So, here I sit. It's 4:33am and the nerve pains shooting through my back are indescribable. I also am experiencing the occasional twinge of nerve pain through my hands. That's a rather new symptom. I've been dealing with back pain of all sorts for a few years now.. but the hands worry me. I worry that the pain in my hands is the beginning of psoriatic arthritis.
As I sit here, I'm contemplating whether to continue to sit here scrolling through my fibromyalgia support group pages on Facebook or to go lie in bed next to my husband for the next 6 hours, waiting for sleep to come. Normally when I go to bed, I don't fall asleep within 20 minutes as most people do. My routine begins where I go into our room and begin taking my regimen of medications. Then I try to kick my cat out of the room before she hides under our bed, otherwise she will start climbing all over me, inevitably standing on my trigger points. Next, I warm up the heating pad and lay down, repositioning it a few times until it's just in the right spot. It takes a few tries usually, as my back pain travels once I'm horizontal. Sometimes I need to throw a couple of tennis balls underneath the heating pad to intensify the heat on my trigger points as well as work the knots out of them. Strange? Yes. But it works. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling for a few minutes, admire how cute my husband is while he talks in his sleep about military things and then decide that I may as well scroll through Pinterest while I'm awake. An hour later, I look at the clock and muse at the fact that I'm still not sleepy yet, even though I've taken an arsenal of medications that would easily put a horse into a coma. I continue surfing Pinterest, pinning delicious meals I'll probably never bother trying and oogling at gorgeous gowns from renaissance England. My interests are rather scattered, but hey... I'm a dreamer.
I look over at the clock again... It's almost 7am and my husband is waking up and checking his phone before he heads off to shower. After he gets out of bed and opens the door, the cat runs in and jumps on top of me like an excited child on Saturday morning. I spread out across the bed, grabbing every pillow in sight and stuffing them behind my back, under my belly, between my knees and then one to hug. After I'm comfortable I close my eyes for a bit and begin to drift off to sleep. Normally I might sleep about 3 hours before waking up, using the bathroom, grabbing a snack to keep my sugar up, then crawling back into bed for a few more hours.
Thus, I'm trying to decide whether to bother going to bed or not. I have plans to go to a friend's house for dinner with my husband later. I love my friend and getting to spend time with her, but anymore I dread leaving the house. Whenever I have plans of any sort the next day... I find it impossible to drift off to sleep and eventually when I do... I get two hours of sleep and wake up twitching, my nerves feeling frayed. Because of this, I dread going places when I plan it in advance. I get anxious that I won't get enough rest or will be in pain when I wake up, thus robbing me of the joy and excitement of doing things I like. Sometimes I suck it up and force myself to get up, despite the twitching, get ready and go out. Other times, I just mentally and physically can't do it. I wish I could explain it in a way that would make others understand. When I wake up feeling twitchy, all I want is to medicate and go back to sleep until I'm better. If I just get up and push through the pain and twitching, I pay for it 10 fold later on. It's almost a guaranteed way to send myself into a pain flare.
I guess I may as well start my bedtime routine... hopefully I'll get enough rest to be able to visit my friend today.
Bye for now.
Chrissy
No comments:
Post a Comment