Pain - medicine

Medicine.

I think I've tried them all...or at least it feels like it. Just in case I haven't I will list the medications I'm on or have been on in the past. This is not cheap. Talk about an expensive drug habit! I pulled my first half prescription expenses report....$1,965 out of my pocket so far in 6 months. That's $327 per month!! Just for my ragged ol ass...I am going to change that. Within 1 year I will be off at least 4...

So here we go:

Lyrica - for the nerve pain

Cymbalta - for general pain and depression

Here's a biggie - Dilaudid -for the nerve and general pain

Tizanadine - to release the muscle tightness

Mirapex - for Restless Legs Syndrome - calms the need to move

Ambien Cr - to sleep - ha what a joke. Doesn't work usually..Just makes me really tired the next day.

Voltaren gel - a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory cream usually used for severe arthritis

Lidoderm Patches - patches of anesthesia medicine to dull the pain on feet and leg

You know - I used to be a stud.. First team all-district 1-AAAA cornerback for the football team..Starting center fielder and pitcher forever in baseball - even through summers in college...and i used to Love to run..oh I miss that feeling of running through the canyons and woods in Los Alamos!

Anyway back to the meds...so that's mostly what I'm on for pain right now..I won't go into the diabetes etc drugs I have to take..Those I want to get off too!!


Drugs I've been prescribed in the past include:

Methadone - pain

Neuragel - cream of several anesthetics combined. used for nerve pain in feet

Gabapentin - nerve pain

Hyrdo-codone - pain

Oxy-codone - pain

blah blah blahh that's all I can remember right now...but isn't that enough?

Oh - I also had a spinal cord stimulator implanted in January 2008. It helps grab some of the pain signals to my brain and turns them into a nicer buzzing feeling...But with 50,000 some programs on the thing, and only so much time you can spend with the programmer each month...I think it is underutilized at this point..They need to give me the programs and usb attachment so I can play with it!! That's a to-do for me this year too.



So what do ya think? Should I be working? Should I be driving? It's really hit and miss. I could probably work some if I could get some kind of regular rest...although I'm not much of a part-timer..I would get wrapped up in opportunities and get frustrated when I couldn't concentrate enough to get a proposal right, or be responsive to a client. I can't do my job 2-3 days a week while on narcotic pain relievers etc....I have a really hard time focusing and lose my energy quickly..



I have not yet tried acupuncture for my peripheral nerve pain. I did some treatments about 12 years ago when I was having severe pain in my right arm...It helped some but I ended up having disc surgery - C4-5-6 to alleviate a disc pushing on the nerve going to my arm...Acupuncture is not generally covered by insurance unless performed under direct supervision of or by an MD...Those opportunities are expensive and few and far between...So I'm going to try one of the clinics the Houston Acupuncture College runs.. Only $35 a visit..It's the several times a week that get ya!
I have found an incredible medical massage therapist - Marvin Joiner. Again - gotta save the $$ for those visits cause we make progress, then I run low on cash and skip for a month...We end up having to start from scratch...

So that's the story on meds and therapies...I have done a lot of physical therapy as well - from soaking my feet in very hot, then very cold water, to picking up marbles with toes, to stretching and core strengthening. I do most of the exercises at home now - $30 per visit 3 times a week gets expensive!

So the big elephant in the room is asking - is your pain relieved?
And the answer is: Sometimes and to some level. It's never gone. It never gives me
a kitchen pass for the night. "Hey - go to the game with your friends" without any pain, or without recovery time the next day.. But I am at least for now "stable". I am functioning still somewhat. I'm not unconscious..just in a bit of a fog,,the senses dulled, the mind and muscles tired...fighting to be released and be free from all the meds and pain.

Thanks for listening.

Pain - Dead Feet

I have dead feet
Attached to the end of my legs.
Asleep
Unconscious
Hazy
I have dead feet
Buzzing
Electrified
High Voltage
I have dead feet
No longer there to stabilize me.
Critical
Severe
Distress
I have dead feet.

Thanks for listening.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Pain - lose the legs

Sometimes I want to lose my legs
below the knees.
I hope that takes the pain away from me.

How can it hurt so much?
It's just a little thing.Too much sugar in my blood.
Turns out it's quite a big thing as my nerves are now a dud.

I'm a shell of what I was.
No energy.
No focus.
No sleep.
No man.
Why do I bother to dream of the place I thought I'd be?
It's not a view that I shall ever c.

Thanks for Listening.

Pain - once a day

Once a day
Be happy
Get happy
Call happy
See happy
Smile
Once a day
Be free.

Thanks for listening.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Pain - OMG - Stop the whining!!

OMG
STOP THE WHINING!
Get your ass up out of that f'ng recliner and do your part!
You CAN get up. Pussy!
My little sister could kick your ass! Pussy!
Wimp.
F'ng waste.
The whining stops.
NOW.
Understood?
Understood?
NOW.
Thanks for listening.

Pain - Muscles

Pain - Muscles

Taught
Wretched
Short

Muscles out of control.
Controlled by a system
That's out of control.
No not the healthcare system!
My nervous system.

Hurting
Unreliable
Old

Exhausted, have I run a marathon?

My muscles outweigh a tank and move with that much effort.

"Relax" I shout.
"Hmm?" Says the driver.
"Relax my muscles" I shout again from the back seat of the very loud tank.
"Can't hear ya over all the noise" says the one in control.

The ride is long and bumpy.

Thanks for listening.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Pain - Disability Insurance

My girls and I would be on the streets if not for my disability insurance. Ok - that's not fair to my extended family and friends. Let me say that we would be without a lot, without our own address, our own rooms, our own closets, our own privacy. I'm thinking about insurance today because I allowed my Prudential Group Life Insurance through IBM (about 2/3 of the total I have) to lapse due to lack of payment. This was in no way intentional. It is indicative of why I can't work or be trusted any more to handle business affairs. Seems like it should be a simple thing doesn't it? Pay the bills....No excuses - eh? How friggin hard is that?????



Get your quote right to your client. Put the time in every day required to get the job done. Be the best or hit the road. ...The best can make it to work every day. The best pay their bills on time. The best deliver results, not just "effort". Mistakes might be made, but they are made from high activity, not due to a lack of effort. A lack of effort, or energy, cannot be tolerated. Or pay the price...I now go through the "determination of eligibility for insurance" process to try and get my girls' backstop back in place. Something so simple to do, so easily missed....in a fog...

This process will not be too painful, it's the end result I fear. There's a short form which must be completed first. Once Prudential receives that information, a second longer form might be required to determine my eligibility. I told them to go ahead and send me both. I'm way past the short forms...My health hasn't changed in the last 60 days...But I fear the Prudential Underwriters will find me no longer eligible..because I missed it.....



But on the positive side...I am receiving a generous amount of disability income. Who would ever think they would need long-term disability income insurance? It turns out I did. I've been in sales my entire life...whether hawking raffle tickets for little league, or selling a multi-million dollar computer system. Some sales jobs are all commission-based. To those of you that make a living there I sooo respect and honor you. In my case, I made about 1/2 my income from a base salary, and should make the second half in commissions. In 1996 a smart financial consultant from American Express showed me that if i got sick or hurt and couldn't work, I wouldn't be making those commissions that I relied on to meet the budget. So for $50 a month I added $1350 of disability insurance...a small investment that while not much of a commission payment, is now generating a house payment for me. On top of my personal investment in LTD insurance, IBM has a good long-term disability policy. They offered 50% of my base income with no cost to me. I luckily did the buy-up to 66 and 2/3 of my income for a small cost...DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR OPTIONS AND COVERAGES ARE FOR LONG-TERM DISABILITY INSURANCE? IF NOT, FIND OUT!!

So I receive my American Express Long-Term Disability Income Insurance, My IBM Company sponsored Long-term Disability Income Insurance, and finally I also receive Social Security Disability Income Insurance.



Check out your insurance coverages. If you find yourself applying for disability and need help getting organized please let me know. The package I prepared and submitted to IBM's met-life, my Ameriprise, and to Social Security is very well organized. I can share to give you a head-start...at a time when you are in a Tornado, yet trying to fill out paperwork that will determine your future address and privacy levels for years and years to come. Never has paperwork ever put such a fear in me - ok maybe this one Fortan progamming test ...after skiing one full weekend in Taos when I should have been studying... :-)

Disability Insurance - I'm a super-user.


Thanks for listening.

Pain - it's 3:00 A.M.

It's 3:00 A.M.

Tossing
Turning
Burning

No rest for the weary.
Could this be a preparation? Am I being tested?
Do I build an altar to my pain?

Random
Or brought upon
By me.
My actions, my inactions
My sins, my prayers?

Tossing
Turning
Burning

It's 3:00 A.M.

Thanks for listening.

Pain - A Body Prison

My inspiration tonight comes from KAMFBS and WS. I am inspired by my recent encounter with a long lost friend. I am inspired by my encounters with a friend not lost but also in a body prison.
Something about me:

I'm a person. I am constantly under attack from pain in my feet and legs.
I used to be a man. A working man. A healthy man.
Now I'm in a prison.
With walls made of skin and nerves.
With an electrical system gone haywire.
Never having met my accuser, judge or jury
I live my life in prison.
My family comes to visit me.
There's a clear wall between us
but we can see and hear each other.
A touch is there as well.
But there is a clear wall between us.

Thanks for listening.

Pain - relationships

I've read a few books and a maybe a couple of articles that are designed to assist care-givers and family of chronic pain patients. Good luck...Pain is tough on relationships. I heard feedback about that in the comments in my first blog. It gives us a good place to start in blog #2.
I start this discussion looking at my relationship with my kids. They are special - two teenage girls....with a Dad that can't work anymore. Can't work anymore, and in fact some days can barely get out of bed anymore..I remember thinking as a kid that when my Dad was in his mid-40's he was old compared to me...but looking back now, he was nowhere near as old as I am now in my mid-40's..How old do I appear to the girls because of my pain, my grumpiness, my lack of the energy that used to be there for a 7-game softball weekend? Now when we walk around the mall I use a cane. I take breaks and sit on the benches...My Dad in his 40's hiked the Grand Canyon with the boyscouts and me. I hike to the curb to get the mail, or from the car to the ball field to see a softball game. That must be tough on my girls...

Some days my girls get home from school or whatever and I'm taking a nap. A nap!!! If I could have anything restored, I think I would keep the pain if I could just get a good night's sleep. Of course if the pain was gone, i probably would get a good night's sleep. It is well documented that pain from peripheral neuropathy tends to be worse at night. Just like a cold I guess? Except instead of coughing and sneezing my feet are wrapped in electric-fence wire. No escape. It's always there but worse at night. The wire is wrapped around both feet just where the toes meet the feet...And then sometimes it feels like a foot has just been slammed in a car-door and broken into pieces..or my toes are on fire with gasoline, and my least favorite - fire ants all over...

I get up some mornings after almost no sleep to help send the girls off to school. I am supposed to use a CPAP machine to help with my snoring and breathing interruptions at night. At first it helped a lot with my energy through better sleep...but now I have a hard time using it. It's hard to get to sleep with an oxygen mask over your face under normal circumstances. It's about impossible to sleep with a mask when it takes a looong time to fall asleep. It almost always takes a long time for me now. I'm tired so I often avoid getting out of the house to see my sister, friends or parents. I guess we all get tired don't we? Does anyone else lack the energy they need to function? Everybody tends to burn the candle at both ends don't we? For me if I have a good day or two I tend to overdo it. My shrink and I discussed this..He said - "balance yourself out - try to recognize when you start to overdo it"...but that's easier said than done when I am always trying to squeeze 7 days worth of activities into the three or four days a week that I'm feeling good enough to be on the go...

Well that's a start for tonight. I love my family so much. I know that they can't really understand the pain...or empathize with the pain...but then again, maybe as this blog extends it will help them to better know me and my pain.
Thanks for listening!

Pain With a Personal Touch - blog #1

Hi: I know there are a lot of people in pain in the world. I am starting this blog as a discussion about pain from a personal point of view. I have a combination of ailments that recently caused me to go on long-term disability from my sales career of 25 years. Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy, Restless Legs Syndrome, Sleep Apnea and Type II Diabetes have caused me to take a major detour in my life-plans.

I will discuss items like the following:
The pains I feel, how I deal with them; what works, what doesn't; Doctors I've seen and liked, and some I've seen and didn't like, and what I still want to try. I will discuss the frustration of paperwork and filing for disability insurance and social security, the guilt, the need for more money, not being able to do the things I used to do, and how I get through the tough days.

I may be crazy, but this story and where I'm going to start it are true....About 10 years ago, before my first divorce, I was praying. I was praying to the lord to help me because I was losing my patience with my wife. She was in constant pain. She had been through chemo and radiation to combat and beat Ewings Sarcoma. After 21 surgeries to try and keep her leg and the brittle bone together, and delivering the first of our two beautiful baby girls, she had a hip disarticulation done at the National Cancer Institute in Washington D.C. The main nerves in her leg had been so abused during all the treatments that they finally created pain that could not be relieved. So the leg came off - but the nerve pain continued...even after several of the treatments that I am now going through(and will discuss in future blogs) for my Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy. She started adding alcohol and it seemed like they were over-doing the prescriptions...I couldn't take it anymore...

God What Should I DO??? A huge rush came over me like NEVER before in my life. He clearly said: "empathize with her pain"...I tried and tried but I couldn't really understand her anymore. I drifted away...8 years and two divorces later that changed. I was in terrible pain every day.
I was diagnosed fairly quickly as having Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy. I have been in chronic pain for the last 3 years.

In only 3 short years I've gone from a fairly healthy hard-working man, to a person no longer working, taking Dilaudid and Lyrica and Cymbalta for my pain. I had a spinal cord stimulator implanted just over a year ago...It all happened so fast...I can now empathize with her pain . It is difficult to believe, but I too now have chronic nerve pain. So here we begin. Thanks for listening!