More on Pain
After reading Funkiller's rending post here I decided to take a risk and share a bit about my physical pain. I've had so many intense emotional posts lately...I don't want my blog to become like that little hill where all the suicidal kids hung out in high school. Now that was a poor joke, but nevertheless.
I suffer from something called levator ani syndrome. You can read about it all over the web, though not much specific is really known. I've had it since college; it tends to get set off by sitting too long over a period of days or weeks, and once it acts up...oh man, without treatment, it can last months, even a couple of years or more. Then it will unwrap itself (the levator is a muscle, the muscle really, at the floor of the pelvis) and I'm left with just a little soreness, something I hardly notice. I take hot baths two or three times a week simply as a lifestyle, and I do pretty well with it. I wasn't actually diagnosed until 98, and then I found the only treatment that really works: valium.
Valium is a great muscle relaxant, but it works by changing the whole brain chemistry somehow. At least my brain chemistry feels changed. I haven't had an outbreak in two years, and that was minor; four years before that. Then...my colonoscopy. Ah, yes. A (possible) family history of colon cancer, I turn 40 and get screened...I was unconscious at the time but I imagine by something along the lights of a mag lite. The four D cell kind. Because my levator went into real spasm. I started valium, got some success (and stumbled around in a daze the last half of the semester) would stop the valium, wham it's back full force. Then on to my second 50 valium (I've never used more than 100 before per outbreak); same thing. I use it, it helps, I try to limit how much I take and wham.
I tried another drug called neurontin but that seemed to constipate me; I could have been wrong, but with levator spasm the last, the last, thing you want besides a colonoscopy or a hard wooden chair for ten hours is constipation so I quit taking it. Perhaps I should have told my doctor (they know less about it than me generally; it's rare, and not much good research gets done). Then I found this guy with a compounding pharmacy; he makes drugs on site. He told me guaifenesin is a powerful topical muscle relaxant in animals and he uses it successfully with humans too; you know, the stuff in Mucinex and over the counter cough syrup. Incidentally, I ended up at his pharmacy because my doctor was going to have me try another med., 0.2 percent nitroglycerine cream, only my pharmacy gave me 2 percent; the kind you use for angina. And you know where I put that, at ten times the recommended dose. Truthfully, it was a bit of a rush. Hmmm. Yeah.
Anyway, so I found this compounder guy and he made me something out of guaf and neurontin to apply topically (this is way, way, way, more than most of you want to know, but I have to talk about this with somebody!) and at first it seemed to help. So of course, I pull back on valium and the motrin, and then today, wham. Driving to campus to do a couple grade changes was hard; coming home, very hard. So I took another valium, I'll try some more of the cream, and I'll take a hot bath.
It all sounds funny, almost, but the pain is very real. At its worst, I can start to sweat. It's not there now, but it's pretty bad. Like a bad, burning toothache or like a wound that's tender. All from the spasms. Jeez.
The one thing I do know is that eventually it will pass, that muscle relaxants like valium are available, and that somehow I'll get through it without getting addicted to them like Favre.
Okay, enough. Compared to what Funkiller's wife is going through this is minor, in the sense of temporary, even if it lasts six months it has always passed before. How my heart goes out to Mrs. Funkiller. What I have is considered a kind of myalgia I believe, but it's limited to one muscle area. Whatever.
Valium sucks by the way. In terms of mental and emotional impact. To get addicted to that my life would have to be pretty crappy; then again, maybe it's brain chemistry that makes some succeptible. I've always stopped before easily enough. I'm not really worried about that, but I hate walking around in either: effing pain intensely aggravated by any kind of sitting or lying on my back or small pain and lots of brain haze. I'll probably talk to the compounding pharmacy guy again; he really was knowledgeable and helpful. Maybe we can tweak my blend somehow. Or throw in some freaking benzocaine!
Oh man. It's been a hard afternoon. Pain changes my personality, my mood, everything. To top all off, I think weightlifting has prolonged it. I don't know that, but it's a good guess, so I'm laying off the steel until the spasms have passed. And that blows, because it's a great mood elevator and I'm sure to gain fat just laying around, already have. Oh well. At least what I have isn't dangerous in any way. And the valium I took thirty minutes ago should begin to touch the pain soon enough. And I'm off to the hot bath.
Be well all. Prayers appreciated, but pray for Mrs. Funkiller first, kay?
t
I suffer from something called levator ani syndrome. You can read about it all over the web, though not much specific is really known. I've had it since college; it tends to get set off by sitting too long over a period of days or weeks, and once it acts up...oh man, without treatment, it can last months, even a couple of years or more. Then it will unwrap itself (the levator is a muscle, the muscle really, at the floor of the pelvis) and I'm left with just a little soreness, something I hardly notice. I take hot baths two or three times a week simply as a lifestyle, and I do pretty well with it. I wasn't actually diagnosed until 98, and then I found the only treatment that really works: valium.
Valium is a great muscle relaxant, but it works by changing the whole brain chemistry somehow. At least my brain chemistry feels changed. I haven't had an outbreak in two years, and that was minor; four years before that. Then...my colonoscopy. Ah, yes. A (possible) family history of colon cancer, I turn 40 and get screened...I was unconscious at the time but I imagine by something along the lights of a mag lite. The four D cell kind. Because my levator went into real spasm. I started valium, got some success (and stumbled around in a daze the last half of the semester) would stop the valium, wham it's back full force. Then on to my second 50 valium (I've never used more than 100 before per outbreak); same thing. I use it, it helps, I try to limit how much I take and wham.
I tried another drug called neurontin but that seemed to constipate me; I could have been wrong, but with levator spasm the last, the last, thing you want besides a colonoscopy or a hard wooden chair for ten hours is constipation so I quit taking it. Perhaps I should have told my doctor (they know less about it than me generally; it's rare, and not much good research gets done). Then I found this guy with a compounding pharmacy; he makes drugs on site. He told me guaifenesin is a powerful topical muscle relaxant in animals and he uses it successfully with humans too; you know, the stuff in Mucinex and over the counter cough syrup. Incidentally, I ended up at his pharmacy because my doctor was going to have me try another med., 0.2 percent nitroglycerine cream, only my pharmacy gave me 2 percent; the kind you use for angina. And you know where I put that, at ten times the recommended dose. Truthfully, it was a bit of a rush. Hmmm. Yeah.
Anyway, so I found this compounder guy and he made me something out of guaf and neurontin to apply topically (this is way, way, way, more than most of you want to know, but I have to talk about this with somebody!) and at first it seemed to help. So of course, I pull back on valium and the motrin, and then today, wham. Driving to campus to do a couple grade changes was hard; coming home, very hard. So I took another valium, I'll try some more of the cream, and I'll take a hot bath.
It all sounds funny, almost, but the pain is very real. At its worst, I can start to sweat. It's not there now, but it's pretty bad. Like a bad, burning toothache or like a wound that's tender. All from the spasms. Jeez.
The one thing I do know is that eventually it will pass, that muscle relaxants like valium are available, and that somehow I'll get through it without getting addicted to them like Favre.
Okay, enough. Compared to what Funkiller's wife is going through this is minor, in the sense of temporary, even if it lasts six months it has always passed before. How my heart goes out to Mrs. Funkiller. What I have is considered a kind of myalgia I believe, but it's limited to one muscle area. Whatever.
Valium sucks by the way. In terms of mental and emotional impact. To get addicted to that my life would have to be pretty crappy; then again, maybe it's brain chemistry that makes some succeptible. I've always stopped before easily enough. I'm not really worried about that, but I hate walking around in either: effing pain intensely aggravated by any kind of sitting or lying on my back or small pain and lots of brain haze. I'll probably talk to the compounding pharmacy guy again; he really was knowledgeable and helpful. Maybe we can tweak my blend somehow. Or throw in some freaking benzocaine!
Oh man. It's been a hard afternoon. Pain changes my personality, my mood, everything. To top all off, I think weightlifting has prolonged it. I don't know that, but it's a good guess, so I'm laying off the steel until the spasms have passed. And that blows, because it's a great mood elevator and I'm sure to gain fat just laying around, already have. Oh well. At least what I have isn't dangerous in any way. And the valium I took thirty minutes ago should begin to touch the pain soon enough. And I'm off to the hot bath.
Be well all. Prayers appreciated, but pray for Mrs. Funkiller first, kay?
t
Comments
sincere thanks for the support. I felt I had become too personal, too dark, with the E story, but I guess there are those who read it. It drains me, yes, because every time I put it in narrative I have to process what it brings up, and there is always pain, and an unwillingness to look.
Also, as I've said, the first post was the first thing my wife read on my blog. Not cool. Now I throw in a warning and don't ask if she reads or not. It is a story I'd like to finish, and with summer here...
And A, if you are up here early July, I would like to meet your family, have my wife (my son will be in Europe) and I get together with you and yours if we can. You know, just for dinner at my place or in p-ville. I'm pretty sure I'll be in town.
t