. Maybe I will grab a bottle when I go tomorrow.

My psychiatrist must have read her email because when I woke up there was a message from Walgreens saying my prescription was ready. I’ll get it tomorrow. The pharmacy is closed now anyways. Besides, I don’t think going out with my sour stomach would be a good idea.

I didn’t call my father but I did check up on him via his nurse. He is doing better. The bastard is still out of sorts and gave my sister a hard time when she called him. I know better than to call him. I will go by tomorrow. I think he might be discharged on Monday if all goes well.

I hate this stomach feeling that I have. I really want to go back to sleep. I took my meds and now I just want to sleep. My stomach is not helping matters. I really don’t want to puke because then I won’t be able to see my father (I know a pity). I don’t want to pass whatever I have along to him. I really hope this is just an upset stomach and nothing more. I have eaten from this place before and I don’t remember ever feeling this sick from eating there. But then, I haven’t been eating all week so it was probably a shot to my system. I am just glad I didn’t order Chinese food like I had wanted. That would have been worse.

Brazil Coffee, Cauda Equina Syndrome, and Other Things

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

Brazil Coffee, Cauda Equina Syndrome, and Other Things

I had a rotten night of sleep. I really wanted to go out today but I hadn’t shower in days. There was no way I could shower when I couldn’t stand for more than ten minutes, much less walking to the bus stop and then stand waiting for it. So I nixed the idea and made coffee at home. I am glad I did. I am loving my Brazil coffee. Sadly, I have just one bag left of this nectar of the Gods. Starbucks doesn’t sell it anymore. But I am glad to have it either way as it tastes so damn good.

The reason for my back being a bitch is because the temp shot up 20 degrees. It’s nearly 56 degrees. Yesterday, it was in the thirties. The temp is supposed to be stable over the next day or so. I am hoping that I can sneak a shower in and not have my back go crazy on me. Just making coffee I was hurting. I kept having to sit down soon as I got up. This is no way to live.

I posted on Facebook that no one understands and two of my closest friends responded. They know what it is like living in chronic pain as they live with it themselves. It really takes someone to know and understand what you go through if they go through it themselves. One of my CES members of my group is having a hard time with this. He is having backlash from family members about his taking medication and not being himself anymore. It’s hard being the person you were when your life gets torn upside down with Cauda Equina Syndrome. It doesn’t help when you have no support other than members of the same condition. I went on a rant on Twitter. If he had diabetes, I bet they wouldn’t tell him he needed to be off his insulin or what ever he was taking to control his sugar. I don’t get why some people just don’t get that a medical condition is just that no matter what the cause of it is. It drives me up the wall. And if there is the stigma with CES, you can only imagine the stigma attached if you are depressed because you are no longer the person you once was.

It makes me sad because I have a good friend that will be getting a divorce soon because her husband said that she isn’t the person he married anymore. WTF. It pisses me off because what happened to the vow, for better or worse, and in sickness and health? People just don’t take their marriage vows seriously anymore. Not all people are like that. I have known some people who keep their vows and are still together despite the disability CES brings. I am glad I am single and I don’t have to deal with relationship stuff. It would be such a strain because I wouldn’t be able to be there financially to my partner nor physically. I have become such a loner that I hate being away from my room more than a couple of hours. It’s fine if I am have a doctor’s appointment or something. But for the most part, I rather just stay home and in my room.

Since my back pain has been really bad, my ankle has been behaving. Last night I thought there was going to be competition between the two but I headed it off by taking my pain meds. Seems I have been taking them around the clock to avoid being in pain. The downside of this is that I am tired all the time. Even with drinking coffee, I feel sleepy. I must have woken up three times last night between 0100 and 0600. I really can’t wait for the temps to level off because I really don’t want to move with pain. It’s one thing for my ankle to hurt. Sure it drives me up a wall, too. But not being able to move my trunk, to not being able to bend down, or to just put on a pair of slippers is difficult.

I didn’t make pancakes today. I just couldn’t stand long enough to make them. I keep trying. Maybe I will mix all the dry ingredients together and then tomorrow add the wet ingredients so there will be less work for me. There really isn’t that many ingredients to making pancakes from scratch. With oatmeal, there are seven, regular six. I have been making pancakes from scratch since I was young and I have a good memory (for now). While I was up early this morning, I had breakfast of pop tarts. It’s my last one so I will need to make a grocery order next week. I was hoping to avoid it but it seems I need one. I need my cereal and other items. I was going to go to the store but why do that when I can go online? Much faster and easier. And no lines, no waiting.

CDC and Chronic Pain

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, suicide

“I invite chronic pain patients who rely on medications & are still alive, to offer their expertise to the public conversation.”
Terri A. Lewis, PhD

This statement just rubbed me the wrong way. In fact, it infuriated me because there are so many people taking their lives because they DO NOT get medications due to the opioid policies some doctors have. The CDC is proposing that primary care doctors PCP’s no longer prescribe narcotics for their patients. I haven’t read the report but it was stopped only because a lawsuit was threatened if it was published. The guidelines were written by people that had NOTHING to do with chronic pain. Therefore, it didn’t make sense for them to have these guidelines. I would write to them but I fear that if I do, I will be prosecuted for my actions down the line. Call me paranoid. I only take 4-6 pills a day and if that were cut, so would my life.

The statement also implies that taking these medications is a death sentence waiting to happen. This isn’t true. There are plenty of people who SAFELY take these medications daily and are still alive. Yes, there are some that do NOT because they go to different doctors and the combination of other opioids makes them sick. My ex’s neighbor died from an overdose because of this. Had one doctor been prescribing, her friend might have lived a little longer. She was terminally ill with something other than cancer. Obviously, she is the one that is “not alive” to come forward about these supposed guidelines.

If Primary care docs can no longer prescribe these medications, where are chronic pain patients supposed to go? “Pain clinics” only want to experiment and give injections, usually because it’s more money than writing a script. I have seen two pain doctors and they both didn’t want to take over the pain management I was under. They just offered invasive procedures and when I refused, I no longer was a part of their care. I’m sorry but there is no research to support that the injections would benefit me. I wish I kept the report that contradicted the injections. There was an article a few years ago that said that it was more dangerous to have them than not. I am not going to risk have something called arachnoiditis for the sake of a pain clinic writing a script for my pain meds, when the pain meds already work for me.

I need to have my primary care doctor continuing to prescribe me these medications. It’s safer and easier than seeing a specialist. The meds help me to function better, though I rarely take them when I am outside the house. They make me too drowsy to get on the bus and train. So I suffer through my pain to get to where I need to go. Taking my four tablets a day is not killing me. It’s keeping me alive enough to see another day. Because without them, I would seriously end my life. And I don’t think the CDC wants that.