Bloomin' Bullshit

Yesterday turned into a busy day.

My Pop's been socializing with the construction crew that rebuilt our local bridge pretty much since day one. He watches them work and bullshits with them. They've been working on black topping the past few days, and yesterday he was talking to them about how he wants to get stone for our drive way because it's getting such bad dips and holes. Didn't they bring their equipment over and fill in and tamp down all of the problem areas for free. It was really nice of them.

Turtle Power!

We've only been awake for about four hours so far and today has already been crazy. We stayed up pretty late last night, and I actually slept really good for a change which was nice. We got up at about one, Chris helped me do some chores around the house, and then we had to scurry off to my rheumatology appointment.

I love having Chris with at my appointments. He remembers things that I forget about. Also I have a bad habit of downgrading my symptoms and pain for some reason. While I might tell the doctor that I've been okay, Chris is quick to jump in and say that I've been struggling to wash dishes all week because my hands hurt.

The doctor was actually running pretty on time. He's usually running extremely late, but we never mind because he's one of the few doctors that runs late because he actually spends time with his patients. They really should schedule his appointments differently though, but oh well.

Anne was his nurse today and I haven't seen her in ages. He usually has Ashley, she must be on vacation or something. Anne was excited to hear about the wedding. She checked my vitals, my BP was great, 110/70. My temperature on the other hand was 101 for some reason. Not sure why because I feel fine. Well, no worse than usually that is. Haha.

Griffin came in and we talked about Jefferson and how I was feeling. He agrees with their erythromelalgia and fibromyalgia diagnosis. We played the 'does this hurt?' game. He's keeping me on the Xeljanz, upped my Rasuvo dose to 25mgs. I told him how the longer I was down to 10mgs of steroids the worse I was starting to feel instead of getting better with time. He says I've been on steroids for years so as the dose starts to get lower it's going to be harder and harder. He said I should wait until after the wedding and start doing 15mgs two days in a row, and then 10mgs, and then 15mgs two days in a row, so on and so forth. Then starting the new year start doing every other day switch between 15mgs and 10mgs. I'm determined to get off of this crap, and I'm glad he's supportive of it. Chris brought up what a jerk Kolva was about us getting married, Griffin was like well that's not very nice. He was like I think that just shows just how meant to be you guys are. He gave me some scripts for the next two months so I don't have to worry about stopping in until my next appointment. And some samples to hold me over until he gets some things put through and changed with the specialty pharmacies.

Griffin was amused by my Ninja Turtle Band-Aids I had on.

I love wearing fun Band-Aids. People can be way too serious. Why not make something sucky (a booboo) more positive?

Nerves

I've been diagnosed with a variety of auto-immune diseases/nonsense that causes an even bigger variety of issues. One of my main issues is pain.

I have all types of pain.

Muscle pain, nerve pain.

Honestly, I think the nerve pain is the worst. There's no massaging nerve pain to try to get some relief. It's really hard to find any way actually to soothe it. 

People often ask me to explain how it feels, and the best relatable way I can explain nerve pain is by comparing it to a toothache. In reality, a toothache is nerve pain. When a tooth hurts it's generally because a nerve is damaged, exposed, or having pressure put on it by your sinuses.

Because of multiple sclerosis many of my nerves are damaged and stripped of their protective coating, leaving them much like an exposed nerve of a tooth.

Think about how well your TV or charger works after a pet chews on the cord and exposes the wiring.

The nerves start to misfire causing a myriad of issues, and pain. I get nerve pain from other things too, like fibromyalgia and erythromelalgia. Sometime's it's hard to tell what's causing the pain.

My neurologist put me on Cymbalta which so far has made one of the most noticeable differences in quality of life compared to any other treatments. I started on 30mgs and am up to 90mgs. My new rheumatologist at Jefferson is considering adding Lyrica in the future. Cymbalta has drastically cut down on my nerve pain.

Do you suffer from nerve pain? What gives you relief? What analogy do you use to explain your pain to others?