Log #23 (Sitting in a Taco)

Talk about a long day today. Why is it than when you get no sleep that time drags on? Why can it drag when you're having fun and speed up when you're not?

We decided to take the boys out to dinner last night. One reason was because my wife had a busy afternoon at work and so she didn't feel like cooking. The other reason was to just get out for something different so we found a coupon for a Chinese food buffet place and headed out. When we go out we have to get a booth because regular chairs are far too uncomfortable. I can say with all honesty that I have not sat on such uncomfortable booth seating in all my life.

My eight year old sat next to me on my bench while my wife and our twelve year old sat across from us. Every time my eight year old leaned forward the bench tilted forward too. I kept thinking we were both going to slide underneath the table at any minute. The other annoying thing was that the bench was made in such a way that the part that cushioned the upper back was closer to the table than the lower back. Kind of like sitting in a folded taco and about as comfortable.

That being said, I was in a lot of pain last night and I didn't sleep much at all. That is pretty much par for the course though. I get one night where I sleep okay because I'm totally exhausted and then the next few are sleepless. I guess it sounds strange that I'm worried about building up a tolerance for Ambien seemingly more than the pain medications. Well the difference is that I have to take the pain medication, but the Ambien is optional. So I only take Ambien as a last resort.

Log #15 (Handicap Parking)

Just a few things to mention today regarding my visit to the Pain Management Doctor...

1. I asked him about medical marijuana and he didn't think there was any benefit for treating pain, which flies in the face of everything my spine surgeon said and what I've read.
2. He immediately said that I shouldn't be taking the Klonopin so he prescribed Savella, which is mainly prescribed to patients with fibromyalgia even though he said he didn't think I had it.
3. He wants to focus on what is causing my groin pain so he wants me to do some type of injection in the nerves to see if that stops the pain. If it works then we pursue one direction of treatment, but if it doesn't work then we take a different direction.
4. I am going in for X-rays on my upper back to see if there are any spine issues there.

This is, in a lot of ways, similar to what I went through with the spine surgeon except here the focus is using medications where the surgeon focused on surgery.

It has been a year-and-a-half since the last time I went to work. I have had constant pain for the duration of the time. I have seen doctors from various specialities and all with the same results and now I have to start the process again. I'm on the diagnosis carousel. In the beginning I would be optimistic with each new doctor, but now I find myself being pessimistic.

I am trying to be optimistic that the course we're taking will put me in a better place regarding medications so I won't be taking as much oxycontin and norco, which is what I'm hoping for the most. I could care less about using medical marijuana if these other medications work. Plus they must work in such a way that I don't build up a tolerance to them. I'll give this pain management thing a try and cross me fingers. My body is the ultimate judge.

To change the subject I'd like to make a comment about allowances made for disabled at business' around the area. Unless you find yourself disabled yo never pay attention to the number of handicap parking spaces there are. Now that I am, I can say that there is a lot of poor planning going into this issue. The government has their requirements and business' comply, but the way they carry out the requirements is messed up.

For example: There is a Big 5 Sporting goods store here in Simi Valley and they provide parking for two handicap slots. That's fine because sporting goods and handicap usually don't mix. Sometimes though, I have to go there with my wife to get sporting gear for our boys because I know more about that equipment than she does. So we drive there and park in the handicap because the other ones aren't open. You say, "Wait a minute. You can park in the handicap slot, but you don't want to use it?" With this store the brilliant person who laid out the parking has the handicap spots on the side of the building while regular slots are right out the front door. So a handicap person has further to go to get to the front door than an able bodied person. Does that make sense?

Usually, parking is in a good location, but there is not enough of it. In one of the shopping malls in the area there is a Macaroni Grill, Rubios, and a Cold Stone Ice cream all right in a row. How many handicap parking spaces are there? Two!

My two youngest sons have little league baseball games twice a week. That is a ton of kids playing ball each week at the four ball fields. How many handicap spots do they have for the hundreds of people there each day? None!

Things are a lot better than it was twenty years ago, but this country still has a long way to go to provide services for the disabled. Most people don't think about it that much. I know I didn't, but like me, I hope you don't have to become disabled too to notice it.

Log #13 (Finally some sleep)

What a difference in my sleep experience last night. Although I usually dream at night my sleep is interrupted a lot so I don't get much out of my dreams, but last night I really slept for a change and had dreams that were long enough to make sense.

The name of the medication the doctor prescribed yesterday is Klonopin and I'm taking 1mg tablets. It didn't do much for my general achy feeling, but it helped with anxiety and it put me right to sleep. The drawback was that I fell asleep a few times times today when I really shouldn't have. This medication doesn't replace any of my other medications so it's just one more I have to take everyday. Now we'll see if the Pain Management Doctor changes things up even more.

For more information on Klonopin...What is Klonopin

There was a song in the eighties by Huey Lewis called, "I want a new drug." It's a great song and it kind of applies to my situation. It would be nice to have a drug that would do it all and make me feel better. Instead, I find myself saying, "I don't want a new drug." or "Not another one!"

So here is some info on Fibromyalgia from yahoo health:

Log #12 (Fibromyalgia)

Truth be told, I'm very tired so I won't write too much tonight.

I made it in to see my Primary Care Doctor today so we could go over the problems I had with the higher dosage of Requip and the problems it caused. Plus we had to talk about the fatigue I feel, which has been getting worse of late.

I told him everything that has been bothering me lately such as a general flu-like ache all over, fatigue in my arms and legs, feeling that my head will explode, and agitation with anxiety. All of this is added to the pain I feel in my back, legs, and groin. So I feel very out of sorts.

My wife went into the visit with me so she could bring up things that I forget. The main thing that came up is the possibility of having Fibromyalgia so he pressed a few different pressure points, which were quite painful. That is a good indication that I may, in fact, have that problem. The doctor told us that FM is hard to diagnose and that it's like the flavor of the month in the medical community. It has become the easy diagnosis for a lot of patients with muscle and nerve pains.

One of the main things I like about my doctor is that he takes the time to explain everything in detail. He listens to everything I have to say and when he gives me a prescription he explains the different medications available, what things they're supposed to do, and how they work in the body to relieve the various symptoms. He asks a lot of questions about medications I may have had in the past and how my body reacted to them. He gives me options on which medications I may want to try while offering his opinion on which one he thinks I should choose. Plus he makes it clear that with medications it can be a long and tedious task to determine what will work best for me.

No doctor is perfect or infallible, but when you have a doctor who demonstrates genuine concern for your welfare, it's easy to put some trust there. I've had far too many doctors who walk in the room, ask a few questions, write a prescription, and then leave without explaining anything except how and when to take the pills. Many of them are over booked on purpose so they're guaranteed enough patients to maximize their billing to the insurance companies. The doctor's focus is shifted to the number of patients he can see instead of the number he can help (no gender implied by this statement). It is quantity over quality in it's purest form.

Anyway, FM seems to be some of my problem and he gave me a prescription for something (the name escapes me now, but I'll make a note of it in tomorrow's log). The prescription he gave today may be changed depending on what the Pain Management Doctor says on Thursday.

Like I said, I'm tired so I'm off to bed. I hope the new blog layout looks a lot better to everyone who reads this blog. I created the new header using Photoshop Elements 7. My next step is to go through the posts and add pictures and illustrations to make my points clearer.

Here are the symptoms of Fibromyalgia:

Daily Log #10 (Finding a Balance)

There isn't that much to write about today except that I tried to rest up as much as possible while watching the Olympics.

I reduced my dosage of Requip back to 2mg last night and I've gone back to taking 20mg of Oxycontin 3x/day. On average, if I don't do much during the day, I take Norco 10/325mg 3x/day as well. If we go somewhere or I doing anything around the house I have to take much more.

I don't feel as agitated nor do I have the twitching that I had a few days ago so I'm confident that the medication was the majority of the problem I had this week with side effects. I still have the pain and electricity shooting down my legs, but at least I don't have to deal with side effects like I was.

I was more stiff today than usual, but a rain storm came in and that usually means that my general pain levels go up. Living in southern California has the advantages of not getting cold or rainy that often so it's a little easier on a person with chronic pain than it would be if I lived in a cold and wet climate. I received a text message from a friend with chronic pain who lives in Utah and she said her pain goes way up with the bad weather.


Even though I've corrected my medications I still have the fatigue level that I had before. The fatigue has been getting worse for a while now. It used to be localized to my legs, but in the past few months I notice it in my arms as well. Pain from my back problems is always limited to the areas from my lower pelvis and back down through my legs and when that is at it's worst I can take Norco and the pain will subside within a half hour. The problem with the fatigue is that no amount of pain pills seem to have any affect. So in some ways the fatigue is more painful and bothersome than the pain caused by my bad back. Sometimes I wonder if prolonged usage of narcotics for pain can actually cause problems like Fibromyalgia.

Tomorrow I've got an appointment with my Primary Care Doctor and I'm going to ask about that.

I hope that sometime in the future this blog will have enough followers that the comment section will be full of similar experiences by other chronic pain sufferers. Taking one person's word for things doesn't carry the weight that 10, 100, or a 1000 will have.