Tag Archives: pain

Just a Fragment of Thought

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I took painkillers last night. Nothing particularly interesting, just a couple of paracetamol and and a then a couple more because I wasn’t concentrating, then a couple of ibuprofen, which is what I’d meant to take when I accidentally took the extra paracetamol. No need to warn me about the dangers of overdosing on paracetamol, I know I’m not supposed to take so many, but it isn’t the first time, and my liver, as shown by frequent testing, is fine. It’s actually the others that are more of a problem as “Using warfarin together with ibuprofen may increase the risk of serious bleeding complications.” Note the word “may”. It means they aren’t really sure.

It also means that when I was originally looking a different treatment options I spent months in serious pain smearing ibuprofen gel on my knuckles. It didn’t work. I had sticky fingers, often with a sheen that looked unhealthily clammy on the twisted fingers of a middle-aged man. Julia had to help me dress. I could do major things like driving and lifting, but not things like doing up buttons.

With only one set of pills a week and a useless gel, it was not a good time. A little later, with two injections (one of which replaces the weekly se of tablets) I am generally good. Typing still causes problems, but other than that I can cope. Sometimes I still have to top up the treatment, particularly if I have a busy day planned. The paracetamol are OK for getting rid of pain, but I really need the ibuprofen for dealing with the inflammation and allowing me to get a good start to the day. I have no medical training, but I suspect the osteoarthritis, which I have alongside the psoriatic arthritis, is the one that causes the lingering pain, and that is what the anti-inflammatories deal with.

So there I was in bed. I remember waking in the night and rolling over. And I remember dreaming, though I don’t remember what it was about. Next thing I knew, my eyes sprang open, the bedroom was light and it was time to get up. My phone showed it was 8.30am. A full night’s sleep. It’s something that happens once in a while when I take painkillers. I have been tempted to see if I could sleep better by taking them every night, but so far I have resisted temptation.

And that is how I woke, sprang into action, had my tests and faded away. The story of my day – ignored medical advice, slept well, felt great, flopped. I now have to find some way of working harder thorough the day. Julia has suggested exercise and healthy eating.

The thought has not improved my mood.

Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

Is Writing a Pleasure or is it Publication?

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We woke this morning after hearing moderately heavy rain overnight. The general aspect of the morning was wet, rather than snowy, icy or frosty. Looking at the choice of words there, I realise that the story of the Innuit and all their words for snow might not be as outlandish as we think. We seem to have a good selection of words for it and some years we don’t get any. This year, I think, we may have a snowy winter. That will be good as it will see a lot of rats and disease off. On the other hand, the birds will need plenty of food.

For the first time in 12 months the rain did not make it inside, the builders having done their job well. I can’t help thinking it may have been more cost effective just to retile he roof with banknotes but hopefully the pain will subside.

The worst bit of the builders being here, apart from having to get up at a time dictated by someone else, is that we had the dining table in the living space and the conservatory contents in the dining area. Two days of living with clutter brought back a lot of old memories and was not pleasant. This morning, as 7pm dawned, I pulled the flannelette duvet cover up to my chin, arranged the coverlet to block any gaps and luxuriated in the warmth. It was good.

I suppose I ought to have used this as the beginning of the last post, but that one seemed to take on a life of its own. I also note that I seem to be a day behind again. This, I think, is mainly due to my lack of routine. The days bleed into one, particularly if I sleep in front of TV and restart late at night. I must get to grips with this for several reasons – health, vitality, writing quality and consistency are ones I can think of immediately.

During the day I exchanged emails with someone who told me I shouldn’t be stressing over the amount I wrote as it should be a relaxation now I was retired. Writing, he said, should be a pleasure. I have never found it to be a pleasure. For me, the pleasure comes from finishing and from publication. The writing is a real grind.

How about you? And, as an extra question, would you carry on writing if you had nobody to read it?

Doctor and Nacreous Clouds

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I spent a very unpleasant night with repeating, pointless dreams, and awoke after broken sleep to find i was a little better than yesterday, but not much.

As I rose and drove Julia to work I realised I was still in a lot of pain, and that she nagged me constantly. She won’t go to the doctor when she is ill, but it seems that I have to.

I rang from work, was eighth in the queue, but being on my own, was able to leave it on speaker as I packed the only two orders of the day. I waited well over 20 minutes, only to be told there was nobody I could talk to. However, the receptionist muttered something about the on-call doctor and, after a description of my symptoms, phlegm, coughing fits, torn muscles and a sound like broken bagpipes when I lie down and breathe at night, it was agreed that the doctor would see me at 11.40.

I now have antibiotics, steroids and confirmation that all my imaginary maladies (obstructed bowel, appendicitis, hernia) are just a few (painful) pulled muscles. Things are slightly better, and I am hopeful that Christmas will be OK.

Julia saw nacreous clouds on her way home from work. They are unusual in UK. She took photos, but when she sent them to me she forgot I’m not very technical and she needs to email them, not send them by SMS. I didn’t see them myself, as they had already passed by the time I left the shop.

The afternoon in the shop passed in a blur, as I was still in a lot of pain. I don’t want to take more time off as I’ve already been off a couple of times in the last few months – it’s my lack of immune system, I’m afraid. In the end, the main problem is not the cough, but the pulled muscles.

Ah well . . .

More sunsets . . .

Bad Hand Day

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Sorry about my absence from posting yesterday. I had a bad hand day and by the time I had finished doing the comments and a few other bits all I could do was sit in front of the TV and hold a hot water bottle while contemplating removing two of my fingers with a bread knife.

Yes, I was brought down by my two little fingers. Thy have swollen up and started hurting, and in doing so prevented the rest of my hands from working and removed my will to live. It’s strange how something that is under one percent of body mass can stop everything working. I must definitely start that diary I keep talking about and see if I can trace what is making this happen, or even spot some early warning signs.

However, for the moment I am living in ignorance. They aren’t too bad this morning but they still aren’t right either – time will tell whether they improv or deteriorate in the next eight hours.

I’m certainly having a better time than one of the patients at the surgery. I had a text message yesterday telling me that the surgery had not issued my prescription for Pregabalin and that I had to contact the doctor to discuss my symptoms. So I contacted them. I actually got through without being put in a queue, for once. The conversation went like this.

“Hello, you’ve just sent me a text about a prescription.”

(They did the name and address and date of birth check here…)

“Yes, Mr Wilson, we can’t issue that prescription unless you talk to a doctor first.”

“Well it’s not for me, I haven’t ordered anything and I don’t know what Pregabalin is. This is a message for somebody else.”

“It’s for your Sciatica, but you need to talk to a doctor first about your symptoms.”

“I haven’t got Sciatica, this is for somebody else.”

There was a short pause as they digested this. I don’t suppose they get many patients denying they have symptoms.

“Oh, I’m sorry, we must have sent it in error.”

“No need to apologise, it’s not a problem for me, but I’m a bit worried there’s somebody who needs a prescription who won’t be getting one.”

“Oh, yes, we’d better look into that.”

I hope they did, and I hope they eventually issued the Sciatica pills. I’d hate to be sitting at home expecting a cure, only to find they’d given it to someone else, someone

who is a little worried that they will cock up his Methotrexate in a couple of weeks. I’m steadily losing confidence in the NHS…

Ten Minutes

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Last night I wrote a long, rambling and, frankly, dull post about a number of uninteresting subjects.

It was so boring I fell asleep in my chair and didn’t wake up until after midnight. I looked at what I’d written, made some sandwiches and then went to bed. It wasn’t even worth fixing.

To sum up – I’ve been invited to take part in a joint pain project. It involves filing in five questionnaires over five years. The confidentiality and ethics explanations are longer than the survey, and most of the survey consists of ticking boxes about different sorts of pain, including lanciating pain. It’s like stabbing pain when I look it up.

My two conclusions so far are that someone got a grant to do as project, and that they have an un-necessarily large vocabulary. I don’t recall all the pains I could have but I don’t have (a) enough time or (b) enough body parts to experience so much pain.

To make things worse, I went to the pharmacy to pick up some pain-killing gel the hospital has prescribed for me, though I didn’t ask for it and don’t have much pain. They were out of stock so I couldn’t get it. And today, for the first timer in ages, my finger started hurting.

Life, as they say, is like that.

That was my ten minutes. I’m off to drink tea and watch TV for a bit.

The medal is to celebrate the Queen’s 90th Birthday, because that’s what you want to cheer you up, a picture of yourself looking at a picture of yourself when you were much younger.

The coin next to it is a cent. It’s part of the creeping Americanism that is taking over the western world.It’s 100mm, or 4″ wide, weighs over 3/4 of a pound and cost over £100 when it was new. We’re struggling to find a buyer at £12.95.

Teeth and Trouble

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I arrived at the dentist just on time, having spent too much time blogging.

It’s a very pleasant place and the dentist was very pleasant too, and very professional.

She checked which tooth it was, took another X-Ray to confirm, put me at ease, explained everything and applied the anaesthetic painlessly. A little later, as it didn’t seem to be taking, she put some more in. By this time my lip was fat and numb, my gums were devoid of feeling and there was even some dullness in my neck and cheekbones.

I was, it seemed, likely to have a numb face for four hours.

All was looking good. She took the crown off, poked around a bit, applied some pressure, and stopped as I raised my hand to indicate it was hurting. It wasn’t mild discomfort either, it hurt. She put more anaesthetic in, warned me my face was likely to be dead for around six hours, and tried again.

I was starting to lose feeling in my right ear and my eyelid.

I raised my hand. More needles, including a somewhat painful one that went into the tooth and root by the feel of it.

I gripped the chair arms, braced myself, sweated, trembled and was very relieved when she stopped.

“That’s hurting isn’t it?”

I can’t think how she came to that conclusion…

So she tried another type of anaesthetic and again hammered it home. The theory was that if it was uncomfortable it was going in the right place. The estimate of numbness went up to eight hours.

She grabbed the pliers, I grabbed the chair arms and resolved to be brave.

I didn’t exactly show myself up as a hero, but I’m happy to report that she broke before I did.

The problem was that I had an infection under the tooth and it wasn’t responding to the anaesthetic. Every time she pushed it was like she was ramming home a red-hot nail. In case you have never had an extraction, they push to break the grip of the roots before they pull.

Antibiotics – I could have done with these last week

I now have a gnarled stump of a tooth left, a box of antibiotics and another appointment – for the 15th January. I’m taking it philosophically though it’s hardly ideal.

There is a bonus, they have let me keep my gold crown, though it did need to go through the steriliser first. It’s been in my mouth for over 20 years without killing me, but once it’s out it seems that it becomes a health and safety issue.

That’s the featured image – my gold crown in a packet after being sterilised. I’m thinking that it might make a unique and personal charm for a charm bracelet. I mentioned it to Julia. I expect she might get used to the idea…

It’s not the best photo I’ve ever taken, but I’m not on top form right now.

The good news is that although the anaesthetic has worn off there is no real pain, just a bit of swelling and a slight ache. I’m hoping that this situation continues until the 15th.

Miracles do happen

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Yesterday’s visit to the Bee-eaters was about as much walking as I wanted to do, but there was still half a day to fill and it seemed a shame not to use it. I won’t say too much now, as it will be reported in a later post, but I ended up walking so far that I could barely make it back to the car.

It doesn’t sound much, a total of around 2,000 yards, but compared to recent days when even 20 yards were a challenge, it’s a major achievement.

I was expecting to be crippled this morning. I was certainly aching last night. Starting from the top – my shoulders ached from using the stick so much, my back ached, my right hip ached (it’s on my problem side), my right knee ached (and wouldn’t bend or take my weight) and my feet ached. In some cases “ached” is an understatement, but you know me, I do hate to complain.

After talking to a lady at Bempton Cliffs (we spent a few minutes sitting and talking about bad knees) I have started taking two turmeric capsules a day. Result – almost no pain at all in my arthritic feet and a general reduction in aches and pains.

Turmeric is well known as an anti-inflammatory and in my case seems to work.

In addition, I did have a couple of ibuprofen after finishing the walk yesterday, and a couple of painkillers before going to bed.

This morning, I felt like I could leap out of bed and run round like a youngster once more. I managed to resist, but I could have done if I was a leaping and running sort of person.

I can’t put it all down to the turmeric, but it has certainly helped. Now all I need to do is talk to the doctor and anticoagulant clinic about it. I’m sure they won’t like it.

It’s frustrating that after months of taking things easy the solution was to eat curry powder and walk till it hurt.

No photos with this one – pictures of my feet tend not to attract readers. 🙂

Part 3 – Free at Last!

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After the drainage procedure the pain immediately subsided, and I suspect that what remained was due to the drainage rather than the abscess.

We will now deal with the bed. It finally arrived from a secret off-site location (after a second call was placed), at 9.30. That’s about 8 hours. I presume it was either stored a long way away, or that it was close and they pushed it all the way by hand. To suggest a third choice, that it took eight hours because they couldn’t organise a party in a brewery, would be a cheap shot.

It was a monster, requiring furniture to be moved round, and had a pump which operated constantly, and noisily, to keep the special mattress inflated (this strikes me as a bad thing in a piece of furniture designed to facilitate sleep).

There were other faults – the main one being that it was so high I couldn’t get into it unassisted. For some reason The Great Bed of Ware comes to mind. City Hospital is currently running a campaign (End PJ Paralysis) to encourage patients to get dressed properly and get active. Strange really, considering they seemed to go out of their way to render me immobile.

I won’t mention the the list of other faults, as several of them have already come back to me as bad dreams. It’s difficult to imagine anyone being traumatised by a bed, but I promise you, on top of everything else, that bed came close to breaking my spirit.

Once I had been assisted into bed, and we had addressed various problems with adjustments things took a turn for the worse when a junior doctor arrived with a cannula. I had hoped to avoid having one but it seemed that they couldn’t get enough antibiotics into me by mouth alone. When you think of the alternatives I suppose intravenous isn’t so bad.

As usual, it didn’t go in at the first attempt and the doctor decided to try my right hand. I try to avoid the right hand as I often catch it whilst doing things. In this case, I started by bleeding on the book I was reading; this wouldn’t have happened if the cannula had been in the left hand. Second, I caught it on the cuff of my nightshirt whilst preparing to wash next morning, This resulted in a cannula that stuck out at a strange angle. I got it roughly back in position and replaced the dressing as well as I could, but it wasn’t quite right.

The rest of the day passed in a haze of boredom punctuated by random bottom inspections. Dark forces are obviously afoot in the NHS, striking back at the rising trend of patient dignity. Under the guise of skin inspections to prevent bed sores, random members of staff wander along at irregular intervals and demand to see my heels and bottom.

I may refuse to show them next time, on the grounds I am a man, not a baboon.

Finally, Julia arrived to visit and help with my liberation. The first thing she did was point to a spot by my side and say “What’s that?”

It was the cannula. I must have plucked it straight out, which couldn’t have taken much effort as I didn’t even notice.

We asked a passing nurse to dispose of it instead of leaving it lying about. She didn’t seem grateful for our help in keeping the place tidy, but maybe she was just sad at the idea of losing me.

A blog in in which fingers are mentioned

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I’ve been sleeping badly for the last few nights because I have a painful finger. Yes, that’s right, the large bearded man is whining about his finger. Sorry, but it hurts and I can’t get to sleep.

I know it doesn’t measure up to the pain of childbirth and stuff like that, and I realise that having to open bottles with my left hand isn’t officially recognised as a disability but it’s amazing how a little thing like that can affect your life.

Probably the worst thing is the uhtceare. (Read the list behind this link by all means, but if you are one of those people who thinks in pictures, do not click the link in Number 9). Yes, fitful sleep causes a constant state of uhtceare, and for a man that has a lot to regret, this is not good. The result was that I travelled to work this morning wishing I didn’t have to go. This is very unusual.

Now, just in case you are thinking of telling me, as Julia does, that “it’s just arthritis”, stop and pause a minute – I don’t want to be told that bits of my body have entered old age.

Anyway, things got better when I reached the farm. The new apple press and scratter have arrived! We can now travel with and demonstrate pressing in schools (if anybody wants us while we have apples) and we can use it for the juicing days (starting from 12th September) instead of having to set the big one up to do a bucket of apples. That’s why the picture at the top of the blog shows two cardboard boxes. Not a very interesting picture by most standards, but quite exciting for me.

We had a nice steady flow of breakfast, there wasn’t much I needed to do and it was all very relaxed.I met the author of the nottsvillages blog, showed several people the visiting Painted Lady (it came back!), secured the offer of a moth trap, found a volunteer to do the job of Santa (let’s face it, I’m not a natural), took details from someone who wants to help with the bread group and took £10 after we were supposedly closed.

As if that wasn’t enough, I also took the name of another baker, persuaded someone to come and do crafts at our Winter Event and had a good look round Project Molish (which started this weekend).

That, in the language of my youth, is a result!

I’m tired now – time for tea and cake, I think.

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Life after the Care Farm