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juushikaThe shoulder/neck pain that I mentioned a few days back has not indeed gone away. The leg pain that started before did, in the course of about two days. But while my neck/shoulder relaxes during the day, it tenses up something awful at night and each morning I have to start afresh. It's not as bad as it was that first day, there's no dizziness now, I've been in significant pain, my flexibility is limited, and it hurts to move.
So, as the pain has continued for about five days now (and not rest nor massage nor vibration nor stretching does much to help it), Devon finally convinced me to take some medication: a single pill of Tramadol, which Devon's father takes for his back pain.
Whoo boy.
About three years ago Dink bit my finger hard enough to cause excruciating swelling (and three years later that finger still has limited mobility), and I spent a week on staggered doses of Aleve and Benadryl so that I either dead to the pain or dead asleep. I've been known to refer to this as the best week of my life, even if it was proceeded by the worst pain I've ever experienced—because for a full week I was sleeping peaceful and I was not in pain. Chronic pain is a strange beast: mine is often a steady throbbing tightness and ache, so steady indeed that I grow inured. I forget it like you would the thrum of a refrigerator or a computer: a noise which is ever-present but no longer heard. Except you do hear it, even if you don't notice as much; if you pull the plug the silence is deafening. So it was when, for a week, I felt no pain. I only realized then just how much I had been feeling the whole time.
Today was a reprise of that week only even better. Maybe because it was so sudden, maybe because the drug causes euphoria in some users (and as I take medication very infrequently, I'm susceptible to such side-effects), maybe because my back is worse now than it was three years ago, but for whatever reason I have spent the last ten hours floating on air. I do not hurt! I can stretch and twist and nothing is tight, nothing pulls, nothing tenses. Devon compressed my back and I popped in dozens of places, realigning without a twinge of discomfort. My skin tingles, muscles having released their death grip on my nerves and veins. I've been drowsy and my vision is a bit fuzzy, and tomorrow I will probably regret the hell out of today as reawakened nerves and better circulation trigger severe soreness. But oh, I would not trade this for anything.
I am foating, giddy, loose, calm, cheerful. My neck does not hurt, and I am not in pain.
So, as the pain has continued for about five days now (and not rest nor massage nor vibration nor stretching does much to help it), Devon finally convinced me to take some medication: a single pill of Tramadol, which Devon's father takes for his back pain.
Whoo boy.
About three years ago Dink bit my finger hard enough to cause excruciating swelling (and three years later that finger still has limited mobility), and I spent a week on staggered doses of Aleve and Benadryl so that I either dead to the pain or dead asleep. I've been known to refer to this as the best week of my life, even if it was proceeded by the worst pain I've ever experienced—because for a full week I was sleeping peaceful and I was not in pain. Chronic pain is a strange beast: mine is often a steady throbbing tightness and ache, so steady indeed that I grow inured. I forget it like you would the thrum of a refrigerator or a computer: a noise which is ever-present but no longer heard. Except you do hear it, even if you don't notice as much; if you pull the plug the silence is deafening. So it was when, for a week, I felt no pain. I only realized then just how much I had been feeling the whole time.
Today was a reprise of that week only even better. Maybe because it was so sudden, maybe because the drug causes euphoria in some users (and as I take medication very infrequently, I'm susceptible to such side-effects), maybe because my back is worse now than it was three years ago, but for whatever reason I have spent the last ten hours floating on air. I do not hurt! I can stretch and twist and nothing is tight, nothing pulls, nothing tenses. Devon compressed my back and I popped in dozens of places, realigning without a twinge of discomfort. My skin tingles, muscles having released their death grip on my nerves and veins. I've been drowsy and my vision is a bit fuzzy, and tomorrow I will probably regret the hell out of today as reawakened nerves and better circulation trigger severe soreness. But oh, I would not trade this for anything.
I am foating, giddy, loose, calm, cheerful. My neck does not hurt, and I am not in pain.
