My appointment with the Pain Clinic was yesterday morning. The journey to Milwaukee has left me reeling, but it was a productive one.
I'm not sure if I have discussed the difficulties I have with different modes of transportation, so I'll explore that here and get back to the medicinal updates to close this entry.
Prior to my RSD outbreak I would travel by train to Chicago on alternating weekends to take custody of my daughter for visitation. I can no longer ride a train due to the severe increase of pain caused by the seat designs, vibrations during movement, and overall roughness of the trip. My visitation has been nearly reduced to 0, and I only visit with my daughter when I am able to find vehicular transportation to Chicago, and then it is only when she has large portions of time off of school.
So trains are no longer a possible form of transportation.
My mother owns a Subaru something or other, and it's seat design is a nightmare for an individual with RSD in a lower extremity. The sides of the bottom portion of the seat have large pads that stick up roughly two inches from the bottom pad. When sitting in these seats those side cushions inevitably bump the leg and put an undue pressure upon it. This causes severe pain that can take several days to recover from.
My mother is the individual who takes me to roughly half of my appointments.
Other vehicles that don't have elevated sides to the bottom cushion are fine as long as they have a decent suspense system. If the shocks are overly stiff it causes rough jolts that severely increase my pain.
Back to medications.
The doctors are putting notes into their system requesting changes to a majority of my medications. Instead of Fentanyl, they're requesting a prescription for Methadone. Vinlafaxin (or however it is spelled) will be replaced by Cymbalta, and they're prescribing a powerful muscle relaxant for all my muscle spasms...
As the medications come in I'll update my medications page.
I have to admit that, despite the increased pain, I slept well last night with zero nightmares. Very exciting!
Thank you all for taking the time to read my thoughts.
Sincerely,
K.M. Shear
I swear by Cymblata for pain and other - been on it for three years now - 3.5, I tried to lessen my dose and my pain level started to climb after a few days. It takes awhile for everything to really set in, I'm currently on the max dose, which is where I imagine where you will be. Methadone will be better than the Fentanyl for obvious reasons, obvious to you and I anyway.
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