Chronic pain

Chronic pain isn't one of those things you think you will ever have to deal with. You think, oh something has hurt for a while, I'll go to the doctor, they'll fix it, or give medication, and ta da! All fixed. I wish it was that easy.

Since I was about 18, I've had this weird knee jerk. It was at different times, not every day, but randomly as I'm going to sleep. Over the years, it has gotten progressively worse and there are various triggers that make it worse. Doctors have mostly scoffed at me, made me feel like I was insane because the symptoms I was presenting didn't align with what they knew.

Starting in September of last year, I have visited 4 different specialists, as well as my normal doctor and an acupuncturist (that will be it's own post). A sleep medicine center, an orthopedic center, a cardiologist focusing on veins, and a neurologist. They all seem dumbfounded and completely confused as to what is going on with my knee. It starts to ache at night when I lie down, then jerks violently like it's being electrified. I have a video and every time I show one of my doctors, they sort of jump. That's not comforting. My neurologist as of now is classifying it as a myoclonic jerk. The prescription medication count is to about 22 (not at once) as they try to find various medications that will work longer than a night or a few weeks. So far, no luck. (As evidenced by the fact that this has been edited several times and it seems to only be at 4 am...)

This issue is most of the reason that the blog has been so quiet. It's caused me to do quite a bit of soul searching, as well as research trying to decide what in the world is wrong with me. Most of the medications they have tried are not alleviating the symptoms AND I can't sleep. Talk about a lose/lose situation for me.

So for now, blogging will be intermittent, but I do have some stuff in the works for this blog.