Chronic Pain

A 51 year old female living and dealing with lumbar back pain and fibromyalgia. Sharing things I do for relief, reduce stress and control weight gain.

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Facing the truth

You've heard this before "Screaming on the inside, smiling on the outside", thats me.  These past couple of weeks some things have come to light.  Things deep in my heart that I know to be true but acting, away from this blog, they are fine.   I still believe one day I'm going to be typing on here about some solution to my pain that I or some medical genius has discovered.  

When I saw Dr. C last Friday he asked me to try the Limbrel again.   Why not try it once a day instead of twice and maybe it won't effect you the same?  We decided on pm in case the dizziness returned it may wear off while I'm in bed overnight.  I was game for that.  I'm desperate.   He also recommended I try adding some turmeric in my diet.  It had been brought to my attention by my friend who convinced me to try the gluten free.  So now my favorite Dr. is recommending so why not?  He told me to do some research and find the best way to use it.  Just adding it as a spice to my food would be helpful.  My friend however had encouraged me to go the smoothie route using the root form.  I found a recipe for making a tea with it.  Since I love herbal teas anyway I chose that option.  

I've had several really tough days where I could barely get out of bed.  I made it to the kitchen and hurt so bad from head to toe I was sick like with the flu.  I tried to figure it out like always.  For once I think  I finally did.  It was that nasty thing called "Fibromyalgia".  I'm finally starting to accept and understand how it works.  If I do something just a little bit out of my range it punishes me the following day.  This was very hard to manage being that I've pushed my limits for years.  

My psychologist changed my antidepressant last month.  Something that is supposed to help with anxiety and FM pain too.  I've really been beating myself up the last couple of weeks trying to figure out why I keep feeling so bad no matter what I do.  I've been Gluten Free for 2 months.  I'm drinking the turmeric tea, drinking ACV, back on the Limbrel, using my stimulator day and night, using multiple over the counter creams and wearing my patches again even though I argue they are too expensive and don't work.  I've been so angry.  At who?  Everyone who don't take care of their self and feel just fine.  I recently overheard a man talking about his grandfather and how he ate fatty meat, drank the hard stuff, smoked since he was a teenager, never exercised a day in his life, overweight and is still going strong at 90 something.  That's all I can seem to focus on.  Does he know how lucky he is?  Why am I doing everything right, but can't seem to get any better? 

Monday morning I decided to get aggressive with getting some relief.  I called my PM doctor, which means I left a message with the nurse, and pleaded to let me try an injection again.  I'm desperate.  A lot has changed since I've tired in the past.  I didn't get a return call until that evening and of course the doctor was already gone.  "I'll talk to him tomorrow"  Seriously?  Then she proceeded to inform me the next day they'd be in another town so I probably wouldn't hear back until Wednesday.  Oh, no problem.  I have the rest of my life.  Excuse my attitude but I'm so tired of dealing with the health care system.  Do you think I heard from them today?  No I didn't.  I was dealing with another doctor today so I didn't even call and complain.  Oh, but I will tomorrow morning.

I started thinking about how my pain increased around the time we changed my antidepressant medicine.  Could this have anything to do with it?  Again...I'm desperate.  I had to call for a refill on something the previous psychologist had me on and I didn't notice had 0 refills until I went to call in the refill.  I asked to talk to the doc since I was on the phone with them anyway.  The receptionist said she'd return my call as soon as possible.  Well, you know what my attitude was on that.  By the time my husband was home from work I hadn't heard from either doctor!  

Surprised, my psychologist called me around 6:15.  We started to talk and I had a complete melt down on the phone with her.  All my frustrations came out.  She pointed out to me that sometime an antidepressant helps with pain on such a small scale that you don't even realize it.  When we changed it it's possible that I had an increase in pain overall.  If it wasn't working as well on my anxiety too that could effect things.  This particular drug was supposed to target patients with FM pain.  

We decided together until I see her in two weeks to start back on what I was taking previously since I had some on hand.  If I notice my pain decreases a little we may increase the dosage on it.  If nothing changes she said we will try another she had in mind before we tried the one I started last month.  She wanted to review my genetic testing again before making any final decisions.  I'm ok with her decisions.  At least I feel like something is being done.  I'm scared of "no" change more than "change"  at this time.  It has to get better than this.  I've come to far and tired so many things.  

As far as my PM doctor I'll be calling them again tomorrow.  It's terrible that two months in a row I've not been able to get them to return my call.  I'd love to get out of his practice.  I like him and the doctor I saw there before he did my implant but they have become this huge practice that hustle people in and out like cattle.  They go to a different town every day.  My fear is where will I go? No other PM doctor will want to treat another doctors SCS patient.  

It's also time to see Mr. R.  The 16 programs I have, have been good to me.  I was only using a few, but they kept changing every few weeks.  Now I can't seem to get one to keep me comfortable.  I was putting off until I got some of these other issues resolved but it can't wait now.  For his sake...I hope he's reachable.  

I'm just so tired of feeling bad.  I can come here and complain all I want and not feel bad about it.  I'm sorry to say that beside a few family members ( like my daughter  and my husband ) I've pretty much shut everyone else out.  Just because...I have nothing nice to say right now.  I'm pretty good at faking it but I just can't right now.  I'm so tired, so worn.  A close friend left me a message last week and said she was sorry for being a bad friend and not checking on me.  She asked me to call her back so we could catch up and I feel awful that I haven't.  She's not the bad friend, I am.

I guess that's enough venting.  No sleep doesn't help things either.  I want to try and stay with my closing I've been using.  Having HOPE.  ( Hold on pain ends)  My hands are slipping.... It's so hard right now.  

Holding on tightly.....gentle hugs
Theresa


2 comments:

Dana said...

I'm so sorry you've been going through so much lately! However, I am glad you finally posted again. I was getting worried about you! I know exactly what you mean about smiling on the outside and feeling like crap on the inside. I do that everyday. And then of course because you don't look like shit on the outside, everyone assumes you're fine. It's very frustrating. My most frustrating thing is that every time I get a new procedure done, my friends all expect me to be "cured". I've explained a million times, this is something I'm going to have the rest of my life. The procedures are things I'm trying to help ease the pain, but it's never going to go away completely. I hate dealing with anyone that doesn't have chronic pain these days. I swear if my husband wasn't also suffering from his own chronic pain, we would not be together. It's a big reason why I divorced my last husband. It was a 2nd marriage for both of us and we always said that unlike our ex-spouses from our first marriages, WE meant our vows when we took them. I never thought I'd end up with 2 divorces! He had some trouble with the being faithful part, mostly an emotional affair with an ex of his and he really just could not handle the "in sickness and in health" vow. He just wanted me to get better and when I couldn't, he told me to "Suck It Up!" That was the end for me. I couldn't be with someone who didn't believe I was in pain and didn't try to understand it at all. I was convinced I'd be alone forever when I finally decided to file for divorce. We had already been living apart for a year before I got to that point. I wanted to know that I had literally tried everything to make my marriage work, and I feel like I gave it everything I had and finally had to go my separate way, because I would rather be single and alone than married and still alone. I did not plan on meeting anyone ever and was definitely not looking, but 5 days after I filed for divorce I met a man who is now my fiancée, even though I refer to him as my husband. We've been together over 2 years already and we both have so many health issues, we've been through so much with each other. He's my best friend and biggest advocate and I have done the same for him. When one of us is in the "Why did this happen to me!" phase the other helps us get through it. I know they always say God never gives you more than you can handle, but I have to think that God might be overestimating how much we can handle. On top of everything else, I had a mammogram and ultrasound 2 weeks ago and they found a lump in my left breast. They "think" it's benign and just want to keep an eye on it, which means a repeat of testing in 6 months and yesterday my hubby found out he has type 2 diabetes. Two weeks ago he was in acute kidney failure and now this. I'm 38 and he's 47. We feel like we're 90! And we also look at people who basically beat the hell out of their bodies and they're perfectly healthy and wonder why we hit the jackpot on diseases and injuries. It's not fair! I learned a long time ago that life's not fair, but come on. Enough is enough! I don't really know what the point of my comment was, besides I just wanted to tell you I know how you feel. I had my spinal cord stimulator trial on May 12 and they don't have me scheduled for the permanent implant until Oct. 9th! So, so frustrated. I'm going to call and harass the scheduler again tomorrow and see if I can light a fire under her ass ! I'm falling asleep so I guess it's time to say goodnight. Thank you for posting again. I always look forward to reading your blog. God Bless you and your family. I'll be sending jo some prayers for you all. Feel free to email me if you want and have time. Kyanne06mom@gmail.com

Samantha said...

Thanks for your lovely message Theresa. Your post could have been written by me, I feel exactly the same, in all respects bar hope. I'm not sure how you manage to keep that one going, but I sure feel the same about everything else:) Thanks for your very kind support, hugs from across the ocean to you!