Injections of Dooooooom

[cjsmith]

Last night I pinched in between my metatarsals to evaluate my remaining neuroma pain. I put my thumb underneath my foot and my index finger on top, positioned my fingertips in between the heads of the bones, and squeezed. On my right foot, in between the third and fourth metatarsals, pinching could not make the thing hurt. YAY! In between the second and third, it could. My left foot is a mass of owie. Forget any evaluation there. That one hurts even in the interstices where I don't have neuromas.

This morning I got the last set of alcohol shots for my right foot! The final set is DEFINITELY the easiest. They hurt far, far less this time than the first time. Sure, they don't feel good, but I don't quit breathing or anything. The nerves' ability to transmit information seems pretty weak by now.

Second-to-last set for the left. (Owie.) I am bummed that as of this morning, my left foot did not feel nearly as good as my right foot felt last week. It may be that the left foot will simply not respond as well to this procedure. I did get reassurances that if I needed nerve resection on the left foot only, I would be permitted to drive (as long as I wasn't loopy on Vicodin). The right foot's the critical one, as it handles the brake. For this same surgery on the right foot, they wouldn't permit me to drive for four to six weeks.

My doctor couldn't find the facial expression pictures to send me. Oh well, some time.

(I'm perversely disappointed that my feet bled a tiny bit at the injection sites. A couple visits ago I had Zombie Feet!)

Comments

[anisoptera.livejournal.com]

I'll keep my fingers crossed that the left foot injections work as well as the right foot and you won't need surgery.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Fortunately, even if I do need the surgery I can still get back and forth to work. I don't fear it. I just want to run again! Woooooooo, running!

[anisoptera.livejournal.com]

I want you to run too!

"It's a cheetah, it's a bullet train..no no, it's CJ running!"

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That short blonde streak whizzing by with a sound effect like NNEEEEEEEYOWWWWWW...

(or with a sound effect like *puff* *puff* *stumble* *puff*)

...that's me!

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

they don't feel good, but I don't quit breathing or anything

I guess it's kind of late to suggest this, but better late than never. Forgive me if you already knew about this technique, but the sentence above makes me think you might not. So for future reference....

Any time you're going to have a shot, or anything that will hurt a lot but very briefly, there's a breathing technique that can really help. Take a deep breath in just before the shot, then when they actually give it, push the breath out very steadily.

My acupuncturist taught me to do that for the times when a needle is likely to be painful. She'll tell me when to take a deep breath, and then just as she's putting the needle in she'll tell me to let it out. And it really does help. (It's kind of instant condensed Lamaze breathing, which actually worked well enough to get me through labor and childbirth without either medication or wanting to physically kill anybody.) I don't know if it's the distraction of concentrating on the breath instead of on the pain, or if breathing out forces some degree of momentary relaxation, or what, but it does help.

You have to get the person who's doing it to tell you "get ready" and then "here it comes" (or words to that effect), but most professionals will cooperate. I hope this helps ... any bit of pain you can eliminate or even reduce is that much less you have to bear.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the tip! I used to do this when I started learning about S&M, and it never occurred to me to do it for these shots. Maybe because the shots take so darn long to get all that fluid in there? I find the exhalation technique works a lot better for short sharp pains than for long ones. The long ones, well, I'm simply not good at relaxing through them... well, at least when a needle's involved! (sheepish look. I have such a THING about needles.)

But yeah, I concur that it works -- surprisingly well. Good stuff. I might try it next week for my last set of injections on the left foot. I honestly don't know if it's five seconds or fifteen to get the fluid in.