Chronic pain is probably the biggest stressor in my life. I have had it so long that I tend to block it out, but it still wears me down. I often don't realize how bad it has gotten until I cannot sleep. Then it is past time for a visit to the pain clinic.
Most of my severe pain is caused by osteoarthritis, which is something that is hard to treat successfully. My two worst areas - my left shoulder and my neck - have been treated in the past by steroid injections every 6 months or so. My neck pain, which is cause by arthritis and bone spurs, finally got bad enough that my pain specialist recommended radiofrequency ablation of some of the nerves. Both of my parents have had it done and report good results and my specialist said it should provide relief for a year or more.
Of course, they can't just go ahead and do the procedure. Any and all insurance companies require tests to be sure the procedure will work. So first they go in and inject lidocaine in the affected areas and I spend the day tracking how much relief I get and for how long. If the relief is 80% or more for at least three hours - which I got - then they do a second test. This time a stronger local pain medication is injected (I can't remember what it is called) and I again track how much relief I get. This one was also successful so we scheduled the ablation. Now, these two tests need to be to weeks apart. So I get the lidocaine, I get a couple hours relief, then I hurt like crazy for two weeks. Fortunately we were able to schedule the ablation just three days after the second test.
For the procedure itself I for the first time decided to be sedated. Usually I just deal with the needles. But burning nerves sounded sufficiently scary that I wanted to be doped up. Unfortunately I wasn't dopey enough. I had to use a different doctor for the procedure than I usually use because I could only have it done on days my dad was off work. Obviously I couldn't drive myself. I also found out the day of that they would only do one side that day and the other side would be done in two weeks (what is it with two weeks?). The doctor was OK, but he didn't communicate with me like my usual doctor does. The needles/probes need to go into four spaces between vertebrae on each side and it took the new doc forever to get the correct spots. He ended up calling in nurses to pull my shoulders down so he could get to the bottom one. After all the shifting and poking, the actual ablation was nothing. And the sedation was light enough that I was almost immediately able to get dressed and leave.
Since then I have been in hell. The left side of my neck is a bit sore, but feels a lot better. Hooray for ablation and steroids. But by comparison my right side is absolutely killing me. I have been unable to bock the pain so I am wearing lidocaine patches and using diclofenac gel. As bad as the procedure was, I cannot wait to get the right side done so I am no longer lopsided. And I have made a note to make sure that I always use the doctor I am used to.
While I wait, I am unable to wear any of my racerback bras because they pull on my neck and make the pain unbearable. And no matter what, my neck is agony by the end of the day. I plump up my pillow and lie down and just let my neck rest.
One more week.
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