We've been mostly in England, so no stays in France for me and gardening/country walking for exercise - there are nine schools around us that all use the same bus stop, so I've felt desperately curtailed when I can walk from home; the pavements are dangerous, and I've been shoved into the path of cars more than a few times (as have much smaller schoolkids, which makes me mad).
I've tried to make up for it by doing classes at the gym/swimming, but that has exacerbated old wrist and shoulder problems. Stupidly, I "worked through the pain" - trust me on this: don't! I got to the point where I was protecting my (previously-twisted) right wrist (which now had a ganglion restricting movement), so was putting strain though my (never right since the frozen shoulder) right shoulder... Which then became sufficiently painful that I was putting all the weight through my (damaged years ago, but I thought it had recovered) left shoulder...
What finally encouraged me to register with a doctor (and ask about my wrist) was getting an ear infection. I tried for nearly three weeks to get a doctor's appointment before I was successful; by then I had already visited A and E (the doctor I saw there said I had done the right thing, and prevented the infection becoming even worse), been diagnosed with an ear infection, finished the course of antibiotics and partially lost my hearing and now have tinnitus, which (as it hasn't gone away in over a year) I suspect I will have for the rest of my life.
So, having the appointment, I asked the doctor for a referral for the wrist ganglion - thankfully, David has PPP so I was seen quickly and the orthopaedic surgeon showed me the scans of the ganglion; no wonder I couldn't put any weight through that wrist, it was like an iceberg, 90% of it hidden below the surface. It looked like a giant Polo mint surrounding the tendon. I was putting off the surgery [who wants surgery?], when it occurred to us that with the threat of redundancy still hanging over David, it would make more sense to get it out of the way in case he was shortly unemployed.
So, just over a year ago I had the lump removed. Unfortunately, the communication fell down in my case, and I didn't realise that I should have stretched it as fully as I needed to [the nurse who was supposed to give the advice had gone on holiday, and the surgeon may have told me (he may not), when I came round from the anaesthetic but I can remember nothing of what he said (I'd come out of surgery less than ten minutes previously, and really wasn't "with it"), and the promised written advice never materialised.
A couple of infections (and more antibiotics/no swimming) later, finding out that "dissolving sutures" don't [they worked their way to the surface, and caused/prolonged the infections, no-swimming-allowed with open wounds, and I had to keep pulling bits out!], and very thick scarring later, and I got a referral to the hand therapist - Sally was fantastic, and assured me the scarring was not my fault (some people scar more than others; it's a sign the body is being efficient?), and that I would regain the full range of movement, given time and effort.
Not sure I completely believed her...
Months of no swimming, no weight-bearing exercises, and working on the range of movement and grip strength and I was signed off in October. Hard (and painful) work, but I'm so glad I put the effort in - I can now do full plank consistently for over a minute - yay!. Sadly, at some point during the process I started getting panic attacks, so found leaving the house even more terrifying than staying at home. I went back to the hypnotherapist [Hi, lovely Marcus], and started seeing a herbalist - both helped me immensely, but it seemed a long road to recovery...
And then I sprained my left wrist.
At that point I had stopped all exercising apart from walking . I was receiving regular electro-acupuncture treatments, which helped massively, and was slowly easing back into exercising - much more sensibly this time...
Oh, and then in May I was struck down by crippling agony with my teeth.
Except it wasn't all my teeth having been shattered by being kicked in the face...
...By a shire horse...
...Wearing platform (solid iron, natch) shoes...
It just felt that way! I had my teeth checked out at two different times this year (convinced I'd broken another tooth/severed another nerve), but they were all clear. Thankfully, I found out about on-line appointment booking at my doctor's [the receptionists absolutely refused to make me an appointment (despite being able to see the pain in my face/tears streaming down my cheeks), and told me to keep calling each day to try to get an emergency appointment that day (been there; done that) - I ended up at the hospital, again, so at least someone was willing to help] - and yes, you can make an appointment in advance; why is it so hard for them to do/admit that?
The doctor (when I finally got to see her) was brilliant: she changed the medication, gave me a much stronger painkiller, reassured me it wasn't all in my mind, and confirmed that it was trigeminal neuralgia (TN).
The medication took a couple of weeks to finally alleviate the agony, but I'm totally pain-free now, and having another go at reducing the dosage [and am using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy this time, as during the last attempt, the pain came back (almost?) as soon at the drugs were out of my system].
The medication continues to leave me with nausea and (much less frequently, now, thankfully) dizziness, [so my gym-attending has been sporadic,] but is infinitely preferable to the pain. I can understand why people take their own lives - it is so unremitting, and in my case atypical? The information I found suggests that each spasm lasts 5-10 minutes before diminishing for several hours, whereas I was in so much pain I was rocking and whimpering for three to four hours, with breaks of up to 10 minutes in between bouts.
I used to get my teeth drilled and filled without anaesthesia [in the days when I used to react badly to dental anaesthetic]. It took the dentist about three fillings before they worked out the painkilling injections weren't working; instead of asking 'has your face gone numb/can you feel that?' they asked 'is that painful?' to which I always replied 'no, it's OK' whilst thinking 'ooh, I'm glad I have the numbing injections, what would it be like without?'. That third time [after the usual collapsing in a heap after getting up from the chair/downstairs in the waiting room], waiting to be collected my face started to feel funny, and then went very tingly and started to go a bit numb, about 25 minutes later (the first time that had happened). We both agreed that as I'd been having the fillings done without numbing, and as the anaesthetic made me feel so sick and woozy, we might as well do without. I was much happier without the after-effects of the drugs and the pain was no worse. So I had all the remaining fillings done that way, and all other work for about the next ten years, too.
So I think I can say I've got a reasonably high pain tolerance?
Not too long after I started with the treatment for the TN, I had a new and different tooth pain.
I visited the out-of-hours dentist who diagnosed an abscess, and prescribed me antibiotics. They quickly sorted out that particular pain, but reacted horribly (in me, at least; neither of the dentists nor the doctor thought there would be any adverse reaction) with the TN meds - dizziness and nausea that mounted and mounted until I didn't dare being more than a few feet away from the loo. Thankfully, I only had to take the antibiotics for a week!
I have since found out that (in me, again) both paracetamol and ibuprofen react badly with the TN meds, too - I am now undergoing root canal work (had my first session of drilling four weeks ago), and thought 'I've had enough pain recently, I'm not going to tough it out', so tried paracetamol and ibuprofen, and each of them made me so nauseous that I preferred the pain.
So, I did tough it out after all.
My mum, hearing that I was in the middle of root canal work proceeded to tell me how absolutely excruciating it was when she had it done last year - thanks, mum? I said it was a walk in the park compared to trigeminal neuralgia, she countered with it was so painful that she didn't know where to put herself, and I cut off that line of discourse by repeatedly repeating that that pain was nothing relative to TN [I wouldn't have tried the painkillers (it was only a 6 or 7 out of 10; normal 'toughing it out' levels) if I hadn't felt so ground down already by the months of TN], but the thought of unbearable pain (that I couldn't attempt to medicate away) left me shaking... As I say, thanks, mum?
I'm fine now, but sometimes I could do without maternal support!
I've just had another session (hopefully my last) with Paul, my regular dentist, and thankfully that session was even easier - thanks to the CBT? Or maybe all the 'hard' work had been done the first time? Either way, I don't mind or even care. If I need to go back I will be floating off in my imaginary boat on the imaginary lake under the imaginary sun, and Paul can do what needs to be done!
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| Paul, keeping me quiet! |
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| Three files in the root canals |
But I'm not going to worry about either of them - if anything comes to pass, I will deal with it 'as and when'.
Also, I've seen the orthopaedic specialist about my left shoulder [the right one finally responded to the acupuncture, and is behaving beautifully], and apart from a bit of calcification of the bicipital groove [and he agrees from the symptom picture it is likely that I have had bicipital tendinitis/rotator cuff tendinitis] and mild subluxation on passive abduction [thankfully I don't do that!], there's nothing really abnormal going on, so fingers crossed that the left one is also on the mend.
I'm hoping Wednesday's dentist foray into the nerve will be the last drilling I have for a while (preferably forever), and the TN continues to be quiescent, and nothing else goes wrong with me...
I feel fitter and healthier than I have in quite a few years, which is brilliant, but having had more drugs in fifteen months than in the rest of my life put together, I hope never to have to visit a chemist ever again!
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