To Summarize
[ rakaur on Mon Feb 11 at 11:57 AM // category: health, life, pain ]
Nothing has gotten better. I’m unable to sit through entire classes without either taking something or getting up, leaving, walking around the hall for a few minutes and coming back in. I have to do this once or twice in my 50 minute classes, and 3-4 times in my hour and a half classes. On my off days (that is, days where I neither work nor have school) I usually end up sitting around at home. I have to get up every 30 minutes or so to do something. I’m thinking I’d be better off if I started running again, but I can’t even think about doing that without some kind of pain relief.
My average school day consists of waking up (if I slept) at a 4 or 5 on the pain scale, walking around my room for a few minutes until the pain gets negligible. I do my PT stretches, take a shower, get dressed, head out for school. After walking the mile from my car to class it feels good to sit down, but after about 30 minutes of sitting I have to get up, go out in the hall, and walk around for a few minutes. The worst is lunch, where I also have to get up and walk around, since my lunch is two and a half hours. Sometimes the walking doesn’t help, and stretches don’t help, so I take half a Vicodin. I walk the mile back to my car and drive home. If I don’t have to work, I lay around, do my PT stretches, and try to go to bed. It usually takes me 1-2 hours to get to sleep, where “sleep” means a continuous state of being “almost asleep” for five to eight hours. Most nights I give up on sleep, but when I’m extremely tired I take half a Vicodin or some Flexeril or sometimes diphenhydramine. I wake up tired, in pain, and do it all over again.
On days that I work I last about an hour and a half without pain meds. I take a Vicodin on each of my 15 minute breaks, and on bad days, lunch as well. An average work day consisting of a 7-9 hour shift is usually accompanied by 2-3 Vicodin. I know the dosing is 1 tab po q6-8h but they just plain don’t last that long when I’m continuously active; it’s more like q3-5h. I make sure to never exceed 4,000mg of APAP. I can avoid taking anything 95% of the time that I’m not at work, but when I’m there if I don’t take anything I simply cannot do my job. On days that I forget to bring pills or don’t have any I have to leave early.
When first waking up, and in general when I’m not working/active for long periods, the pain is a dull ache in my tailbone and lower back, and is fairly tolerable. It hurts, I’m not having a good time, but I make it. When I’m at work/active for long periods, the pain arches all the way up my spine, sometimes as far as my neck, and it just aches. It’s a hard pain to describe because I don’t know what to compare it to. It’s a constant pain, and is exacerbated considerably by bending the spine. It’s a very painful stiffness. It’s borderline intolerable, usually what I’d say 7-8 on the pain scale.
Thus has been my life for the last two months.
-- rakaur // 2008.02.11 @ 11:57 AM
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://mt.ericw.org/mt-tb.cgi/271
