FIBROMYALGIA, SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY, CINDER BLOCKS!

Tomorrow is my second, and hopefully last, exam to determine whether I am so decrepit I must, essentially, become a ward of the state.

When I found out I was to have the test, two cinder blocks immediately were stacked one on another atop my ribcage.

So for weeks my muscles have been weakening until now my lungs only can inflate enough to take in as much air as is held in two of the empty pill bottles (one for each lung) I've kept in a drawer I'm about to pour on the floor so I can make a list of most of the the meds I've previously taken.

For the MD examining me I also will need to list all current and past treatments (like trigger-point injections), ailments that accompany the pain of fibro (like chronic fatigue) -- anything I can think of... Though I won't be able to get everything down.

(I know I've written something quite similar to this post before. But hell, I'm padding my blog -- I admit it... Plus I haven't read my own stuff in a while and recall my previous pieces as corpses in need of a Dr Frankenstein. ...And I'm not referring just to the recent stuff.)

I'm afraid to tell the whole truth and nothing but to the doc tomorrow because it's going to sound like I'm horribly inflating my case.

But I'll be truthful anyway... But be sure to let the MD know it's going to seem like I'm padding -- the way I'm padding the blog right now.

[UPDATE! -- written after initial post]

My analogy using cinder blocks was stupid: It only works if I've been lying down ever since I found out about my appointment... And I've had to walk to the bathroom a few times since then.

So how about this: Since then a daily-tightening rubber band has surrounded me from armpits to floating ribs.

Or how about this: Screw the analogies. I've been increasingly anxious ever since the letter, and now I'm in such a panic I barely can breathe.

Tomorrow will decide how I live the rest of my life.

A bit stressful.

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MOTIVATION!

History has taught us that pain can make anyone do anything...

I was walking the two miles home from J’s at, what I found out when I arrived home, was about eight a.m. on a Thursday.

I kept to the side of the road, freezing...

I woke up at J’s half-covered in a blanket, the XBox controller still in my hand. I must have passed out while navigating some goddam menu the console makes players go through. Leave it to Microsoft to make accessing a game as fun and easy as typing in a proper MS-DOS command.

The first thing I noticed, before opening my eyes and realizing where I was, was the extreme pain in my head. ...The same pain that's there every morning. I soon found that I was sitting upright... Still locked in the position I likely had been in when I first went to sleep.

Then the anxiety hit. And then I noticed I was shivering, and that J must have moved from the couch he had passed out on to his bedroom. For a minute I surrounded myself in the blanket I had -- made a cocoon out of it -- and laid on the couch he had occupied. I learned that leather likes to maintain its temperature, and that if it was going to warm up, it was going to have to steal from me heat I wasn’t producing.

My morning panic attack forced me into action. I don’t know why I thought it would be possible for me to go back to sleep under any circumstances. My drugs were back home; my pill-box was empty. I hadn’t planned on staying the night, and so I hadn’t brought my morning pills.

I needed ten milligrams of OxyContin and two or three milligrams of Klonopin immediately.

I searched J’s entire first floor for a phone. All I found were chargers for cordless devices I couldn't locate. ...I couldn’t be rude and wake J up so he could drive me home, so I decided to check to see if the weather was nice enough for me to walk home in.

...I had lied to myself, because I began walking down his driveway and up the road as fast as I could as soon as I stepped outside. I had known I was going to walk home even before I stepped out the door.

At least it wasn’t raining. However, whatever the temperature was, I felt if it was a few degrees lower I would have been able to see my breath.

...I tightened the ankle straps on my sandals to try to avoid getting blisters. ...This also locked in the gravel that already had crept beneath my feet. ...I couldn't make myself stop to shake out the pebbles because I couldn't suffer a drug-free moment I could avoid.

The sun was a murderer. It focused all of its rays on my right eye, where my daily migraines emanate from. I zipped up my jacket to my chin, put on the winter hat I had worn the night before, even though it had been about sixty degrees the day before. I wondered why I was so cold, both that morning and the night before, when the the level of magnesium in small tubes indicated I had no reason to be.

It passed the time as I walked up the big hill.

A car passed and I realized I was on the Walk of Shame, and I hadn’t even gotten laid the night before. And for the first time in my life I actually found it shameful to be walking home early in the morning in the same clothes I had worn the day before, freezing and disheveled. On all previous walks like this one I had been coming back from having sex, which I could never understand anyone being ashamed of.

My thoughts occupied me as I walked as fast as I could, head down against that bastard in the center of our solar system. The pain blared in my head like bad music trying to get Noriega out of a church and into an American prison... My panic attack forced me on.

Eventually, finally, I could see my house.

I pictured the two brown bottles... My Oxy and Klonopin, waiting for me on the coffee table next to my bed and its four blankets and comforter. Not close enough...

The sun hit my eye and I grabbed my head as though it had been pierced with an arrow... A person driving by in an SUV at the same moment probably thought a wheel had kicked a pebble in my face. Whoever it was didn't stop.

...Down the driveway, through doors, my pills were on their way to my stomach. I buried myself beneath my blankets and began to feel warm as I waited for them to kick in. As I did I thought of the fact that a large percent of the population in the Eastern time zone was beginning its workday. If the person in the SUV though he/she may have blinded or otherwise injured me, he/she couldn't stop because he/she was late for work... But the person likely didn't notice me at all because his/her mind already was there.

I envied whoever it was as I lay in the dark, twisted up in my blankets.

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RITALIN: IT'S NOT JUST FOR KIDS ANYMORE!

I feel like I'm beginning to live a childhood I never had, having just been prescribed Ritalin, since I never had ADD/ADHD/whatever the hell kids who won't sit at their desks and shut the hell up are "diagnosed" with these days. (The real problem: The kids don't function at all well in a stupidly structured environment and parents and teachers don't have so much as the inclination to deal with them on their wavelength. Thank you DSM-IV for letting bad parents and teachers off the hook... And I swear this is the only swipe I'll take at you.)

...Now, with any luck, I'll be able to reverse the cycle I've been in, and sleep for about eight hours a night and be awake for about sixteen during the day! I'm sure I won't know what to do with myself... But fear excessive masturbation may be involved.

...I took my first extended-release Rit about a half-hour ago, and drugs take one-and-one-half-hours to kick in for me. So I'll see if I can stay awake today.

Until it does kick in: Still so very, very tired...

UPDATE!: Here are the drugs I now take for fibro, generalized anxiety and chronic fatigue disorder:

OxyContin, 40mg daily
Klonopin, 6mg daily
Prozac, 30mg daily
Ritalin, extended release, 20mg daily

With any luck the Ritalin will help me take another pained step toward the shadow of my former self...

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WEDNESDAY I GET EXAMINED BY A SOCIAL SECURITY DOCTOR!

It seems the long wait may finally be nearing an end... And what I call my early retirement near its beginning.

I am to be examined by a doctor who will then report my status to the Social Security Disability Administration. I'm sure to be diagnosed with cognitive memory disorder, which fibromyalgians lovingly call fibro fog, because I've been diagnosed with it twice. Said disorder is the reason someone I know was awarded disability, so I feel pretty good about my newfound idiocy being just cause for "awarding" me benefits.

(This is a snip of a conversation I had with the first psychologist who diagnosed me with cognitive memory disorder:

"So basically I'm a moron now."

"That depends on what your IQ was before you got fibro."

At the time -- and this one -- I'm still intelligent enough to find the above hilarious.)

Also, there's the fact that no one will hire someone who has to eat OxyCodone and Klonopin like candy and that, for months at a time -- times like now -- I have to sleep for sixteen hours of every day.

I would be a total liability to anyone who would hire me... Whacked on Oxy and Klonopin (most people think of these two as incredibly debilitating in and of themselves... However, they allow me to function. Still, no one would put me at the helm of a steamroller... I'd be a lawsuit waiting to happen), unable to remember what happened or what I was told to do any given five minutes ago...

I'm unemployable.

I feel reasonably certain that will be the finding of the doctor I see Wednesday.

...It's an odd thing, to hope that this will be his conclusion.

But there is no other to draw.

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FIBROMYALGIA TREATMENTS: WHAT WORKS!

I'm posting this so, hopefully, readers who have fibromyalgia can get to this post quickly to find out what works and what doesn't. Here's what works:

1) NARCOTICS.

OxyContin, tailored to the dose you, personally, need, for instance. But different people in chronic pain need different narcotics. Which is to write, as I have before, that some fibromyalgians will benefit most from hydrocodone, some from morphine, and so on.

The take-away from this being that the only thing that will reduce your pain by an appreciable level is a narcotic analgesic. Fuck anyone and anything that touts a "natural" cure.

Well, I got ahead of myself: Fuck anything that says it's a "cure." By definition, fibro is incurable. If you thought you had fibro but it went away through one or another action(s), you didn't have fibro and please shut the fuck up because the people who actually have it are being hoist with your petard by the thousands.

My own mother told me about someone she knows who has fibro, but who does not experience daily, constant pain. I had to refer her to the exact diagnostic criteria to show her she had a hypochondriac (or wicked asshole) on her hands (and wasn't told the name of the person because I wanted to track her down and give her a taste of the pain she, despite "having fibro," wasn't in. ...Such is the insanity induced by my pain.)

Fibro is coming to encompass too many things that it is not because of inept doctors and moronic patients.

Anyone who knows anything about fibro is a pain specialist, pure, simple. And knows: Fibro is pain. Treat it with painkillers.

There are diets you can read about that claim they can cure you. If the diet cures you, you have Celiac's Disease, not fibro. Both cause quite similar symptoms.

Please, everyone who does not have fibro, shut the fuck up so fibromyalgians can be treated properly, so the disorder can get some goddam respect -- stop keeping us in the limbo of having been diagnosed with a pseudo-disorder, while you can simply cut gluten out of your diet and live pain-free, but unable to eat pizza.

...Trust me: Fibromyalgians feel your pain, douchebag.

2) NOTHING ELSE.

Only narcotic analgesics help people with fibro.

Sure, Lyrica may bring your pain down one number on the pain scale, but the extra fifty pounds you gain that it puts on your joints and vertebra are going to put your pain right back where it was.

Cymbalta: Doctors will be happy to give you this, along with thirty-or-so pills/injections that will do nothing or next to it, instead of prescribing you narcotics. (Pain relief from an NSRI. ...If I could laugh at that I wouldn't be able to catch my breath and drop dead, blue as a Smurf...)

However it is, by its weak ability to increase the amount of dopamine in one's brain (not by increasing norepinephrine, as most docs will say) also capable of bringing your pain down maybe one point on the scale.

But you'll still feel suicidally painful if you actually have fibro.

In short: Narcotics are the answer. Narcotics are the only treatment that works for fibromyalgia.

This must be accepted by doctors, and narcotic analgesic treatment must be insisted upon by patients (please see previous posts for all the crap I had to go through to finally get chronic opioid analgesic therapy).

If your pain isn't enough to make you cry your lungs out every day for a dose of morphine or oxycodone, chances are you don't have fibro and you're harming everyone who actually has the disorder. Find out what you really have, and don't let your doctor diagnose you as a fibromyalgian despite the fact you don't have a single trigger/tender point.

If your pain hasn't made you wish you were dead since it started, please get the correct diagnosis and shut the fuck up about fibromyalgia.

Please, as this disease becomes understood, let doctors and patients realize, together, the only effective treatment for it: narcs.

To anyone who can be helped with anything else enough to matter: You don't have fibro. You're not helping yourself by being misdiagnosed with fibromyalgia, and you're hurting everyone who has fibromyalgia by going with whatever bullshit treatment you're being given (I could go into cortisol here) and finding that it helps your so-called fibromyalgia...

I understand that fibro is irresistable to hypochondriacs... Fibro is quite an easy disorder to pretend you have if you do your homework.

The problems is that you fuckers are helped with placebos, with Lyrica, with Cymbalta -- you're in studies yourselves and keeping out true fibromyalgians and making sure that our treatment stays bullshit.

To all fibro-pretenders: Just let me press down with my thumb on a certain place in your lower back for about thirty seconds, and we'll know what you have and do not have.

[Jesus, did the ire rise today. And I've been happy all day, too. ...I never know what's in my head until I sneeze it out.

Pain: 4/5. Debilitating, the best it will get... though I may want to think about upping to 50mg Oxy next month... Still too soon to say for sure -- I need to see exactly what 40mg can do, and it's been only a week now.

Anxiety: 4/10. Debilitating, the best it will get.

I would not dare complain that my conditions are managed as well as they are... I believe I feel the best I possibly can.

Still, I do miss being able to lift more than ten pounds...]

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IF I HAD SKATED YESTERDAY!:

Yesterday I walked around the local skate park because the outdoor section just opened for the year. Then I walked around the local college's campus to see what I am missing now that I can't skate.

...Why the masochism?...

And, since I can't skate, I made up this story on what happened yesterday. I made sure the experience sucked so I wouldn't hate the fact that I'm now lame and can only walk.

...Maybe I need Heelys...

Anyway: "Yesterday":

Skating sucked yesterday... In the outdoor section, all the (wooden) ramps at the skate park were warped from the winter, and dropping in was like picking my way through a minefield... "OK I'll drop in here, have to miss those nails and that indentation (on the vertical part of the ramp, no less), then deal with the crack right before the fun box (at some parks not-so-aptly named), then immediately get my feet together for a 180 -- but have to jump before the exposed screw at the top of the box -- then land and navigate fakie (backwards) between the water puddles."

After only two hours of dealing with the not-so-fun boxes and treacherous ramps I ended up going to Lummox University. The place is even more of a skate park now than it was when I was a teenager, learning everything I know now. I was totally blown away: the perfect street course. Rails of all lengths and gradations of steepness, a huge gap to 180 over that allowed you to choose, by picking your launch spot, how far you needed to jump and how far you wanted to drop, and on and on.

And all within an area the size of a football field.

Why did I even go to the park? I already had jammed my left shoulder by misjudging my speed when launching to a disaster soul... I had no idea I would be going as fast as I was, since I hadn't dropped in on the ramp I used until that trick, and so I seemed to hang in the air after my jump, waiting to come down to earth so my skates could catch the ledge. My back skate did, but by then my front foot didn't know what to do with itself. I had almost launched the entire fun box, and I was straightening my skate out to land on the flat just when it caught the last half-foot of the ledge.

This made my front foot wash over the top of the ledge. which led to my entire body spinning ninety degrees atop the ledge, then to me taking the two-foot drop (from ledge to ground -- five feet for my shoulder) on my shoulder. At speed.

Back to the university:

I decided to give it a go at my favorite rail of all time -- an aluminum tube made smooth by thousands of previous grinds, hundreds of them my own -- long enough to make you proud you could actually lock in and ride out your grind for that long, but not long enough that if you fell you would be going too fast and hurt yourself (the rail runs down eleven steps).

I had a porn star (grind -- my balance mostly on the soul of my front skate, my back skate on the rail between my second and third wheels) locked in on my fourth try, but was a little off balance when I came off the rail fakie, my preferred may to dismount rails (the best-looking), with my left wheels not quite level with the ground. My boot was almost sliding along the concrete -- and all my weight was on that skate. This caused me to bend my knees until my ass almost touched the ground and my arms to spin like windmill blades as I attempted to get my balance onto my right skate.

Suddenly my left foot gave out entirely. My left skate's ankle strap exploded which, I soon found out, carved scrapes into my lower leg as it buckled into the skate. The scrapes on my lower leg, together, look like a shark bite.

(From pseudo-landing the grind to buckle explosion took only about two seconds, in which I covered a distance of about five feet.)

Naturally, I immediately removed the broken skate and heaved it into a wall while yelling FUCK! as loud as I could. I had almost proved to myself that I was perhaps three-fourths as good a skater as I had been almost a decade ago.

...My behavior is not kid-friendly in that it is completely childish, I thought as some parents who walked by gave me reproachful looks, holding their kid's head between them as though trying to insulate his mind from the word I had yelled. They turned away from me the moment I looked at them, vehement, likely afraid that my anger at botching the landing could be turned on them...

I calmed down an iota as I thought the situation over, seething while examining my skate: that's what the ankle strap is for: to break in a situation that would otherwise break your ankle. So I suppose I can't complain too much.

I should definitely use the broken-skate-thing as a reason/excuse to finally quit skating... But my christ it's harder to give up than smoking...

[Lots of fiction lately. I apologize, but guarantee it's more interesting than any presentation I could give of my actual life.

In case you're curious:

Pain seems to be about 5/10 with 40mg OxyContin daily, but more experience at this dose is, of course, necessary.

Anxiety with 6mg Klonopin daily: 5/10. A friend and I agreed a few days ago that "If you're not freaked right the fuck out all the time, you're not thinking hard enough."

...The things you let yourself believe to get by...]

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MUSIC TO SOOTHE SAVAGE FIBROMYALGIA: THE ARCADE FIRE!

This is Intervention and Wake Up (performed at the T), my two favorite songs by The Arcade Fire.

I've seen these guys twice. The first time I saw them they were on their first tour, visiting the 9:30 club in Wash., DC. Watch out for the guy with the crazy hair, the big drum, the harpsichord, the guitar, the tambourine, the kitchen sink. At 9:30 he left the stage at the end of the show by climbing the wall somehow, swinging over to the balcony and going through a Staff Only door.

Until that show I had only listened to the (first) album a few times, and liked it quite a lot. Still, at the time I was into an all-Arts-&-Crafts-bands-all-the-time kick. But a friend of mine knew if he invited me I wouldn't turn him down (I owe that bastard) because I'll see any band, within reason.

(Wow. I could knock so many bands right now... Good thing fibro fog is preventing me, right now, from coming up with any bands I hate... And recalling bands I hate likely is further complicated by the fact that I don't listen to them or think about them.)

Moving along: Since the show at 9:30 I've loved the Fire intensely (my wordplay, especially when unintentional, makes me cringe). In my not-humble opinion (all who disagree are simply wrong), seeing Wake Up live will change your life forever, and much for the better. There's nothing like screaming/moaning at the top of one's lungs in tune with thousands of people... Cathartic.

The last time I saw them I knew I had fibro. I screamed and screamed.

Everyone screamed with me.

[I likely will not post tomorrow since I will be getting back, then, from a short trip I'm taking today. I'd rather not go, however, because I forgot to take my Oxy last night and wish I had died in my sleep and was on the coroner's slab right now instead of about to go someplace and have to put on a smiley... But I am proud of myself, at least, for not doubling-up this morning...

I'll be getting back here late tomorrow night. Traveling makes me super-anxious, so I'll be drunk as hell when I return and just crawl into bed. ...That's the plan at least.

PS: The above "drunk as hell" bit was a lie. I would never drink on OxyContin, Klonopin and Prozac. What am I, stupid, and with anxiety that can't be controlled, when travel is involved, even by the holy trinity (POK)? The nerve (of me to pretend I know what you actually thought after reading what I wrote)!

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THE TENS UNIT: GREAT FOR MYOFASCIAL PAIN SYNDROME (TMJ-ISH), NOT MUCH ELSE!

"Temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJD, TMJ or TMD), or TMJ syndrome, is an umbrella term covering acute or chronic inflammation of the temporomandibular joint, which connects the lower jaw to the skull. The disorder and resultant dysfunction can result in significant pain and impairment.

...

"Muscle pain can sometimes be associated with trigger points in muscle tissue. These trigger points can be localized by digital palpation, both intraorally and extraorally. This is known as myofascial pain syndrome."

The above is from Wikipedia.

Here is how I use my TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) unit to help with my myofascial trigger points, which hurt like hell, curtail how wide I can open my mouth and cause me to bite down on my teeth extremely hard in my sleep, and probably grind them a bit (known as bruxism... One night I forgot to wear my bite block, which situates a plastic pad between my molars to keep them apart like parents would homicidal children riding in the back of the family van on a very long trip. In the morning I discovered that I had shattered my back-bottom-right molar into four pieces):

I place the two-inch-diameter electrodes (sticky pads) directly on my TMJ and turn up the juice. I electrocute the hell out of the joint for only about a minute every morning and night because I'm placing the electrodes right on my trigeminal nerve, which allows one to feel one's face (somewhat important... Even if one experiences only pain from it), and if I fuck that nerve up I'll end up looking like a stroke victim... But perhaps on both sides of my face.

I should note that all TENS units tell users specifically NOT TO DO THIS. Therefore, like just about anything else I do, I cannot recommend it to anyone else.

But oh sweet zombie jeebus how much it helps...

The trigger points remain painful to the touch, but I can open my mouth wider than I have been able to in years. The electrode-application seems to function as the most effective massage on earth. I probably would have to be massaged all day, just on my TMJ, to achieve the same results.

I'd rank the improvement in my facial pain from a 10/10 to a 4/10. Pretty damn amazing.

So I love my TENS unit dearly, even though it does absolutely nothing for any of my other trigger points or pains. The relief I get from my myofascial pain is enough to make me wish my TENS unit were a woman so I could marry her. What's more, I'd switch teams and marry it if it were a guy and we lived in Massachusetts. ...Well, as long as it (he) didn't have a mustache...

That written, DO NOT USE A TENS UNIT FOR TMJ OR MYOFASCIAL PAIN SYNDROME! (Following my motto, adapted from Gandhi: Cover the ass you want to see in the world.)

[It makes sense for the pain and anxiety scales to make a comeback now that I'm on 30mg of OxyContin and 6mg Klonopin:

Pain: 6.5/10.

Anxiety: 4/10.

I see Dr ML&S April 7, at which point I hope to have my Oxy dose increased, so my pain should decrease even more. At this point I will be treated, medically, as best as is possible. This will likely mean that my pain and anxiety will both be around 3.5/10. Still debilitating, but the best that can be done, and enough to make me happy. Ish.]

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DEALING WITH THE FALLOUT FROM MY PREVIOUS E-MAIL TO X!:

[The below is my response to an e-mail X sent me after the e-mail I sent to her, and previously posted.]

I truly didn't mean to cause a shitstorm here.

Anyway, my problems were never that I was abusing drugs -- my problems were fibro and everything that comes with it, plus under-treated generalized anxiety disorder.

Tons of shit comes with fibro... Likely everything you thought was caused by drugs.

But now I'm on 30mg OxyContin, 6mg Klonopin, 60mg Prozac daily -- just-about optimal treatment. The problem before was that I was not on the right drugs, nor the right dosages.

I am unbelievably better now and probably feel as good as I ever will (though my Oxy probably will get bumped up a bit).

If you thought I was having a drug problem, you should have brought it up... You would have found out that I haven't been on Percocet (drugs) since early January. I've had to do without any pain medication for months, and that has been the cause of all my problems. I even came close to offing myself...

And after going through all that, to be so misunderstood is incredibly hurtful. This is obviously the worst time in my life so far (and hopefully in my entire life), but we DO talk about you and your problems primarily.

Granted, I'm not incredibly forthcoming when it comes to mine... But shit -- can't you figure out that losing my life as I knew it was/is incredibly tumultuous? Did you really need me to spell it out?

And I'm sorry, but there are many times that you make me feel like the only reason you don't "lose ME" is because I am useful to you, in that I can predict what your douchbag ex was/is doing.

I don't want to "lose you." I just want you to get rid of the fucking fuck somehow...

So what I wrote was off the mark. I missed one out of 100. I apologize. I just wish the fucker was out of your life so we could talk about anything else but that thing that continues wasting the rest of the world's oxygen...

I didn't want to offend you, and I apologize for doing so.

But christ, can't you block his numbers? Can't you do SOMEthing more than what you're doing?

And I don't know why I seemed to go off today... My head feels strange now that it is clear. Or as clear as it ever has been since I have had fibro.

Maybe I was having a Woe-Is-Me moment for some reason and decided everyone else's problems are minuscule compared to mine and that I didn't have to be civil.

Probably the case, and I don't know why.

I apologize. ...And I know part of my behavior is that I'm almost as sick of your rat-fucker of an ex as you are...

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MY PREJUDICE AGAINST CHRISTIANS IS DESPICABLE!

"Anyway, I'll write about what happens tomorrow at my shrink's. He's in a place that advertises itself as providing 'Christian Mental Health Services.' ...So hopefully I'm not taken off all drugs and told to simply pray away my anxiety (and fibro, for that matter, which could just be god's way of telling me I'm pissing him off with the atheism thing...)."

I wrote that yesterday. I apologize for being offensive -- though it was, of course, a gross exaggeration for humor's sake.

But was it funny?

I don't think of it as very funny today, after seeing Dr. Sweet at the place that offers "Christian Mental Health Services."

But Dr. Sweet did act differently from many psychiatrists I have been to: in that he listened, was empathetic, and really knew his stuff.

He took a history, trusted me, and put me back on 6mg of Klonopin. Ideal!

He also gave me a neurological test that, once again, proved that I have cognitive memory disorder. Or is it cognitive deficit disorder? ...Point made: I'm dumb now. I have what we fibromyalgians refer to as fibro fog.

My anxiety is down today thanks to Dr. Sweet. I spent only about 40 minutes with him, but he improved my life immensely in that time.

In the future he only wants to do med checks, which is the exact appropriate thing, but means I will see him in four months, if I still am in Lummox at that time. If I am not, I can only hope to find his doppelganger in Portland.

I apologize for my idiocy. And we know I'm not talking about the fibro fog on this score.

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MUSIC TO SOOTHE SAVAGE FIBROMYALGIA: BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE!

Now that I'm used to OxyContin (the side effects are gone, the pain relief is not and, I have every reason to believe, never will be), it's back to insomnia.

I'm seeing a new shrink tomorrow morning, so hopefully he writes me a script for Trazodone, 200mg of which allows me to sleep... Or has in the past, anyway... I haven't taken it in a while and antidepressant drugs have a funny way of not doing what they once did after they haven't been taken for a while, or after they've been taken for a few weeks or months.

Which is to write that drugs like Trazodone (an atypical antidepressant best used for insomnia) can crap out on you at any time. They're magical that way.

...Or maybe I can get my Klonopin back up to 6mg per day. Having a lot less anxiety would allow me to get much more sleep (8.5 hours is my personal requirement... It's what I needed -- and got -- almost every night before I had fibro).

Anyway, I'll write about what happens tomorrow at my shrink's. He's in a place that advertises itself as providing "Christian Mental Health Services." ...So hopefully I'm not taken off all drugs and told to simply pray away my anxiety (and fibro, for that matter, which could just be god's way of telling me I'm pissing him off with the atheism thing...).

Until then, enjoy Lover's Spit!

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FIBROMYALGIA HAS TAKEN AWAY MY ABILITY TO SKATE... BUT IS SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY TO BE 'AWARDED' SOON?(!)

Well, no more skating. I can’t stand the pain after falling more than a few times... And the slightest brush of a knee against a metal ledge when I miss a grind causes the joint to balloon (see prev. post).

So now I have to find another way to have fun.

Parkour? ...I need to find something that involves mortal danger (otherwise, where’s the excitement?), but causes less pain than busting my ass and knees from grinds...

Maybe I can get back into skiing... I’m hopefully about to move to Portland, near Mt. Hood and year-round skiing...

Of course, these are stupid fantasies. I haven’t come to accept the limitations fibro puts on my physical activity.

I must come to accept walking as the most strenuous activity I can do, and ten pounds as the most I can lift (no joke), and that with incredible pain.

Fuck.

Speaking of moving to Portland, I suppose my Social Security disability claim could be approved soon. Hopefully within a month, allowing me to move and once again live independently.

The waiting has become unbearable. The closer I come to being given disability benefits, the farther away it is in my sight.

...Days stretch like months... I watch the clock and urge it on but the hands move counterclockwise...

Which, naturally, makes me extremely anxious. A 10/10, as it always has been, or thereabouts, ever since I have had to live here in Lummox...

...Agony... Anxiety... Waiting...

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HERE'S HOPING MY TENS UNIT WILL EASE MY FIBROMYALGIA!

Today I had my second-to-last physical therapy appointment. My therapist, who I refer to as Mary Cassatt, worked with my insurance and got me a TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) unit for free. Love her -- which explains why she gets a great name and people like Dr. Douchebag get names like Dr. Douchebag (those who follow this blog will know that he's the shrink who cut my Klonopin dose from 6mg to 4mg per day before he knew anything about my case. I've been super-anxious ever since he did that, and he doesn't care one bit. What a fucking douchebag...).

So I'm about to watch TV and electrocute the hell out of myself for the rest of the night. Should be fun!

...I'm also definitely getting used to the 30mg of OxyContin per day that I'm on. Yesterday (or today, to nitpick) I went to sleep at about 2:00 and woke at 10:00. Not bad. And I didn't feel like I had to dive under my bed's covers at 8:00 pm like I have every preceding day this week. Good stuff!

And today I don't feel tired or apathetic at all, plus I'm not getting motion sickness. Pretty sweet!

So I currently use only Oxy, Klonopin, Prozac, and a TENS unit to control my pain (from fibro) and generalized anxiety disorder (which is really, left unchecked, a 24/7 panic attack). And I think I may as well drop the Prozac. But I'll probably have to wait to get out of my parents' house to do that, since they figure I may as well take it since it may be doing something and it's cheap because I get the generic: fluoxetine.

But, the Prozac, I am all but sure, is doing nothing. Studies show that antidepressants are only slightly better than placebos. ...And I've been on every SSRI, SNRI, Gabitril, et al, and none of them helped. I have always needed Klonopin, and have been on large doses of benzodiazepines since age eighteen. It's the only thing that works for my anxiety at all and, therefore, the only thing I truly believe I should be taking for it.

So after all the crap with all my doctors -- I've seen about fifteen in all for my fibro -- I'm simply going to be on Klonopin, OxyContin, and use a TENS unit.

Very, very simple. The doctors I see and have seen, of course, had to make it as fucking hard as possible for me to get to this point -- trying probably around thirty drugs in all that didn't work, under-treating my pain and anxiety while doing so (except for Dr. L in DC. Guy is a genius, and provided me with the most stable period of my life by taking such good care of my GAD in my pre-fibro days).

To wrap things up: I have known for years that all I truly need are OxyContin and Klonopin. But it has taken years to get down to just these two (after I wean myself off Prozac/fluoxetine).

Most doctors do not listen. And most have their favorite therapies. And most hate to prescribe their patients Oxy and Klonopin because they're potentially addictive and can induce tolerance.

BUT NOT IN PEOPLE WITH FIBROMYALGIA AND AN ANXIETY DISORDER.

Doctors need to wake the hell up to the above reality.

Now for some electrocution!

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STILL GETTING ACCUSTOMED TO OXYCONTIN...!

I am so very tired...

Especially after going crazy in physical therapy. I am in pain, having a bit of a panic attack, and need some Klonopin and a nap.

Which is what's I'm going to take and what I'm going to do.

I should be accustomed to this side-effect (feeling logy) in a week or so.

In the meantime, this blog could be a bit boring, I'm afraid. But the excitement should return around Sunday.

In the meantime, I'll post what I can and try to make it interesting...

Hopefully I have interesting dreams while I sleep the clock around...

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OXYCONTIN, SOCIAL SECURITY, AND HELL!

I couldn’t post yesterday because my server was down. So here’s what happened yesterday:

I had to fill out new forms for my lawyers who only now are getting around to processing my change of address. ...I guess this is what happens when you hire a big firm and they switch your caseworker one billion times on you: Important things are shunted into the memory Hole. (Note to self: I’ve used “Memory Hole” too much lately.)

So I had to fill in a form to let my current caseworker know that she needs to check out my six new doctors -- my psychologist, my neuropsychologist, my GP, my pain management specialist, my psychiatrist and my physical therapist.

So the ball is rolling in Jesusland... But that ball feels a lot like the boulder Sisyphus rolls...

Also, I’ve been taking 30mg OxyContin daily, and have yet to adjust to its side-effects. namely, I get motion sickness from being in a car for two minutes and constantly feel tired.

This, too, shall pass.

Also (I’m wicked-awesome at transitions...), I’m finishing Dante’s Inferno today. It has failed to bring me back into the Catholic fold because the people he finds in hell who are punished harshly are the people he, personally, hates the most.

So this atheist, apparently, is only going to hell if Dante is my judge, and finds my character unbecoming...

It would seem I will end up with the Virtuous Pagans. In which case, the Citadel provides all the light I will need.

...Then again, I’ve had freaky sex (“freaky” in Dante’s view, includes oral and probably any position but missionary), so I suppose I could be cast about with the Sodomites. But, then, Dante put three of his favorite writers in with the Sodomites, and writes that their fate seems not-too harsh. ...And is the only person to ever suggest that these persons were Sodomites.

It seems to me that, before he took a break in writing the Inferno, Dante would have cast them in with the Virtuous Pagans, if not placed them in Purgatory, had he not wanted to talk to them so badly.

So my afterlife, according to Dante, should not be so bad... At least I’m not one of his hated popes. Then again, he judges everyone but the Florentines to be incredibly sinful people... But it should serve me well that I am not from any of the Italian places he names that are full of nothing but Grafters, etc.

Which brings me to this larger point: All religious people would place in Hell those they, personally, detest.

Leave it to divine judgment and shut the fuck up, people!

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FIBROMYALGIA + BAD SKATING = OW!

I went skating today. The first pic is my left knee, the second is my right:



Note how the left is already so swollen my patella is almost hard to make out.

I went for a disaster torque (grind): I went down a mini-ramp, jumped off a three-foot-high launch, and I actually had the trick -- on a ledge five-and-a-half-ish feet in the air, balanced between the third and fourth wheel of my frame and on my tweaked left boot. Then... Well, something happened.

I don't think it sunk in that I actually had the grind. It was stupid of me to try it in the first place because it was my second time out in two years... But a bunch of grommets were blocking the fun box and I had grown sick of running into and then yelling at them.

So when I came to the end of the ledge I didn't know how to land -- forward, backward? What if I just let things sort themselves out and drop straight down onto my knee and bash the smaller ledge below?

...The latter is what I went with.

...So the above makes it a good time to talk about how the OxyContin is working (I started taking it today because I was a little excited). I've taken two pills today, 10mg each (and have found out that taking 10mg of OxyContin means taking only about 8mg to 9mg of oxycodone over a period of time), and things seem to be well. I take another at bedtime. I may not have to take as much oxycodone in the time-release preparation because it provides round-the-clock relief. I won't be building up a massive migraine in my sleep every night...

However, the lower dose of oxycodone means that my IBS is... er, causing problems... (I promise never to discuss IBS in any detail.) But my pain is still about a 6/10... Unless you count my damaged knee and how it feels...

...Well, then I guess my pain would be a 6/10 nevertheless. Fibro puts one in such a state of pain that, as I've told many doctors, I'm sure I could take a bullet in the gut and hardly give a shit. ...The positive spin is that I would actually be able to drive myself to the ER with one hand and hold in my intestines with the other.

So I suppose my point, then, is rather well illustrated: Whatever I did to my knee to make it balloon like it has did not increased my pain one iota. It's simply impossible to bend the fucker.

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OXYCONTIN!: THE CLOSEST THING TO A CURE FOR FIBROMYALGIA?(!)

My apologies for not posting in a while. I spent the past few days at my younger brother's and couldn't post because it would have been rude.

So now I'm very tired and about to nap, sitting here, upright.

But I felt the need to write that I have been prescribed OxyContin, and look forward to starting taking it because I believe it is likely to be the best way to manage my pain. I'm going to start taking Oxy Monday because I'm going to go to the local skate park tomorrow. My pain is that much more tolerable, and my life that much better, that I can resume the activity that, after writing and sex, gives my life purpose!

...It's important to note, here, that doctors will tell you that narcotics will turn you into a zombie who never will leave his/her couch.

More bullshit(which is all you should expect to hear when a doctor talks about narcotic/opiate analgesics). When you take someone's pain level down to a tolerable level, they can stop being a zombie, get off the couch and do what they will. Before treatment the person was in too much pain to be able to move much. You take away the pain, you take away the impetus behind the person's near-immobility.

...I'm going to be taking 10mg pills every eight hours, so the dosing is more convenient... Better than taking five Percocets every three hours and fifteen minutes, anyway.

I just hope me taking 10mg of OxyContin doesn't mean I'll only be getting 30mg of oxycodone per day. That would seem to be a step back in my treatment, since I currently take 50mg of oxycodone per day.

Of course, you'll be able to read all about how well things go this week. But I'm cautiously optimistic!

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MUSIC TO SOOTHE SAVAGE FIBROMYALGIA: THE GO! TEAM!

My Internet connection is going to crap out at any second. This is my third try on this browser (sixth overall) to bring you The Go! Team: The Wrath of Marcie.





I'll write when I can be sure what I put up won't go down the Internet Memory Hole.

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CLEAN PISS!

I got a call today: My drug test came back quickly, and I'm clean... But for the oxycodone, of course.

Much rejoicing...

Dr ML&S will see me Friday, at which point I'll discuss upping my dose, and taking straight oxy instead of Percocet, which has Tylenol. Right now I take five pills a day, 10mg oxy, 325mg APAP (aka Tylenol) per pill. Fibromylagia is a disorder one has for one's entire life, incurable as of this writing (and I'm not holding my breath for one...).

So I need to be on oxycodone for the rest of my life. But here's the trick: Most doctors give you oxycodone or morphine or whatever in a preparation like Vicodin, Percocet, and on because they want to be able to catch you overdosing -- or at least catch you taking more than they had prescribed.

Here's how it's done: by prescribing oxycodone, morphine, etc pills that contain Tylenol/APAP. Four grams of Tylenol is an overdose. The whites of your eyes will turn yellow as my clean piss and you'll get liver damage for the rest of your life if you take more than that. And doctors definitely don't want you taking more than is prescribed.

So, daily I'm ingesting 1,625mg of APAP so my doctor can be sure that I won't take a megadose of oxy.

Why would I? I have a certain number of pills for a set number of days. If I take more one day I screw myself the next. And I think it's been established that I do not like pain, and so avoid it or, perhaps more accurately, elide it as much as is possible. I do so, now, by taking five Percs a day.

I would like to be prescribed oxycodone, nothing but, because APAP is worse for you than the oxy. In fact, taking APAP daily for the remainder of my life is bound to eventually compromise my liver.

Also, to purify my pills and take nothing but oxy I would only have to perform a simple cold-water extraction of it from pulverized Percs, five times daily. In fact, if I am to be prescribe nothing but Percocet, I plan on performing cold-water extractions of it to help my liver out.

(Google "cold-water extraction" and vicodin or percocet to know how this is done... But I can't recommend that everyone or even anyone do this because I don't want some fucker suing me because they are able to take an oxy overdose after performing extractions. And Tylenol does prevent that. But in this awful way: You'll die from a Tylenol overdose well before you'll die from having taken too much oxy.)

Of course, doctors will tell you that the APAP enhances the effects of oxy, so you have to take less of the narcotic itself. Pure bullshit. Narcotics come with APAP so doctors can easily know if you've tried to take too much of what you've been prescribed.

...And the "easy way" will land you in the emergency room, and you'll be lucky to live through your APAP overdose. Better you had OD-ed on oxy. Far easier to survive, and no permanent damage done to any of your organs, most likely.

(I do not endorse the taking of oxycodone by anyone but me. Is my ass covered now?)

The truth is that opiates/opioids are the safest drugs to take. If you take too much you'll fall asleep -- the only "negative" effect. However, if you're trying to kill yourself, I suppose it's a great way to go. You'll get high as Stalin was on power and syphilis -- unless you suffer from chronic pain and, therefore, can never get high off pain medication -- and die from respiratory depression.

But I have no idea how much oxy that takes. I would guess approximately one assload.

...And anecdotal evidence shows that heroin addicts live a damn long time. Their shit can be cut with strychnine and it's apparently safer than Tylenol.

...Was all the above simply a way to justify what will be my reasonable request for 30 more milligrams of oxy when I see Dr ML&S Friday, and to not have the oxy coupled with APAP? Why do I feel the need to justify it at all?

In any case, I hope I, at least, spread some pro-narc pro-propaganda...

I hope to write about my progress in physical therapy tomorrow... But if you've been following this blog, you know I often plan on writing about something and then get completely sidetracked.

Nothing like a good tangent... (And a good tangent, in my eyes, is any one that doesn't involve trigonometry.)

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PROBLEM SOLVED?(!)

I wrote a letter to Dr ML&S, delivered it this morning, and was taking another piss test this afternoon.

If this one shows up clean -- and I have every reason to believe it will -- he will continue to see me, and to prescribe Percocet.

Whew!

I would transcribe the note for you, but I don't have it. I believe it's now part of my chart at Lummox Family Medical (too lazy to see if that's consistent nomenclature for where I go to see Dr 9 and ML&S).

But what had pissed off Dr ML&S most about my previous test is that he thought I lied to him. I was honest when I said I had ganked a morphine from I won't say who, but didn't tell him I smoked weed.

...I didn't because I don't. So the letter I wrote described to him why I didn't tell him THC would show up in my piss: it didn't occur to me that it would or even could.

I also made sure to let him know that he saved my life, literally, because I was seriously contemplating suicide before he wrote the Percocet prescription. I also let him know of my incredible improvement in physical therapy.

So he's a great guy for letting me take another test. This results of this one should come back to me in two days. Then, when all is well, I will see the doc on Friday, at which point we'll discuss my situation since I saw him last. I plan on asking for 20mg more of oxycodone -- and to ask for it straight up -- without the added Tylenol. Since I'm going to need oxy the rest of my life, the last thing I need is APAP eating away at my stomach and liver.

So all should be well!

...What a freaking relief...

[Pain: 5/5.

Anxiety: 7/10.

And if you're visiting this site after being redirected from Wordpress: Welcome! Hope you like the new digs!]

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