At Least I Know I Wasn't Making It Up

[ladysprite]

I've had problems with my right shoulder for years - stiff, kind of achy, and I can't move my arm as far as I can my left. Best guess is it stems back to shortly after I graduated, and spent a few years doing surgery on a table set for a man about a food taller than me. It's annoying, but I've learned to work around it, and stretch, and manage the occasional flareup with ibuprofen, ice, and heat.

It started flaring up pretty badly a couple of weeks ago, this time involving both my neck and my shoulder, and getting bad enough that I couldn't turn my head to the right, and that the pain itself was getting in the way of concentration (or occasionally, getting in the way of doing anything but sitting on the sofa and crying). Ibuprofen, ice, heat, and massage weren't touching it. Changing my sleep posture helped for a day or so, but not much. But... it's just a stiff neck. I figured it was no big deal, and I was being a baby, and there was no way it was as bad as I thought it was. I'd just ride it out.

And yesterday my hand started going numb and cold. And that kind of freaked me out. So instead of going to a concert last night I went to the ER. One CT scan and a flabbergasted doc later (apparently they don't see injuries this severe outside of pro athletes and active military), I have a diagnosis. Severe narrowing of both the nerve channels and of the spine itself, due to a combination of disc bulging and actual bone changes in the spinal column (osteophytes for those who speak doctor; arthritis for those who don't).

So instead of concerts and SCA events and work and fun, I get to spend the next five days in a drug-induced haze. Vicodin, flexeril, and if those don't work, prednisone. And I have to get a Primary Care Physician so I can get a referral to a neurosurgeon - the hope is that I won't need anything beyond epidural steroid injections (which ooks me out enough on its own), but there's a small chance it might need surgery.

Meanwhile... did I mention drug-haze? I'm a featherweight when it comes to anything that 'may cause drowsiness.' I'm typing this *right* after taking meds, so they haven't fully kicked in yet, and already the world is running at about a two- second lag and everything is spinning slowly; I expect I'll be functioning a the mental level of a glazed carrot in about half an hour, and stay there for some time. With luck I'll still make it to the concerts - at least I don't need to think clearly to listen to pretty music. But conversation isn't likely to be my strong suit for a while.

I hope this works. Because the realization that some of this is permanent changes in teh bones of my neck is scaring the hell out of me. I don't want to just have to learn to live with this level of pain for the rest of my life....

Comments

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

Glazed carrot... you funny thing. Hope you get some real improvement soon.

[pagawne.livejournal.com]

As someone who understands the pain levels and the fear. I really hope your doctors can get you some relief soonest. Thankfully, it isn't my neck, but my lower back and right knee, with generalized arthritis. (By the way it is perfectly acceptable to curse "Ather" whenever you wish, he is very RUDE visitor,comes without invitation at the most unreasonable times and long outstays his welcome.
Best of luck getting this cleared up.

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

You are the best glazed carrot ever. Let us know how we can help. Take care of yourself.

[keshwyn]

Wow. May your featherweight status translate to super-effective drugs and no surgery! I am wishing you better quickly...

[arachne8x.livejournal.com]

Keshwyn said what I wanted to say far better than I could have. *hugs*

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

You are glazed carrot just in time for Rosh Ha'shannah, so please make sure that no one pops you into a tzimmis.

Please take good care of you. You are not replaceable.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

GoodThoughts being sent for the best possible outcome of all this.

In the meantime... the next time you have a recurring low-level medical problem that doesn't go away in a reasonable length of time, stomp on that Goddamn Tape that tells you it's not important and you're just being a baby, and GET HELP before it does potentially permanent damage, okay?

[citabria]

This.

[citabria]

I'm not so sure about conversation not being your strong suit ... if you react to Vicodin at all like I do, you'll be a very amusing conversationalist when you're awake. ;)

Please, please try not to let the nature of what's going on scare you. This is not the 1950s, or even the 1990s; what can be done today, surgically, is truly amazing. (So says the queen of cervical osteophytes.) I understand that surgery is never a pleasant option, but it *is* an option today, and one with far fewer risks than ever in the past. You will *not* have to live with this level of pain from now on -- no matter what works best for you, that's pretty much a given. {{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}

And I'm sure you'll be the cutest glazed carrot in MA. :)

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

What she said.

[spiritdancer]

So when you are a bit less glazed carrot (or when Arnis sees this), give me a call and we can talk about cervical osteophytes, disc problems, and cervical epidurals (we went thru this with Daniel a couple of years ago). Long story short, the epidurals did their job. Also, whoever you get as a PCP may be able to refer you directly to a pain specialist for an epidural, with a followup with a neurosurgeon as needed (this is what happened for Daniel).

Oh, don't let the idea of an epidural bother you too much - you'll be nicely sedated when it happens, and won't remember much, if anything, of the procedure (Daniel got Versed, and was very amusing as he came back to recovery afterwards).

[joannahurley.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I'm glad you went to the doc, though, and that you have a Plan. And 5 days is cheap vs living in pain. Apparently I have a ridiculously high pain threshold (per the ob that delivered Kevin...), but there's times it breaks through even so. So knowing that, if you can fix it? Go for it. I suspect you'll be out of it the whole time, but hey, you won't miss what you were asleep for. :)

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

Hugs.

So, as you say, what you have is objectively real, treatable, and by the sound of it long term injury rather than recent degeneration. You're not being flaky, weak or needy, and you have a real, medical reason to do something about it when it hurts. As other commenters who know more than me about bone spurs say, stuff can be done, so get on with it, and stop hurting...

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

Cripes! Your dharma just doesn't DO half measures, does it?

Here's hoping your medical team is able to fix it with a minimum of poking around. I was about to bust out a recommendation for the rock-star neurologist I saw at MGH after the Great Brain Adventure, but I've just remembered that (while a rock star) he's actually a neuro-ophthalmologist, which isn't so helpful in your situation.

More helpfully, you might want to ask whomever you end up seeing about radio-frequency nerve lesioning, which, despite its slightly terrifying name, has actually helped my mother quite a lot with a chronic neck injury she received in a car crash about 20 years back. (Some pain management docs have started calling that procedure a kind of rhizotomy, though it's not actually related to the much more involved procedure that originally used that name, probably because it's less alarming than "nerve lesioning".) Hopefully the steroids will do their job, but if they need help, RF lesioning might be a useful hedge in between that and full-on neurosurgery.

And in the meantime, very careful hugs that don't compress anything which ought to be left alone for the moment. Enjoy the flexeril! I had an outstanding time with some of that and some codeine at the regional jazz festival one time in high school. On legitimate medical orders!

[gmkieran.livejournal.com]

*hugs* thinking of you - hope it gets better sooner!!!

[evcelt.livejournal.com]

Ow. Hope you get better soon. You'll be in my prayers.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

I hope the minimum treatment works.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Sorry you're having to deal with this - hope they can find a solution for you soon!

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

Glazed carrots are among my favorite things people!

This sounds absolutely miserable. I hope the crisis, at least, is short-lived.

You say you need to find a primary care physician. Are you looking for suggestions? If so, do you have any characteristics you'd like him/her to have?