browser life

Ok, for about three years or so, I've been complaining to rheumatologists that I thought the arthritis in my low back was getting worse and that it ought to be checked out. Each time, they would tell me it was just my fibromyalgia and would look no further. They know I have an autoimmune disease that causes problems in addition to the fibromyalgia, but for some reason when they see the fibro diagnosis they stop taking you seriously no matter what else is going on.

So Friday morning, I'm getting ready to go to my aquacise class for people with arthritis. All I'm doing is reaching forward for my shoe, nothing strenuous whatsoever, when I get the sensation of someone stabbing me in the spine with a DAGGER. It's a couple of inches higher than my tailbone, and the stabbing sensation doesn't improve when I stand up straight again, but I decided to go to aquacise anyway to see if it helps.

I'm literally screaming when I try to get in the car, and once there, someone had to help me take off my shoes in the locker room, but I did make it to the pool. I did very gentle, careful stretches to keep my muscles loose and felt somewhat ok in the warm water. But as soon as I stepped out again, I could barely hobble back to the locker room and then the car.

Called a couple of different doctors' offices, but they were already full or closed for the weekend. But I begged and pleaded and got squeezed in to my primary care doc's office right before closing time. She knows I don't go in for routine aches and pains (or I'd be there every day, lol), so after an exam, she sent me for x-rays, the first ones I'd had in five years.

Well, she showed me my x-rays, and even my amateur eye could see the problem right away. Most of the vertebrae had nice even spaces between them, but the area where I was getting the sharp pain was compressed to about half the space as the others. Nothing serious, but not "just" fibromyalgia either.

Due to my gastroparesis, I can't take any narcotic type medication for severe pain without causing my entire digestive system to seize up, so we had to get creative. I'm doing a Medrol dose pack to get the inflammation under control, and doing muscle relaxants to ward off a full body flare that always occurs when I get a new source of pain. I won't lie, though, I still HURT like nobody's business, and I'd forgotten how short-tempered and impatient acute pain makes me.

My next appointment with the rheumatologist is in about a month, and I'm definitely gonna give her a piece of my mind. She's been my doc for less than a year, but maybe now she'll be less likely to blow me off? I know better than to count on that though.