Out of Control Pain

It is days like today and yesterday that really frustrate me. I have been in terrible pain where I have not even felt like getting out of bed for very long and it is frustrating. There is no reason for me to be in this much pain. When I say that, I mean that I did not do an extreme amount of exercise, or shopping for that matter, that would make me think that that is why I am in pain. There are two triggers that I have found and both are kind over unable to be gotten around. If I sit for an extreme amount of time, ie. traveling to see my doctor 3 hours from home, I am guaranteed to be in pain for a little while after that. Also if I am standing for a long period, like over 2 hours, I am in extreme pain. The standing is a little easier to handle since I am changing the way that my classroom is run this year, but sitting is not as easy to handle. I am glad that I have found these triggers but I know that there has to be more and I want to find those now too.

When the pain hits to the level that it is right now and has been all weekend, it causes me to just want to curl up in a tight ball and not move. Even when I do move then the pain increases. And there lies the problems with this pain. There is no real relief that I have found and it is driving me crazy. I just wish that I was all better and that I was not continuing to have this pain. I am getting ready to start my 5th year of teaching and I was hoping to enter this year mostly pain free. I guess I will have to deal with a little less in pain. Any little bit does help so I guess I should be glad about a slight decrease and keep working with what I am doing.

Update on Pain

Well I am coming upon my final physical therapy appointment in the 6 that my doctor in San Francisco has prescribed. According to the hierarchy that is Kaiser, I have to see this doctor again before she will prescribe any more sessions. I will admit that I have gotten some benefit. Where my pain use to ride between a 8 and a 9 on a daily basis it is now between a 6 and a 7. The only thing that I don't know is if that is because of the physical therapy or the new medications that I am on. They both started around the same time.

I am wondering how long it is going to take to get into this doctor in San Francisco. Last time, it took me from August to February to see her. Granted this was to go to an orientation meeting and then to get an appointment with her. I hope I don't have to wait that long. I was hoping to get most of this done during this summer. That was the point of me taking this time off from work. It is a little bit disappointing that they only prescribed 6 appointments.

I found out last week that most patients get the most benefits somewhere between 12 to 15 visits. Well if these are the prime target number then why has this not been told to the doctors so that then they are prescribing the proper number of sessions. I mean I would think that the doctors would want their patients to get the most benefit from the physical therapy that they can.

In here lies my other problem. I would like to be slowly taken of some of my medications to see how well the physical therapy has really improved my pain. Like I said when I add new medications at the same time as physical therapy it is hard to tell which one is giving me the most benefit. I am in a catch 22. I don't exactly know what to do. I have emailed my doctor in San Francisco and I am having to wait and hear from her as to what she wants to do. But then I also have to find out how long I have to wait to see her and how long will I have between Thursday and my next physical therapy session.

Well there is my update. I will keep you informed as well.

This Weekend

For the past few weeks I have been dealing with ever increasing pain that finally escalated to the point that I had to get an injection of Morphine on Saturday. It had done its job and was allowing me to get my pain back under control. It is hard to do the heart focus breathing techniques that I have found so effective if I am unable to get myself to focus on anything outside of my pain. When the pain is so intense it becomes impossible to do. With this medication on board I was able to do it. I thought that I was doing so well, until earlier today.

For some unknown reason my pain decided that it was going to get out of control again and it actually hit extremely close to a level 10 on the pain scale. I have never had this much pain in so many years that it actually scared me. I think that the fact that I was scared did not help to get the pain under control. I had to get my emotions under control in order to make sure that the pain was not be exacerbated by the emotions and the feeling that I had no control over the pain that I was having. It is true that I had no control over the pain but I did have control over the way that I was handling it.

I had to get myself controlled and starting to focus on something that was pleasurable and that was non-tangible. It can not be something that can be taken away and that can not change. For me that is a sunset at the beach. I have always had a sunset as something that was very special to me and my grandparents. Whenever there was an especially nice sunset, it was almost a race to see who would call the other first. I still find myself doing that with my grandmother now. It is a nice thing and it is something that brings a calming effect to me.

Once I was able to get that into my mind, I realize that the pain was still terrible but that I could get through it. I got some Norco into me along with some Advil and within about 20 minutes I was feeling much better. I say much better but you will probably be appalled by what I consider much better. I went from being close to 10 on the pain scale to being about 8.5. I can handle that. Well anyways that is how my weekend worked itself out. Hopefully you had a better one.

Medications

I am in constant amazement as to the amount of medications that are out there that are not generally used for pain management only. Two of the medications that I am currently on are not even pain management medications and they are used to raise the threshold of pain and therefore allow my body to be able to withstand more pain before it become dibilitating by it. It is an amazing fact and something that is far beyond my understand but yet an amazing fact that I just had to take the time out to share.

Aggravation

I am amazed how much being aggravated can cause my pain to increase more than I can express in worlds. Something happen tonight, nothing really big and really pretty stupid but upsetting nonetheless, and I was amazed how much my pain increased. I know that this happens because I have been taught that stress increases my pain, but it was weird to feel it happen. I went from around a level 6 in pain to about a level 9 in a matter on about 20 minutes. It is just so amazing.

During this time I had to use my Diaphragmatic Breathing and it really got the pain back under control. Also a breathing technique called Heart Focus Breathing where you are focusing on bringing your heart rate down helps to calm you down. Studies have shown that these techniques really do work and boy do I have to tell you that they work wonders for me. You focus on something that is non-tangible and let yourself be taken there. Make it something that calms you down, like watching the sunset on the beach. You don't want it to be a husband/wife, or pet, or anything like this because if something bad has happened then you will not have positive feelings to help calm you down. And then while you are focusing on that you do the diaphragmatic breathing. It is just amazing.

I was able to get my pain back down to a level 8. I know that doesn't seem like much but it is quite a bit and it is much more manageable. Again, unless you live in chronic pain you can not truly understand how much just this small amount can help you continue on for the day. All of these different techniques that I speak about are things that I have learned over the 10 week pain management program at my local Kaiser. It has been wonderful, but only about 25 to 30% of what was taught was of high value to me. I will continue to talk about the different things that really continue to help me.

My Physical Therapy

I am so excited. It would appear that my doctor in San Francisco has been able to find a physical therapy place here in Fresno that is able to do the specialized therapy that I need. I am really excited as up to this point it was looking like we were going to have to travel to Sacramento to get the physical therapy. I always have said that it would appear that when I come down with a condition that I do not do it lightly but rather complicated. It is not like this is something that I would wish upon my worst enemy. It is not something that anyone should have to go through.

Anyways, if you would like to check it out, it looks like I will be going to Creative Therapeutics. I am just so glad that they are local and it does appear that they do deal with the pelvic floor muscle. I have been doing some research to update everyone on the diagnosis that I have gotten. There are so great sites out there, but you do have to be careful that they are the right ones to be looking at. Well that is all I got for right now. I will write more later.

Let's Begin

I thought that I would keep a separate blog for all of the talk about my pain. I will post when there is an update on this blog, but that way those of you who do not want to read all about my pain, won't have to do that.

I have been in chronic pelvic pain for 4 years now. I have had this pain on and off for 8 years. It is considered chronic after the pain does not go away for a significant time period. It is the type of pain that cause quite a bit of frustration. I am in this pain 24 hours a day. Some hours are worse than others. It is true that there are times when I can go a few hours with very little pain, but the pain is there. I am going to be filling you in on the condition that I have as the days go along. If you have any sort of questions about anything let me know.