I'm back.

[cjsmith]

Spent two days lying down. Vicodin isn't "not enough" any more; it's "not nearly enough."

The pain comes and goes in waves, and (with Vicodin) in between peaks, I can read. I read five books. Two Robin Cooks, two Tess Gerritsen, one "filovirus gets loose". Reading medical thrillers when in pain is... unique. Still, I enjoyed them, as every one was a book I had never read before. What a treat! I do so enjoy books. :-)

Today, called Helena Women's Health Center again. I have an appointment for, well, um, some time after my next period. *sigh*

Now I'm caught up on LJ. Cool. Caught up on spam deletion; only ran out of disk quota twice. Will have to disable that account before leaving for a week.

Joe, sorry I never responded to your mail about lunch. You can guess why I didn't go.

Comments

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Aargh! That sounds truly unpleasant. Is this pain from your cycle, or an aftereffect of the surgery?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Cycle. Surgery fully recovered by now, and besides, it never hurt much (at least not compared to my cramps).

I was contemplating taking more Vicodin than my bottle said, because Rob once got a prescription that said he could take more, and therefore it probably wouldn't hurt me too much. But I really don't want to slide down that slope with a narcoticlike painkiller... I think...

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you will be talking to Helena, even if it's taking too long. :^( I sincerely hope they have some answers, or at least some HELP for you.

I thought of you as I travelled on the train last weekend. My neck pain was so bad I wanted to stick an ice pick through my ear. I wondered how you've survived with all you've described!

*hugs*

*more hugs*

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you will be talking to Helena...

Thanks for the recommendation! If they don't figure something out, I have an acupuncturist and two kind of new-agey off-the-beaten-path doctors who are all somewhere in line to try next. But I have my fingers crossed for Helena. Weird cases seem to be their specialty.

I thought of you as I travelled on the train last weekend. My neck pain was so bad I wanted to stick an ice pick through my ear.

Ow ow owwwww! I somehow doubt an ice pick in the ear would have HELPED anything, but I sure can sympathize with that feeling. I usually wish for a sharp spoon to scoop out the entire offending area! *hugsback* Is it better now?

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

About the lunch--*hugs*, but no apologies necessary, m'kay?

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Yep. "Weird Cases R Us!" That's why I was hoping they might be able to help you. :^)

The pain is *better* though not *gone*. I started the trip with my neck slightly "out". After trying to sleep in the coach cars (have you done this? Kinda like sleeping in a recliner, with someone you don't know doing the same right next to you), I was in great pain the next morning. Another 12+ hours of jouncing train ride did NOT help. Add to that being nauseous for an hour after each time I took my vitamins with not enough food (*D'Oh!*), and the fact that the train was COMPLETELY full, and therefore there were no spaces ANYWHERE to lie down in. And then I tried to shave in the broomcloset bathroom. When I got to Seattle, I spent the weekend on an old-style waterbed (no baffles). Normally this is good for me, but this time it was hell on my already-irritated neck. The hottub was good, but the BDSM-club-activity was bad (and yes, it was also "bad" in a very good way, but that's not relevant here!). And then another 24 hours on the train on the way back. By about 2 hours into that ride was the point I was seriously wondering if I'd make it back, or if I'd need to cash it in at Portland and buy a plane trip home. Thoughts of cutting my head off at the neck cropped up often. Fortunately, I discovered that by sitting at the table near the snack bar, I could rest my book on the table, and keep the pain from getting worse, while distracting myself with a good book (not like I think you'd understand *that*, of course! ;^). I was fine till an underclued pair of old folks decided that they HAD to sit at the table where I was, rather than doing as everyone else had for 5 hours, and simply asking to sit down WITH me. (After all, I *looked* like I was fine, and should be able to sit anywhere....). "Policy" of course is that you can only sit there while eating, so the snack bar gal had to kick me out. *sigh* So it was back to the rest of the train where it still hurt like hell. Fortunately, with enough IB and an extra dose of codeine, I was able to sleep. I'm sure you can understand the depth of my relief when I was finally off the train, and able to take a nap lying flat on my Dux bed, with a heating pad under my neck! Ahhhhhh.

Well, Akien's done putting Allegra to bed. Hope your blisters feel better soon, too!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

M'kay! *hugsback* Dinner turned out to be a nice substitute, if we think of it as one!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh owwwww! I've had plane flights like that, too, where there was simply no comfortable position whatsoever. One memorable flight involved a seatmate whose odor was so overpowering that I spent several hours with my nose pressed against the window in the futile hope of keeping a fresh air pocket over there. (That strategy did what I needed it to do: I did NOT throw up.) By the end of the flight I wanted my entire cervical spine replaced.

I'm glad you had the IB, the codeine, and the book. Without those you might indeed have had to bail out in Portland. Yikes!

[firecat]

I can't remember if Vicodin has acetominaphen in it or not. If it does, don't take more than the bottle says, because you can get liver damage.

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

I guess you're feeling better, because you were all bouncy about your mystery trip! *happy smile* But for future reference, I wanted to comment about the Vicodin anyway.

It should be safe to take some more. Many, many studies have shown that people in severe pain do not get addicted to their pain medication. I've taken Percocet (which is somewhat stronger than Vicodin) for about 17 years. Now I'm doing much better and use it only occasionally (tramadol (http://www.ultram.com/) is enough for me most of the time), but for over 10 years, Percocet was my regular daily pain med. Never once have I had any indications of addiction, or even physical dependence (http://www.myalgia.com/addiction%20def.htm), and virtually no build-up of tolerance.

When I had my back-to-back surgeries a couple of months ago, I was taking a Percocet every two hours (i.e., 2 every four hours but staggered) for a few days; I took less as the pain eased, and then simply stopped and went back to tramadol. I had a herniated disk several years ago, and when the pain was at its worst I was taking -- hold on to your chair, now -- 5 every four hours! That's a huge dose, but dammit, I needed it! But I didn't just take it steadily -- I varied the dose according to the level of pain, and when I finally was able to persuade someone that it wasn't "just my arthritis" (long story) and got treatment, I had no problem at all stopping altogether.

In other words, as long as you take as little as you can, you can take as much as you need to.

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

There is acetaminophen in Vicodin, but as long as you're taking it relatively short-term, have a healthy liver to start with, and don't drink while you're on it, even somewhat larger doses won't hurt you.