Ow. Ow-wow-wow.


Oh, so that's a pinched nerve.

Going down to my mom's house for her surgery, I somehow managed to pull my right-side trapezius muscle . Nothing nasty, just an annoying knot right where it hooks into my spine in-between my shoulder blades. Dunno if I slung a suitcase about a bit too hard or what. Doesn't really matter, now.

A week later, it was getting better but still annoying, so I bit the bullet and had the massage therapist at the day spa where I used to work have a go at it. It was a rather stubborn knot, I was tired of dealing with it and I can handle a good bit of massage pressure, and I let him dig at it.

Whoops.

I woke up the next day with my arm and back on fire. Now, I've had a couple of massage sessions where I felt a little battered and bruised for a day afterwards, so I figured it would go away. It didn't. It got worse.

Wiki tells us that the ulnar nerve comes off the nerve bundle in the neck. He got it, big time, working on the top of my shoulder. My entire arm constantly burned like I'd whacked my elbow, I could barely move my fourth and fifth fingers, and I lost the ability to grip with any strength or confidence, or to lift anything heavy on that side. I'm right-handed, and in no way ambidextrous.

He also got one of my thoracic nerves, one of the ones that runs over the scapula, because my entire right shoulder blade was screaming, just under the skin.

Folks, I can handle a good deal of pain. I have been known (all too often) to walk on a broken foot. I refused prescription pain medication after each time I broke a foot, and after each of my cancer surgeries and when they cut out my wisdom teeth and shoved some bone grafts in the holes. Just plain didn't need the hassle of opiates; a couple of ibuprofen was all I took, if anything. But after a week of this; after a week of sleeping with all of my muscles locked up so I would stay in the one position where I hurt the least, a week of barely being able to sit up first thing in the morning, a week where I was holding my right elbow in my left hand trying to take the weight of my arm off my shoulder, a week of being dead tired from the pain all the time, a week where neither double the recommended doses of OTC NSAIDs nor hard liquor even cut the edge of the pain -- on Saturday when Hubs was home to take care of things since I knew it would make me loopy -- I dug out the hydrocodone they'd prescribed for me when they took out my wisdom teeth.

I tried it first with just one pill. It took two to cut the pain to one dull patch on my back. They also lasted a good long time; I was taking two doses a day rather than a dose every four hours as originally prescribed. On a full stomach. And announcing to the rest of the family that I was doing so, just so they could keep an eye on me. I AM NOT STUPID. I DO NOT TAKE OPIATES LIGHTLY. Lectures not necessary, and very unwanted.

Hubs said, "You WILL call the doctor on Monday." I did (told you I hurt.) I can't get in to see him until tomorrow (Thursday) but he called in a 'scrip' for Prednisone (one of those diminishing-amount doses) and a muscle relaxer. I now have most of my grip back (yay) and although the muscle relaxer doesn't kill quite so much of the pain as the hydrocodone did, it also doesn't make me stooopid all day, or pukey in the morning if I take one before bed.

I'll let y'all know what the doctor says and when he thinks I'll be something approaching normal.

Posted: Wed - March 11, 2009 at 11:07 AM   Home         | | View Technorati reactions

©