Got the 6 month oil change.

Apparently, my stimulator battery is similar to a car engine and needs an oil change about every 6 months. Since this form of maintenance was never laid out for me, my last ‘oil change’ was 18 months ago.

The difference is night and day with regards to before and after the oil change. I’m certainly glad I took care of this problem. Now, my pain went from a 7.5 to a 7. This may come off as sarcastic but that small difference truly helps.

Since my cat kept me up all night last night, I’m going to sleep before 10pm.

PS: it’s not actually an oil change. Please don’t think I’m dumping motor oil into my body.

What to do?

What are you supposed to do when your pain gets so intense that your stimulator medication do absolutely nothing?

I’ve spent my morning crying and dealing with left leg pain that feels like a heart beat of shooting pain down my leg.

I know this will eventually pass but it’s hard to see the future when each moment lasts an hour.

J

Boy, arthritis is fun!

Last October, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Since there’s not a test to figure out what medication to take, it’s just all trial and error. Six months into this, I still don’t have the right medication. What I do have are horror stories from the two most recent meds: First one made so sick, I couldn’t leave the house. Second one is actually a chemotherapy drug. It feels great!

Since RA is killing my hands, even writing this short post is a pain in the ass.

I’m hoping to post more often. Why not? Right?

Jay

My Hungarian Stalker

Years ago I had a stalker living in Budapest named Charles. To give you a date range, I still had a land line and the Patriot Act was pretty new.

I realize it’s not easy to have a stalker living so far away but he was persistent. He called all the time, wrote multiple letters, and would send small gifts. It’s about at this point in the story where people say, ‘BULLSHIT!’ So, I would always go to my dresser and pull out the letters, gifts, and picture he sent of himself. The look on most faces then turned to horror.

The letters were always a few pages long (his English was pretty good) and the gifts were usually a CD or poem.

This went on for about a year but he eventually gave up because he said all he ever really wanted was a friend and I wasn’t reciprocating, well, because he came on a bit strong.

This story does have a couple of other extremely odd/terrifying details that I’ve left out for now because I just wanted to let people know that I had a Hungarian stalker named Charles.

This doesn’t really have a lot to do with chronic pain but just an old memory that popped into my head as I was have a huge flare up of pain in my hip.

Jay

My constant pain

I haven’t written in awhile because blogging was making my pain worse. It was reminder after reminder of the pain I live in.

I’ve had the stimulator for almost 3 months and it’s working fine but my old back pain is back and back worse than ever.

What do you do to manage it? Please tell me because I need help.

It’s been awhile…

I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a bit but I think I needed a little break.

The reason for the break is that having the stimulator implant isn’t going as well as the trial did. I had about 80% relief during the trial and maybe about 30% with the implant. Plus, no one can really explain why there’s such a difference and it’s frustrating. That trial week was so wonderful despite not being able to shower and having everything external.

Hopefully things will turn around. I really am trying to stay optimistic.