Tag: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

the 4 AM painsomnia blog

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

The 4 AM Painsomnia blog

It is a little after 0400 and I still have not slept a wink. Pain is keeping me up. I have tried different drugs and was getting ready to settle down about a half hour ago, when I moved my ankle to get comfy and was rewarded with more pain. I am so tired, physically and mentally, of this crap. I don’t understand how normal movements of my ankle the way it is supposed to work are causing me loads of pain. It doesn’t make sense. Maybe my neuro can help me. I see her in a couple of weeks.

I have been adding apps to my phone. I still haven’t made the playlists on my MP3 player. That will involve my old phone and mega time. I actually don’t know if the songs will be on the old phone because I took out the storage card. It had all my music on it. Will really suck if I have to create each playlist and then try to remember what songs were in it. I had a good list going, too. Should have written it down before pulling the card out. Oh well.

I took my pain meds a little while ago, before my pain really hit skyrocket levels. I am debating on taking the strong pain med and another Ativan. With any luck I will be asleep by 0530. I hate when I am up all night. I probably will be sleeping all morning and into the afternoon again. I feel like waking my mother up and telling her I am going to sleep now so she has some idea that I don’t sleep when I am in my room. I could do it just to be a bastard.

I think the CRPS is spreading up my leg. Lately, I have been getting pains above my ankle, nerve pain, on the same side where my ankle hurts and where originally the swelling was greatest. It hasn’t hurt like that in a while so I thought it had gone away. Now it doesn’t seem to be the case. It just causes me to have hypervigilance and anxiety with my PTSD symptoms. That’s why I wanted to take the strong pain med and Ativan. Kill two birds with one stone. And it might help me doze off.

I keep trying to ignore the pain but it is throbbing and it changes and moves all over the place. One side of my foot will feel one thing, the top of my foot will feel another. My toes will feel something else and my ankle will just have several kinds of pain all at once. It can be up, down, and all around. There is no rhyme or reason to it, which is so frustrating. I took some Neurontin for the burning pain and applied Lidocaine so numb it. Then I move my ankle to get comfy and was overwhelmed with pain again just as I thought it was finally settling down. Fucker. It’s awake so so am I.

I took the meds. Fuck it. I need relief and sleep. I got to wait an hour or so for the Ativan to work. I was watching videos on Facebook. One of them was about how to cook eggs easily. It showed how to unpeel a boiled egg in a container after putting some water and then shaking it with a cover on the container. It was cool. Also showed how to make a poached egg in the microwave. I’ll have to see it again to learn how. I like poached eggs once in a while but they can be messy when you make it by pan. I saved the link so I have it in my saved thingy. I really like that option.

My sister thawed out burgers so she will be making them today. I know I am going to have a couple! That is my favorite summer food. I want to buy the grill thingy that you put on the stove to grill things without mess. I should have written down the number or the website. Maybe they will have it at Walgreens in the “shown on tv” section. It would be awesome to make grilled stuff year round. So when I wake up from my “nap”, the food should be ready, lol. I wish I had bought cole slaw with my grocery order. Maybe I will get it when I go grocery shopping later today. I need to get my bread that wasn’t delivered. My mother buys wheat bread, which is okay, but I like multigrain bread. It just tastes good. I also plan on buying some deli turkey breast. Boar’s Head just came out with a new kind called Maple Honey Turkey breast. I want to try it. I also want to get more ribs. They are so good.

I know I take a lot of psych meds, but having to take all these pain meds drives me nuts. It’s only because the pain changes so I need to adjust the dose or take lidocaine or Neurontin more because I know the opioids won’t respond to it. I never get to a zero but a three would be nice every once in a while. Someone liked one of my low pain tweets about wanting to shower on Twitter. It was back in June. Long time since that day. I think the weather has caused my pain to spike. It decreased another 10 degrees. It’s 57 degrees F right now. It was 70 degrees when I woke up at 1415, so many hours ago. So what is that, 13 degrees in a little more than 12 hours? No wonder I am in pain. Fucking human barometer I am. SUCKS!!

feeling like a grump

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

Feeling like a grump

I didn’t sleep well last night. I was up every couple of hours due to either my foot or back acting up. The temp dropped another ten degrees and is now raining. I am hurting very bad. My mother kept calling me all morning because she forgot her keys to the house. This is the second day that she has done this. I reluctantly had to get up because my bladder said so. I made coffee to try and wake up. I am just in a grumpy mood because of pain. My back is really bad, the worst it has been in quite some time.

I called a therapy place that I hadn’t heard from in more than a week after filling in their online submission form. I got their voicemail so now I am waiting for a callback. I need to call the dentist so I can get my teeth drilled. I’m kind of nervous to do it because needles and drills always gives me great anxiety when it’s pointed at me.

My check didn’t get deposited today so I didn’t order my groceries and other things. I don’t know why some Mondays it does go in and other times it doesn’t. So weird. I think I will have it tomorrow. I added some sparkling water to my grocery order. I hope I like it. I figure it would be better than tonic.

My mother made asparagus and eggs for supper. I was slightly reach for a slice of cheese and I got cramps in my lower back. This is the worst my back has been in a long time. It’s starting to set off PTSD again. I took an Ativan so hopefully I can take a nap to ease the pain. I took a strong pain pill as my regular one is just not doing anything for my pain. It’s just too severe.

I am thinking of emailing psych again about my back pain as I am getting worried because it isn’t going away. I know this is weather related and once it warms up or stabilizes, I think I will be okay. I don’t think anything major is going on but any time I have back pain like this I tend to freak out.

Got an email saying only one phone was shipped out so I had to call Sprint, again, to make sure two are in the box. There are. I will be getting them soon. The hard part will be to track my niece down to give it to her. I need to wait for the Amazon order to come in first so the phone is protected. I am not giving her an unprotected phone. I am excited to be getting a new phone, even though it will be a pain in the ass the first few days getting used to it. It’s an Android phone but I will have to program it so that all my preferences are there. That can be tricky. Hopefully it won’t be as bad as I think it will be.

severe back pain and PTSD doesn’t mix

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

Severe back pain and PTSD doesn’t mix

The past few hours, I cannot straighten out my back without severe pain. It is causing me to have flashbacks of the time I was first diagnosed with cauda equina syndrome. I remember not being able to walk or stand on my left leg without severe pain. Now I have back pain and my left ankle/foot is going berserk, which is causing me great anxiety.

I emailed my psychiatrist because I didn’t know what to do. I would have paged her but it’s late and I don’t want to bother her even though I am freaking out. I am trying to calm myself down by distracting and reading tweets about the game. Sitting is difficult but laying down is worse because my thoughts go crazy. It also increases my ankle/foot pain so I can’t win. I was able to brush my teeth but it hurt. I couldn’t use the prescription toothpaste because I had to sit down. I hate that I have to use two toothpastes at night.

I’m hoping this pain is caused by the weather. The temp has dropped several degrees and usually that brings me pain. I don’t know if it is going to rain or not. I am guessing it will because it usually activates my back pain. I haven’t don’t anything I shouldn’t have done or lifted anything heavy. It annoys me when I am hurting for no reason. It could be a delayed reaction to the beds in the psych unit. I was on a hospital bed but it was lumpy.

Sox are leading 3-0 as of now. The pain is driving me nuts. It’s all around my waist and lower back. I am trying to reassure myself that it is NOT cauda equina syndrome as there would be more symptoms of the syndrome but with my ankle and foot tingling and throbbing, it’s hard. My brain knows that it’s not CES but my feelings are like yes it is. You need to go to the ER right now. I am in panic mode and I don’t like it. I took an Ativan to calm down. Hopefully it will also relax my back muscles so they don’t hurt as much. I already took my pain meds, except the strong pain med, which I am contemplating. I have never taken it for severe back pain before so I don’t know if it will work. It’s funny, while I was in the hospital, the pill color was orange. The ones I have at home are white. Same size, just a different color. I have never seen it orange before.

Well, the score is now 4-3 Angels. Damn Price sucks. Giving up a gift of a 3 run lead. I don’t like him at all. Never have. I took the strong pain pill and hope it helps, or at least allows me to go to sleep. I really hate having PTSD. I remember nearly everything while I was in the ED and them telling me I needed surgery, the surgeon sees me all for 10 minutes and then says yup, 830 in the OR. I was scared shitless. I asked him when I would be able to walk again and he said three days. It was a week before I was able to move my toes again, with effort. I never want to go through that again. I will kill myself before I need another emergency back surgery. Two was enough for me.

Random 215

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

I woke up around 0430 and didn’t go back to sleep till around 0800. I had breakfast. After breakfast I took some pain meds and an Ativan to get back to sleep. I also took some Neurontin. That was my downfall because when I woke up, I really didn’t want to get out of bed. I had wanted to go to Starbucks, just to get out of the house, but I needed a shower and it just wasn’t happening. I was too groggy. I made coffee, hoping that would give me more energy but it made me sleepy. Or it just wasn’t strong enough to override the need for sleep.

I called my PCP’s office to see if my prescription was ready. It was but wasn’t. No one printed it out for me to pick up. That would explain why I never got a phone call saying it was ready to be picked up. I hope to pick it up tomorrow either before or after my appt with my psychiatrist.

After that, I called my mother to see what she was doing for dinner. She was going to heat up some lasagna from Sunday night. No thanks. I ordered a burger and onion rings. I waited an awfully long time for it to be delivered and the food was not as hot as I wanted it to be. Plus, they were very skimpy on the onion rings, though they did put some in the burger. That was weird as they never did that before. I still ate it and it’s probably going to be the only thing I eat today.

I am going to try and shower after I write this. My ankle is giving me grief so I am not sure I can just say fuck it and shower anyways. That usually has dire consequences. I am running low on my pain meds because it’s close to the end of the month so I can’t afford to take “extra” meds to quiet down a flare right now.

Last night was torturous. I had really bad pain, which began around 2 in the afternoon. I took my strong pain pill and then hoped for the best. Around 10 PM, the pain was still there and worse so I took another pill. While waiting for it to kick in, my ankle went berserk on me and I did, too. I got this band feeling around my ankle and that triggered my PTSD. I was flipping out I was going to get CES again. I tried to calm myself but the anxiety took over and I was very, very scared. I called my psychiatrist and had her tell me I wasn’t getting CES again. That seemed to calm me down some. I stayed up till around 1 am. I got hungry so I had something to eat around 0030. After eating, it seemed to settle me down so I could sleep for a few hours. I knew my sleep was going to be bad because I had taken two strong pain pills within 24 hours. It happens every time. I don’t know why.

I need to go out tomorrow so I will be going to Starbucks. I need to see my psychiatrist because I need some refills. Actually, all my psych meds need refills on them. I hope she has had better luck trying to find a therapist than I have. I’ll find out soon enough.