Pain Is Pain

I've kept my pain comments to a minimum this year (if you don't think so, you aren't living in my body). Until this morning. This morning I received permission (in an odd way) from a Friend I identify as the most long-suffering of the chronic pain sufferers among my Friends (although I doubt I know how many such Friends I have).

She started a conversation about how pain is different for everyone and there's no point comparing pains. It had an Apostle Paul quality to it. I haven't posted this year because of all those Friends who hurt far more and far more often and far longer than I have (according to FB, this is Year 3). It feels insulting to them to gripe about my pain when theirs is likely worse.

However, there is no comparison. Pain is pain. The same way I would never mock someone grieving the loss of hamster because it isn't a person (my inclination with such mockers is to punch them in the throat). The grief is the salient point, not the supposed worthiness of the cause of the grief. Besides, I would grieve a hamster more than most people.

So I'm going to write about my pain this year this once, and then fall quiet again.

Here's something I also grabbed from my Friend:

Four years ago, I fell on my left knee on my driveway in early Spring. It began bothering me at the first Realm Makers conference in St. Louis. I believe that was four years ago. I remember clearly because the 4 hour drive there set it off, and I prayed I had enough ibuprofen to get me home. The drive home was torture, even with ibuprofen.

The knee has flared ever since, but two years ago, my left jaw began to hurt in a way my tooth splint didn't correct. Although not debilitating, I was desperate enough to seek physical therapy, which cost over $800 and failed to help in any significant way other than to confirm I'm too rigid and need to relax.

I began Classical Stretch last autumn, which did help me relax, but has not lessened my pain. It taught me to keep moving through the pain, and that was valuable because the pain increases. In addition to my knee and jaw, my back has joined in. Nearly all the time. I cannot lie down for any reasonable length of time. I've found myself considering the purchase of a recliner, which I hate, because it might hurt less than my bed, which is adjustable. I'm grateful for insomnia because it means I don't wake up in more pain than I laid down with.

January was the last time I wasn't in pain every single day, and I suspect that was because January had no weather fronts to speak of.

Have I exhausted every medical recourse? No. I haven't even sought an official diagnosis of arthritis because I don't know where to start or how much money I want to spend to get one. Do I take meds every day? No. Some days I'm willing to power through because the pain is only a 3 or 4, and I don't want to ruin my liver or become victim to the law of diminishing returns over that. Some days, I have to take drugs to keep the pain at a 3 or 4.

I find myself wondering if OxyRub or OmegaXcel really work like the infomercials say, or whether there'll be a lawyer commercial in 5 years telling me to call for the payout because of some horrific side-effect the FDA didn't know about. Then I wonder if the side-effect is worth it for 5 years of no pain. I wonder if my insomnia is really night pain I've almost gotten used to.

Have I become a chronic pain sufferer? I guess I have. Grandma Turtle lived the last decade of her life with debilitating rheumatoid arthritis, and never once did I hear her complain or snap at anyone. I hope I can live up to her example.

Mom heard about a stem cell pain treatment center in Manhattan, and I've requested an application for consideration. I have plenty of fat cells for them to harvest. We'll see how it goes.

That's all I have to say about that. For now. For all of you who hurt, too, I'm sorry. I'm praying for us.

Push button. Receive bacon.

Vertigo

Every once in a blue moon, I suffer from vertigo. I think of it as "motion sickness I can't stop." I'd have to check Quicken to remember the last time I had it because I went to the doctor. He couldn't help me. It went away eventually, but it was a long, miserable month of wishing for death.

This is my fourth day of vertigo. It is improving because the attacks are mostly limited to the few seconds after I sit up. If I can remain vertical, the nausea subsides and I can slowly, carefully, uprightly move on with my day. By evening, I'm mostly normal. Until I lie down.

If I remember correctly, last time I changed my diet to mostly rice and ground turkey to help with the nausea. I've already started that.

My back is killing me. If I can't bend, I can't stretch, and the turtle shell is screaming. This entire situation is somewhat intolerable.

TT: Within the last couple of years, I have finally realized "you can't survive everything." It was a sobering thought, and it surfaces more often than not nowadays.

Once upon a time, my allergist told me that sinus runoff causes nausea, but the best way to deal with it is to get up and get moving. The nausea will subside. He was right, and I've spent most of my adult life out of bed because of that advice.

But I can't just feel urpy and not try to fix it, so in these hours since Sunday when I'm trying not to move and staring at the ceiling, I consider my options. I'm taking Claritin during the day and Benedryl at night to dry up the brain pan. I'm avoiding wheat like ebola.

And I'm going to clean the basement with hydrogen peroxide, vinegar and baking soda (not all in the same bottle). I have fifteen year old wooden pallets down there that have been flooded every Spring, so it's a good bet the Black Death is growing under them despite the dehumidifier and fans. Mold is my only real allergy (although it's plenty, let me tell ya), and it may be seeping up through the vents at night to kill me.

Besides, the floor is concrete. If I start puking, it'll be easy to clean.

Push button. Receive bacon.

The Wonder of Vitamin D

I'm a sunshine girl. That's why God put me in Kansas. I don't care if the sun is "up there somewhere" behind a mile of clouds. If I don't see it, it may as well not exist.

Three years ago I learned about vitamin D - the sunshine vitamin -, but the lesson didn't stick because 2 years ago I forgot about it and turned into one of the non-Reavers by January. You know, the ones who stopped. I scared a few co-workers and one boss before Mom reminded me about vitamin D again.

That's what life with no sun does to the Turtle. It qualifies as "depression" if you use the dictionary meaning of being squashed or flattened, in this case by never-ending cloud cover. It doesn't qualify for the mental health definition because, while I quickly pass through irritable and weepy, I always land at an emotional dead zone of zero energy. I'm not actively suicidal, but I'm also not actively alive. Life without sun is pointless.

TT: There is a DSM-IV diagnosis for such a state, but the DSM books are coding manuals for how to bill insurance while treating a client, so I don't take them seriously most of the time. I don't take much seriously anymore.

Vitamin D doesn't cause euphoria. It doesn't replace the sun, or make me want to see it less. It does allow me to continue living. I get up and move around when I take it. That's a miracle.

The recommended dose is 5000 IUs a day. It is possible to overdose and cause liver damage, but you really have to try. I started in October, and I haven't lost the will to live yet, even through that seven day ice/rain storm at Thanksgiving.

Kansas winters have been gloomy and snowy in the past years. I believe this is a cyclical occurrence, not global climate change, because I remember winters of my childhood being gloomy and snowy, but not winters of my twenties and thirties. What goes around comes around. Of course, I'm also willing to believe it is the birth pains of a world nearing the end, and that works, too. I'm tired of living in a Cursed world, as tired as Rand when drawing on a tainted Source (Wheel of Time reference there).

Good thing I have that vitamin D.

Push button. Receive bacon.

Money Musings III

This year has seen a noticeable uptick in my pain levels. I think it was two Augusts ago that my neck pain reached proportions that made me willing to try physical therapy. Expensive physical therapy. That did nothing to alleviate the pain. I was told I am too rigid and should learn to relax (my paraphrase of more tactful, technical jargon).

Thanks. I'll get right on that after I pay you out of pocket.

I learned at my last splint check I have worn that mouthpiece for six years - the first four relatively pain free, the last two, not so much. I was warned I might get another one to two years more years of wear until I need to shell out $650 for another one, coincidentally about the same amount I paid for the non-helpful therapy.

Well, that crown I am one week away from getting and paying for? Is on an upper tooth, and my mouthpiece conforms to my upper teeth. Meaning, my mouthpiece doesn't fit anymore, and I haven't worn it in 13 days. My "one to two more years of wear" just vanished. I'm going to call and ask if there's a chance this mouthpiece can be salvaged, but I'm guessing the answer will be "no." I could be wrong.

I am surprised I haven't yet awakened in the night from the pain of biting too hard on my temporary crown. Maybe my back pain is preventing me from sleeping that deeply. However, as the days creep by, my left jaw and neck pain are increasing. Is this because I'm wearing a temporary crown, because I'm not wearing my mouthpiece, or because I'm stressed out with all the money my body is costing me? I don't know. The jaw pain has always been on the left. Maybe it's from carrying my purse.

I do know my mouthpiece seemed to decrease in efficacy the longer I wore it, and the cost to tweak it increases every two years. I know I have more fillings in my upper teeth that may need crowns in the next six years, or even more expensive root canals. and it will only take one to make my equally expensive mouthpiece utterly useless.

So, do I buy a new mouthpiece for $650, and hope for the best, even though I'm not sure it will work anymore? Or do I go without and let my teeth just grind against each other until none of them are left?

Because "relaxing" isn't going to happen. Turtles are rigid, from base of neck to base of tail, and that ain't never going to change. Coincidentally, that's exactly where the pain originates. Lot of coincidences in this story.

Push button. Receive bacon.

Classical Stretch Continues

If my math is right - and let's face it, that's a 50/20 chance - this is my seventh week of working out with Miranda every workday and most weekends. I've even had a couple days when I wasn't going to get up but I did anyway because I didn't want to risk breaking the habit.

With the change in weather, morning workouts are getting a bit chilly. Also, I prefer "lengthening" workouts to "strengthening" first thing, so I bought season 10 on DVD. Now I control the vertical and the horizontal, and am not confined to whatever PBS is airing.

After 7 weeks, I am noticing a change. My limbs - including my toes, of all things - are skinnier. My potbelly is shrinking. Charlie horse and foot spasm incidents are way down. My shoulder-rounding is reversing, which has been the best benefit so far. I still have back pain attacks, two of them more severe than I've ever had, and I haven't yet found the magic formula for complete neck pain relief, but overall, I'm more fit and flexible than I have been in years. Every week, I keep up with Miranda a little better than the week before. She remains upbeat and non-judgmental.

In short, I'm glad I found her, and I'm glad I'm sticking with her.

Applaud the jellyfish.

Classical Stretch

I'm turning 44 this month. In my family, that means I have more than half my life ahead of me, barring accident or apocalypse. This is the first year I've started wishing that isn't true.

I may have had aches before, but this is the year I've noticed. I went to physical therapy for the first time for neck pain (didn't help). I've been using oils, back and body aspirin, NSAIDs (not all at the same time), and glucosamine chondroitin. Hasn't helped. I wake up in the middle of the night with back pain, if I'm lucky, because not waking up then means I wake up with worse pain when the alarm goes off.

Many of my Friends suffer chronic pain. I'm not saying I hurt like they hurt, but I don't like hurting at all, so a 3 - 4 on the pain scale is way more than I want to experience in a normal day. Especially when I haven't done anything to deserve it aside from folding laundry (the latest cause of my latest back spasm).

Working in The Swamp helps, but that is a one to two season activity at most in Kansas. Winter and Summer just don't lend themselves to Swamp activities on a daily basis. I used to do yoga, and I've considered Tai Chi, but I have reservations about meditation practices of false religions, even if they might help my back. The mind leads the body, but the body leads the mind, too. Paul the apostle's words in Romans about eating meat sacrificed to idols being meaningless when you give it no meaning is one thing, yet I notice that was one of only two practices forbidden by the early Church for both Jewish and Greek converts. Is my faith really greater than Peter's?

Shuffling around the house about a month ago, lamenting the state of my back yet again, I accidentally turned on PBS (a channel I strenuously avoid nowadays). I caught the tail end of a Miranda Esmonde-White Classical Stretch routine. Zero impact cardio - fabulous for my rickety knees and traitorous hips. Lots of stretching - like yoga without the religion. She emphasizes relaxation, something I've had several highly paid professionals confirm is an issue of mine.

I found two reasonably priced used DVDs for core strengthening and back pain relief on Amazon, and set my alarm for 4:45 so I could be up and ready when her PBS program comes on at 5 AM. I've been working out with her for 7 mornings now, and twice this weekend when the DVDs arrived, and it has helped. My posture is better, the pain is less when I wake up, and I feel more relaxed.

Once again, I run the risk of being the alcoholic who knows everything after one meeting (or, in this case, 7), but this may the exercise habit I've been looking for. I'll let you know in a few months.

Applaud the jellyfish.

Maintain, Don't Gain

My insurance plan offers a substantial reduction in premiums if I "earn" points the previous year through health "challenges." I have no problem with employers or insurance companies offering incentives to encourage healthy lifestyles, thus reducing the need for preventable health-related expenses and keeping overall health care costs down for every customer. Bribes work. Even Proverbs agrees with that (Prov 17:8). Earning these points has never been an issue for me because, by their definitions, I'm a healthy person.

The point requirements were changed this year (as is their right). I have to do a little more to qualify than usual. In theory, this is not a problem because, again, I'm a healthy person. However, I'm also a person who doesn't like anyone "in my business," including my health insurance company. I resent checking in with my daily healthy choices.

Being a mature adult who wants that discounted premium, I am adapting and participating in one of their challenges to get the extra points I need. It was a personal goal I made months ago when I got my pants altered after losing all the weight during the spring, so it isn't out of my way to participate in the "Maintain, Don't Gain" during the holidays. I get daily points for each of the following:

• Exercising 30 minutes or more 
• Eating a healthy breakfast
• Eating a healthy lunch
• Limiting treat foods to 1 serving or less
• Limiting alcoholic or sugary beverages to 1 serving or less

Except for the exercise (unless it's Swamp Season), I generally do all this anyway, but having to tell them I do all this is galling. I fear that accepting the reporting requirements will train me to accept worse down the road. At what point does voluntary involvement become indentured servitude?

I'm thinking about it way too much, you say. You think about it for a while, and tell me if I'm wrong. This is the "freedom above all" leaning of my conservative mind, the part I categorize as "Libertarian" because it's inclined to be contrary in the name of freedom, and prefer stubborn resistance to reasonable cooperation because cooperation leads to dependence and that must be avoided at all costs.

Anyway, I'm watching what I eat and using that 30 minutes of exercise to burn off my irritation at having to report it, and, I expect, I'll lose weight over the next 6 weeks. Which will irritate me, too, because that's not the goal. Welcome to my OCD hell.

Keep the faith.

Doctor, Doctor, Leave Me Alone

Yesterday, a FB friend asked for testimonies concerning holistic medicine.

My doctor is an advocate and practitioner of healthy lifestyle choices as both preventive and curative, which matches my philosophy if not my habits. I don't know if that makes him holistic or not, but it means I will go see him if I'm on the brink of death because I don't think he'll push me over. OK, maybe 24 hours after the brink of death. I mean, I might get better on my own. Why not? I got sick on my own. No point rushing it.

I don't trust doctors in general. I consider the majority of them to be pill-pushing shills of the drug companies, much like the FDA. How else can you explain 60 second commercials for new pills where 40 seconds are warnings about all the horrible things the pills can do to your major organs, immune systems and anyone "who has been to certain regions where certain fungal infections are common?" What on earth does that even mean? These commercials are then followed by the ambulance chasing lawyer commercials asking if "you or a loved one have suffered" any of the list of symptoms, including death, while taking any of these medications because "you may be entitled to a large cash settlement" so contact them right away.

Yes, I watch too much cable TV.

I don't think doctors mean to be pill-pushing shills. It seems to be a matter of training. "You're already 200 lbs overweight, pre-diabetic and don't listen to me anyway, so here's a pill covered by insurance that masks most of your symptoms. Let's see if that helps. Of course, your liver might stop working and you could go blind, but at least you can keep eating pork ribs." So we take Tums instead of avoiding the BBQ with the fiery peppers in it. Maybe your body doesn't like fiery peppers. Maybe that acid reflux is an honest reaction to a stupid action and if you stop the stupid action, the symptoms will stop.

Obviously, this isn't every doctor or every patient. I'm using sarcasm because I'm feeling better.

This vertigo thing has me thinking I do need to see a specialist. I should make sure it's the congestion holdover from a cold that I think it is and not a tumor or alien implant or brain-eating pre-zombie virus I might hope for. My current method of slow-and-steady treatment producing slow-and-steady improvement seems to confirm it's congestion. I'm on day two of no morning wobbliness or nausea. That means it took six days to feel improvement on a condition that probably took six days to reach its apex of discomfort. I'm OK with those numbers.

I am blessed to have a relatively healthy life so far. If family history is an indicator, breast and colon cancer may be in my future, as well as hip and knee replacements, but I'm doing what I can to prevent those. TV has convinced me a major step is to avoid taking or using anything approved by the FDA in the last fifteen years.

For those of my friends currently experiencing serious health issues, I am truly sorry and I am praying for relief for you and wisdom for your doctors. On the one hand, we live in an age where actual cures exist. On the other hand, finding them may be as deadly as the disease.

Happy Wednesday, dear readers. Thank God for the health you have and pray for someone who suffers more than you do.

Vertigo Continues

My thanks to those of my readers who now recognize my whiny-day rants as little more than over-reaction to sleep deprivation (either that or you're all so busy having real lives you barely noticed me - good on you!). Those self-pitying bouts rarely last more than 24 hours.

The sleep deprivation continues, however. The antihistamine is helping, but I won't take it at night anymore. I don't know exactly when my eyes opened last night, but I'm guessing 2 or 3 AM when the time-released meds time-released. I don't know for sure because once again I couldn't turn my head or body without turning the world upside down. Getting very tired of that. So there I lay for hours, motionless, unable to sleep or get comfortable, waiting for something to happen. Preferably an asteroid, but, you know, I'm flexible.

When the alarm went off at 5, I sat up carefully like yesterday and thought I did a good job - until the cold sweat kicked in. No idea where that came from but I sat completely still for about 5 minutes while sweat poured out of me and soaked everything. I managed to get a trashcan in place because what usually follows sweating is puking but that didn't happen. My temp was normal: 97.4 (that's normal for me).

A quick check of webMD says it could have been anemia, low blood pressure, possible mini stroke or motion sickness.

I'll choose motion sickness for $500, Alex.

I don't remember a sickness where I felt worse lying down than standing up, but I'm getting mighty tired of that, too, in every sense of the word. Tonight I'll go back to the Benedryl and motion sickness medicine combo that worked a few days ago. The Turtle needs sleep.

I've avoided wheat like the plague, and I'm eating pretty much rice and green vegetables trying to get rid of the mucus in my head. I am better during the day. It's night that has me flummoxed. Stupid night.

Happy Friday, dear readers. Keep your heads up and your noses clear.

Vertigo and Self-Medicating

Woke up with vertigo yesterday - severe enough I fell over instead of getting out of bed. This isn't unprecedented. With my history of motion sickness and allergies, every so often the head plumbing gets clogged and the balance gets wonky.

Haven't fallen over before, but I'm getting older, so why not? Of course, lying there until I starve isn't an option. For one thing, those dogs won't let themselves out. By the third attempt I was on my feet and not tossing cookies, so I downed a motion sickness pill to at least prevent the puking and made plans to swing by the pharmacy on the way to work.

Last time this happened, the doc prescribed an antihistamine. Once I halved it so I didn't drop unconscious half an hour after swallowing the pill, I was on the road to recovery. That was years ago.

This time I went with a non-prescription antihistamine, although it was still behind the counter and I had to show my photo ID and sign away my firstborn (if I ever have one) to get it. Sorry, future child of mine, mommy needs to walk upright. I chose the 12 hour non-drowsy because I want to be drowsy at some point during a 24-hour cycle. Mine tends to come at the 3 PM long, dark teatime of the soul, but I continually hope for that 9 PM to 4 AM slot.

This left 12 hours when I wasn't covered by the antihistamine. What to do? Take a motion sickness pill to attack the symptoms, or take a decongestant to attack the problem? Yes. I took both, and lived to blog the tale.

This morning I only fell over a little. Thank You, Jesus. Motion sickness is bad enough when you caused it by sitting in a rocking chair. Experiencing it while sitting still is beyond annoying.

Happy Hump Day, dear readers. Keep those kleenex handy.