Chronic Pain – Page 32

Pain and fever

October 15, 2006 by Tricia

Well, it’s happening again. I’ve had an awful week of pain. Maybe the contrast used for my MRI hyped things up a notch, I don’t know, but ever since I had my MRI my abdominal pains have increased.

Last night as my husband and started preparing dinner I stood up and had the worst pain in my left side. It was almost like the kind of pain you get when you’ve been running- a stitch in your side, but it didn’t ease off for quite a while, in fact it increased in intensity for about five minutes before it finally began to ease off. At that point I didn’t know if I could eat the dinner we were preparing.

Today is better than yesterday- so far. I haven’t eaten much though so that could change quickly.

I would love it if there was some magic potion that I could take that would cure me immediately. I hate this.

Itchy and Scratchy

September 4, 2006 by Tricia

Have you ever watched a drunk person when they are trying to stand still? They can’t can they? Their body starts to wobble from side to side or front to back. They think they’re standing still, but they rarely can.

That’s sort of what I’m like right now. I’m wobbling as I sit here typing. I think I am anyway, it sure feels like it. I definitely stagger when I walk.

If someone’s making a bobble head doll in my image now would be the time to observe and get the moves right ’cause my head is a bobbin’.

It’s 8:30 in the morning. I haven’t gone to bed yet. It’s not for lack of being tired or not wanting to go to bed. I want to sleep, man do I want to sleep. I’ve pretty much been up since I awoke on Friday morning. Ok, I’ve slept a bit. 2 hours Saturday night, and uh, oh – that’s it. That’s not good is it?

So now you’re probably wondering why I haven’t slept. Do I have insomnia? Nope. Have I tried to sleep? Yep.

It’s my pain meds.

None of my prescriptions have changed. The newest pain medication that I’m on was given to me sometime in early June I think. So nothings new, but suddenly I’m reacting to them- badly.

The pain medications are all opioids – derivatives of morphine. I don’t take many of them, in fact I take less than what the doctor has prescribed. My pain doctor is aware of this. She knows I need the medication, but she also knows that I can’t take the total dosage that she’s prescribed. For example, one of the medications orders are to take two tablets every four hours when needed. Well, I can’t take two of them or I’ll become a total zombie, AND I’ll get so nauseated that I’ll throw up.

Same with one of the other meds that’s even stronger. That one’s directions are to take one pill every 4 to 6 hours when needed. I can only take half a pill. I’ve only taken a whole pill when the pain was so severe that I didn’t plan on moving around, thinking or doing anything. If I take a whole pill I get the shakes, and I throw up if I move around.

I usually take about three of the first medication that I mentioned each day. Mostly in the evenings and very early morning hours. The second pill I have perhaps only once every three or four days, and only half of one at that.

There is a third pain medication that I take. This one is a long acting opioid. It’s a slow release pain medication that lasts for 12 hours. I’m sure some of you can guess what it is but I really don’t want to state specifically what meds I’m taking. That pill doesn’t hit me quite as hard because it only releases a little bit of the pain medication at a time over the 12 hour period. I’m supposed to take one of those every night at bedtime specifically so that the pain will be lowered enough that I can get to sleep. I don’t take that pill every night – even though I’m supposed to, and again my doctor is aware of this. I do take it about 5 times a week though, and it has been helping to lower my pain levels at night. That’s the one that I started most recently.

All of these opioid medications have side effects – the nausea, dizziness, light headedness and sleepiness that I experience when I take these meds are quite normal side effects. Itching is a less common side effect, but unless it’s accompanied by hives and swelling it can be considered a normal side effect of opioid analgesics as well.

I started seeing the pain doctor and began receiving prescriptions for pain medication on a regular basis this past January. This has been the only time I’ve ever been prescribed pain medications regularly since my Crohn’s began in 1992. I think I only got pain meds twice since 1992 – for other problems and I saved them to use when my Crohns pain was really bad. I don’t want to have to stop taking them as they are the only thing that takes the edge off of the constant pain that I’ve been in for the last two + years.

Unfortunately I’m afraid that I might have to stop taking them, and very soon. I’ve started to have a bad side effect, and that’s why I can’t sleep.

As I said earlier it’s common for all these meds to cause some itchiness occasionally, and I’ve experienced some itching from time to time, but not every time I take a pill. Just now and then. I’ll have an itchy leg, or itchy scalp for a half hour or so and then it will go away.

On Friday evening my husband and I decided to watch a DVD movie. I had taken one of my pain pills earlier and I think I took one near the beginning of the movie. I was lying down trying to relax as I watched the movie and sometime, perhaps halfway through the movie, I fell asleep. We were watching the movie late in the evening- perhaps starting at 11 p.m, so I think I fell asleep around midnight or a bit later. I awoke at 1:30 with bad abdominal pain. I took my long acting pain pill at that time and then I went over to my computer and started puttering around.

I was in a lot of pain and there was no way I could have slept. I don’t think the pain started to calm down until about 6 a.m. or so. Around that time I started to get a bit itchy. Ok, that’s normal enough. I still wasn’t tired enough to sleep after all the pain I’d been through all night and I didn’t end up going upstairs to the bedroom until 8:30 in the morning or so. I tried to read a novel. The itching was starting to drive me a bit nuts, I think every part of my body was itching. I’d rub or scratch a bit and it would calm down and my eyes would get heavy and my novel would snap closed. Then I’d wake up a and try to read some more, and I’d itch some more.

By 11 a.m. I knew it was a losing battle. I was going insane with the itching. I went downstairs and found my husband in the kitchen. He’d gotten up earlier. He had no clue that I was in so much distress until he saw me walking into the room swiping at my head, and jiggling my arms and legs to try to stop the itching.

I desperately said to him “Get the Benadryl!” He scrambled to the cupboard to try to find the antihistamine medication that would help stop the itching. I didn’t have any hives so I didn’t think it was an allergic reaction, but I was pretty sure the Benadryl would help.

It did help. Within a half hour or so the itching had calmed. It didn’t totally stop, but it calmed down. Somehow I made it through the rest of the day and well into the early hours of Sunday morning without getting tired enough to fall asleep.

I decided on Saturday evening that I wouldn’t take the long acting pain medication in case that was the one that set off the itching. I stuck with the very first pain medication that I described for you- the one that I can take two pills every four hours (but don’t ). I tried to go to bed at about 4 a.m. on Sunday morning but the itching was happening again.

I have a problem here. When I don’t get much sleep the pain is worse. So I tried taking some meds again last night. Again the itching. Crazy crazy itching, and here I sit still awake.

If I don’t take the pain meds I won’t bring my pain levels down enough so that I can fall asleep. If I do take the pain meds it seems that I’m going to suffer with horrible itching. I’m hesitant to take the antihistamine (Benadryl) too often because opioids increase the effect of the antihistamine and I believe vis-versa.

What a predicament eh?

It’s Labour Day Monday here so I can’t call my doctor. I will be calling her tomorrow morning though as I need to figure out how to get around this problem. I’m very afraid that she’ll tell me to stop taking my pain meds, and since I’m on some of the strongest meds that you can take – and they only take the edge off my pain (rather than totally take it away) – I’ll probably suffer quite a bit if I have to stop them, and there won’t be much else that they can give me that will be unlikely to cause the same side effects that I’ve been having.

Send some good thoughts or prayers my way that the itching stops?

I’m going to go and try to go to sleep now. If you don’t hear from me for a while I’m sleeping. Shhhhhhhhhhhhh

Scratch, scratch … grrrr SCRATCH, scratch, scratch … nod, bobble, wobble

Oh yeah, it’s my birthday on Wednesday. I sure hope that I feel better by then!

One big city to another

August 29, 2006 by Tricia

I’m back!

1127.28 miles (1 814.18 Kilometers), or in understandable terms – about 22 hours of driving from Toronto to Chicago and back again, and I sure glad I’m home.

We had a fantastic time. Chicago is a beautiful city, I really was blown away by all the fantastic looking buildings and beautiful sights. Maybe that’s what they really mean by “Windy City”? It’s not the wind that blows you away it’s the beauty.

The Bruce Cockburn concert was great too. I’m not a huge fan but I do appreciate seeing such a talented musician. Chris, my husband, was glued to the edge of his seat watching Bruce’s every move on the 6 different guitars that he played. Chris was trying to figure out if he plays Bruce’s music the same way, and except for a few chords here and there, yes he does.

The two people who came on our trip with us weren’t the greatest choice to have brought along. The one guy was someone that Chris works with and he’s supposed to be a musician too, but I think he’s more interested in producing than performing these days. Needless to say he didn’t bring any instruments. He brought along a girl that we hadn’t met before … a different person than who he’d told us he was bringing. We learned in the car that the girl was only 19 years old. That meant no going out to the Blues and Jazz clubs ’cause she wouldn’t be able to get in. Wish we’d known that before we started out.

I guess Chris and I must have “Mr. and Mrs. Doormat” stamped on our foreheads lately, because these two people really stiffed us on the cost of the trip. They only put in $40 for gas (Total cost of gas was close to $200), didn’t pay for the concert tickets, and didn’t really hang out with us in Chris’ brothers home or when we went downtown sight seeing. Every time we asked them for money they kept saying oh we have to go to the ATM, oh we’ll stop at an ATM on the way home and pay you, Oh we don’t have any money in our bank accounts- sorry. GEEEEEEEZZZZZZ

Anyway, I wasn’t going to let them ruin my trip. I had a great time.

We arrived at about 9:30 pm Chicago time (10:30 pm Toronto time) and a friend of Chris’ brother showed up and took us to his office to show us around. Not really what I wanted to do right after driving for 12 hours (we hit a lot of construction on the way so the trip was longer). He’s an architect and his whole office building was a beautifully restored old house. I wish I took pictures of that. It was worth the visit, and it was a short outing.

Chris’ brother cooked us up a fantastic meal of steak and grilled veggies when we got back. Mmmm that steak was so good. Then we all went outside onto the deck and Chris pulled out his guitar and entertained us for a few hours. He was so tired after doing a good portion of the driving, plus he was trying to match his brother drink for drink – which is an impossible task, so his playing stayed good, but the singing faltered after a while … he could only stumble through the songs if he had to sing along, but he did fine when we all sang. I eventually herded him towards the bedroom and we got some much needed sleep.

We didn’t get up all that early on Saturday – maybe 10:30, and by the time everyone had had the wonderful breakfast that they made for us (two types of sausages, pancakes and lots of fruit) and we all got ready to go it was getting close to 1 pm.

We drove downtown, driving by the lake shore as we went. Their beach area reminded me very much of Toronto’s beach area. We spent the afternoon walking around the downtown core. Well, Chris and I and his brother did. The two kids we brought along went shopping.

Millenium park is beautiful. What Chris’ brother was calling the Bean, I’ve since found out is called the Cloud Gate. It’s a huge metallic elliptical object that reflects everything around it. It’s quite the experience to walk up to and view yourself and the crowds surrounding you on the face of the sculpture. When you walk under it everything gets distorted and the shiny mirror like sides almost disappear to the point that you can easily walk into the walls. Which I did of course, klutz that I am! I took a lot of pictures of this sculpture and I’ll put some up over the next few days. We must have spent an hour and a half to two hours just in that park alone.

When we left the park we headed over the House of Blues. Unfortunately the bar was closed for a private party. The inside of the building was amazing to look at though, as was the outside. As I said Chicago has some wonderful architecture and you could go there and just walk around looking at all the fantastic building shapes and art work for hours. Which I guess, is pretty much what we did.

We ended up in the Harry Carey bar for a few drinks and some appetizers. We saw the baseball that was blown up last year. It’s just shreds. I love the outside of the bar, it’s really interesting looking. Pictures coming soon. Then we met up with the people that came with us on our trip and frantically drove around trying to find North Lincoln where the concert was taking place in the Old School house. We made it just on time and had a great time watching Bruce Cockburn entertain us for 3 hours or so.

After the concert Chris’ brother wanted to take us for some Chicago Deep dish pizza at a restaurant near his house- in the burbs. Unfortunately when we got there the restaurant was closed and we ended up going to a TGI Fridays. The food was NOT good there, but the bartender was entertaining. Did you know that if you fill up a beer glass or mug with draft, making sure it’s got a good head of foam that reaches the top of the glass, that if you put a napkin over it (to create a seal), you can then throw the glass about ten feet? I didn’t know that, but I saw it three times. It works.

When we told the bartender we were from Canada and asked him if he’d ever visited he said “no, it’s too cold up there I think”. LOL Hate to tell you buddy but it’s about the same temperature in Toronto as it is in Chicago and we’re in the same gardening zones (Toronto’s might be higher actually, hard to find accurate info). I always find it funny when people just seem to automatically assume that Canada is cold. Yeah, our winters are, but winter in most of the US states are fairly cool too.

After our restaurant adventure we went back to Chris’ brothers home. The kids we brought disappeared without a word and the rest of us went outside for more music al la Chris.

Sunday was a bit weird. When I got up Chris’ brother and his wife were leaving to go visit their daughter at University. They hadn’t mentioned that they would be doing that so we had a fast good-bye, then off they went. In the meantime one of Chris brothers friends had come over for a visit and he sat with us for a while talking. We’d met him before as Chris brother had brought him to the Toronto area for visits a few times. The friend is also a Canadian. Chris’ brother seems to know all of the Canadians in the area.

Leaving took a long time as people kept stopping by. Chris’ brothers father in law came to pick up one of my nephews for Hockey practice. I love the way they say Hockey, it’s more like Hawckey, and cops are caps etc. Interesting accent Chicago.

Our trip back only took about 10 hours. We skipped some construction and a few tolls by taking a slightly different route. We didn’t get home until close to 2 a.m. Monday morning.

I’ve got to work on my photos and put some up for my visitors to see. I’m very happy with most of them and I hope that you’ll enjoy them when I start sharing them with you.

I titled this post “One big city to another” because I was traveling from the fifth largest city in North America – Toronto – to the fourth largest city in North America- Chicago. The city of Chicago only has us beat population wise by about three hundred thousand people. Their urban area has perhaps 5 million more people than ours does though, but they don’t count that when they count populations for cities. Now I need to visit Los Angeles (3rd largest), New York (2nd largest) and Mexico city (1st) and I’ll be able to say that I’ve visited the five largest cities in N.A..

I didn’t see or do as much as I would have liked to have during my visit. Our trip was too short and was mostly travel back and forth. The next time I visit Chicago I’ll have to go for a week or more so that I can really come back saying that I’ve got a good sense of the city.

Funny thing, when we first got to Chris’ brothers home in the suburbs of Chicago the girl that came along with us turned to me and asked if I thought I could live there. I looked at her a little puzzled and said “Well, we just got here, all I’ve seen is the highway and this little suburb, so I have no idea if I’d like living here or not.” Now, after a day of walking around downtown and seeing some of the sites I think I could answer her question with a Yes, I think I could live here. It’s a big city, I like big cities because there’s so much to do. Yeah, I could live there.

Pain Pain go AWAY!

August 22, 2006 by Tricia

I feel like crap.

Fever, Chills, abdominal pain, bad, bad abdominal pain.

I’ve been feeling really off since the two Weddings a week and a half ago. I guess four long days of activities were just too much for me. However, on Tuesday I felt the worst that I’ve felt in a several months and I still feel that bad.

Have you ever had a pain so bad that you just wish that you could cut off the part that’s hurting? Say your leg, your knee, your wrist? Well, I’ve got a pain in my stomach right now that feels like a hand reaching just below my right ribs, as if it’s trying to rip and organ out. The pain in my lower right side feels like someones kicking me and stabbing me at the same time.

When the pain gets this bad I sometimes wish I could cut out the painful parts. Yeah, that would help for oh, about a minute, until I either bled to death or until the pain from the wounds set in. So, no, I wouldn’t do that, but I sometimes wish it were that easy to make it go away.

I have pain medication, and I’ve been taking it, but when the pain gets this bad it just doesn’t help. It doesn’t even knock me out so that I can try to sleep through it.

What really sucks about this is that I’m supposed to be going out of town on Friday for the weekend. We’re supposed to go to Chicago to see Bruce Cockburn play in a small venue on Saturday night. We’ve got some friends going with us so I guess if I end up not going Chris will be ok with the drive, but I wanna go. I’ve never been to Chicago. I know I won’t be there for long, but I want to see whatever I can see while I’m there.

I’ve also been meaning to write a number of posts for all of my blogs so that things will keep moving along here while I’m away (see positive thoughts – I’m writing as If I’m going right?). Unfortunately, I just haven’t felt up to writing.

I do have a nice series of photos on Breath of Life right now that I’ve set up to automatically post each day for the next two weeks. This weeks series is photos of Toronto’s Kensington Market. It’s a very interesting place to visit, and I managed to get some great shots while I was there the Saturday before last. I’d love it if you would check out the daily photos and let me know what you think of them.

I’ve also been busy over the last few days working on a new theme for Odd Planet and creating a new home for it too. Krome, formerly of Kromes Obsession, and now from Sugar Vamp and I’ll Dream, had offered to create a new WordPress site for me some time ago. I had been thinking of taking her up on her offer in order to create a collaborative site that I’d been discussing with a few interested parties, but over the weekend when I got it in my head to move Odd Planet, I decided to contact Krome and ask her to do a theme for Odd Planet. She said she would, but she wanted me to hunt for photos or pictures that I would want to use in the theme myself so that I’d be happy with the results.

Well, I went hunting for pictures to use in the theme and the next thing I knew I was designing Odd Planets new home myself. Now I’m in the process of moving all the posts from the original site to the new site. I hope to have it done before the weekend, as I’d like to be able to set up some posts to automatically post while I’m playing in Chicago. Playing – yeah right, that’s hard to believe with the way I’m feeling now. Anyway, if you’d like to check out what I’ve been up to visit Odd Planets new home and let me know what you think. The sidebar isn’t sitting right if you look at it in Internet Explorer, but it’s working for all the rest of the browsers.

I’m off to take another pain pill in the hopes that this one works. Wish me luck!

Up your nose with a rubber hose

July 24, 2006 by Tricia

Don’t they say that dentists are the most hated medical professionals? Well, I’m not a lover of seeing Dentists, but for me, Gastroenternologists are probably one of the most disliked medical professionals.

I wonder where they come up with some of their ideas for medical tests? I really think that if a G.I. doctor got bored with his or her profession they could easily get work as a torturer. In the last month I’ve had three major tests that could all qualify as forms of torture or new interrogation techniques. Tubes that are almost as thick as garden hoses shoved down my throat and where the sun don’t shine. That was back at the end of June, and then this past Friday I had yet another lovely test.

On Friday I had a CT Enteroclysis. That’s where the rubber hose up my nose comes in … Well, it wasn’t rubber, I guess it was plastic or Non-latex. Either way, it went up my nose and then down into my stomach and small bowel. Fun stuff I tell ya. But I’m not greedy with my fun, if anyone wants a turn getting tortured er having this much fun, I’d be happy to let you try it out.

The test wasn’t really that bad. They sprayed the inside of my nose and the back of my throat with xyolocaine first. Oh that burned! Being slightly numb helped but it kept wearing off quickly. Luckily they were nice and kept spraying the fire liquid that made my eyes water whenever I told then my nose or throat hurt. I couldn’t really feel the tube when it was in my stomach or small bowel, but I did occasionally get a strange pain in my chest and near my right collar bone which was probably referred pain.

The tube wouldn’t stay in place … they kept getting it into a certain part of my small bowel and it kept moving back up into my stomach when I’d turn on my back – at their request. It took half an hour of fiddling to get the tube to stay almost where it was supposed to be, but I had to lay on my right side while they filled my stomach and small bowel full of contrast to keep the tube in place.

Anyway, I won’t bore you will all the details, just know that I’m recovering from yet another strange test that my Dr.s decided to put me through. Hopefully this one will pinpoint exactly where the problem in my small bowel is.

Tomorrow morning I’m going to see the Occupational Health doctor at my workplace. He put me off work for 6 months back in February and now it’s time to see him again and decide if I’m well enough to work again or not. Given the way I feel and now my new knee problem I’d say that NO I’m not ready to go back but I have to wait and see what he says.

I certainly want to go back to work. I love my job working in the ER department. I think of all the jobs that I’ve had I like it best. Plus, my medical unemployment pay ran out near the beginning of July. I just found that out last Wednesday. So I’m broke, very very broke. I’ve applied for short term disability with my medical plan through work but it will probably take a number of weeks before I find out if I’m accepted.

Needless to say I haven’t been a very happy camper this past week. Between being tortured with yet another medical test, trying to recover my from my fall that caused fluid to build up on my right knee, and finding out I have no money coming in I’ve been very stressed. Plus, as I said earlier, I do want to get back to work. Not just for the income, but because I love my job, and well, if I were back at work that would have to mean that I’m feeling better wouldn’t it? And I so want to feel better. I do!

Oh, I saw my family doctor again last Thursday too. I saw her because my knee really needed to be looked at as it’s still very swollen and painful thanks to my fall two weeks ago, and I also needed her to fill out the papers for my medical insurance short term disability claim. She sent me for another x-ray, and I also got an Ultrasound done on my knee.

The fluid in my knee is apparently full of debris, which means that it might be blood or infection. Luckily it doesn’t seem like the fluid is actually in the joint. So, tomorrow, after I see the Occupational Health doctor I might limp up to Emerg. and have the fluid sucked out of my knee. I’ll let you know if that was as much fun as having a hose shoved up my nose.

Pain and fever

Itchy and Scratchy

One big city to another

Pain Pain go AWAY!

Up your nose with a rubber hose

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