Chronic Pain and Cortisone, Part 1

Topics: Fibromyalgia and..., My Network, Trying Stuff

I started writ­ing this post, but I quickly got side­tracked by some­thing that com­pletely changed what I have to say.  This will be a two part post.

Last night, after months of baby­ing my back, I decided to head to the gym with the guys.  You see, my hus­band meets a friend to work­out every night at nine.  And I love work­ing out at nine.  In fact the whole tra­di­tion was my idea.  Well, the lat­ter half.  I worked out nearly every night at nine dur­ing my sum­mers home from col­lege.  It did won­ders for me.  It helped me turn my fresh­men 15 into the sopho­more sans 10.  It strength­ened my rela­tion­ship with my room­mate.  And it reminded me that fit­ness and fibromyal­gia could coex­ist. The whole work­ing out bit was strongly sug­gested by our doc­tor, con­cerned about Dan’s high cho­les­terol .  Although, I am also a fan of the work­ing out bit, con­sid­er­ing I want my hus­band to live as long as possible.

Any­way, while they guys focused on car­dio, I heeded the advice of my fam­ily doc­tor, my chi­ro­prac­tor, and my ortho­pe­dic doc­tor (Is there a one-word name for those folks?) and focused on my upper back and arms.  And like a true exgymnast/athlete, I over­did it… for my cur­rent fit­ness level.  But I am proud of myself.  What an improve­ment from a week ago!

A week ago was pretty much like a month ago…  the only thing I was over­do­ing was noth­ing.  Mys­te­ri­ous and severe back pain, mul­ti­ple appoint­ments with mul­ti­ple doc­tors, and only minor pain relief.  Until Thurs­day six days ago?

Thurs­day I met with an ortho­pe­dic doc­tor to dis­cuss my back pain, and before I knew it was receiv­ing trig­ger point injec­tions.  I really liked this doc­tor.  He agreed with my opin­ion of fibromyal­gia and he was sim­ple in his expla­na­tion of my pain, but he was so effi­cient I can’t remem­ber if he explained trig­ger point injec­tions before or after I expe­ri­enced them, first hand.

Oh well.  I do remem­ber him explain­ing just how sore they would make me.  I do remem­ber him warn­ing me I may feel dizzy and/or expe­ri­ence a headache (a total under­state­ment).  And I do remem­ber him telling me it’d take at least 36 hours to expe­ri­ence relief.  But, I’m no doc­tor, and to be frank, I wasn’t sat­is­fied with his expla­na­tion (a lit­tle late for that, eh?), so when I came home I hit up Mayo Clinic for some info on cor­ti­sone shots.

As promised my back was incred­i­bly sore for nearly two days, but by Sat­ur­day night I was feel­ing bet­ter.  My back pain, as well as the post-injection sore­ness, was almost com­pletely gone and I was back to my usual activ­i­ties.  So, last night, after months of baby­ing my back, I decided to head to the gym with the guys (cue lit­er­ary com­ment from my sweetie).

Now that you’ve read Part 1, be sure to head over to Chronic Pain and Cor­ti­sone, Part 2.

Existing Comments

    Comment by Jenn on July 16, 2009 @ 12:15 am

    I’ve had many cor­ti­sone shots over the past years and unfor­tu­nately they don’t do a thing for me. I just recently met with a pain man­age­ment spe­cial­ist and when we dis­cussed that she said that dif­fer­ent spe­cial­ists approach them dif­fer­ently. Mean­ing that they each do it in a dif­fer­ent way. I don’t want to ever have another one (too much unnec­es­sary pain) but her com­ment got me think­ing and I might try another one.

    Hope­fully they’ll help you though!

    Jenn

    Comment by Angie on July 17, 2009 @ 11:38 am

    My doc­tor gave me sev­eral shots across my shoul­ders, I just don’t know what they were, that was almost a year ago and I haven’t had hardly any pain. I got two series of shots over a six month period. He froze the area where he was going to give me the shot and I didn’t feel a thing. I only wish I knew whether or not it was cor­ti­sone. He told me when I first went in that it works for some and not for oth­ers. He also said that it may last for a month or longer, the only thing I know is that when or even if it comes up again, I’m get­ting another one.

    Comment by Tricia on July 25, 2009 @ 10:30 am

    Your fibro blog is the most inter­est­ing one that I have come across so far.

    I look for­ward to you future posts, read­ing more aof you archives and hear­ing about the cor­ti­sone treatments.

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