♥ So Frustrated... ♥

I have been having A LOT of back pain for the past month and a half now.  I don't know why.  One day my lower back started hurting really bad on the left side.  My BF offered to massage it & found a good size lump.  Sometimes it shoots pains down my left leg & across my whole lower back & seems to radiate from this lump.  It hurts so bad it's unbearable a majority of the time & I can not be up doing stuff & bending over for more than a few minutes at a time before it hurts so bad I want to cry.  I have a high pain tolerance so for me to be hurting this bad it's gotta be pretty darn painful. 

I've been going to my PCP for this for the past month & a half to get absolutely no relief 100% of the time.  She'll prescribe me literally a few pain pills at a time & won't refill when they run out unless I practically beg her to & even then sometimes she won't do it.  Those few pills that she gives me when she feels like I need it is what lets me get up & take care of my kids & cook & do some laundry.  I feel like a failure as a mom right now because I literally only get one or two days of a little relief...these pills only take the edge off & make it to where I can do a few things around the house that absolutely need to be done.  Needless to say my quality of life has gone downhill here lately & I can't stand it.  I cry alot for no reason & I am extremely irritable & I feel like all I have been doing is sleeping.  I have been sleeping around 15-18 hours out of the day.  Then there are nights when I'm hurting so bad that I can't sleep or the nights when for some reason I have insomnia.  I mostly sleep those many hours for about 2 weeks at a time and then have one or two nights where I just can't fall asleep. 

When all this started, I was very emotional & thought it was just depression, but now I'm not so sure.  I think maybe it's all connected somehow.  I've been getting headaches on a daily basis for the past few weeks & am extremely sensitive to loud noises.  I can't eat because I have no appetite.  I either have to be craving something to eat it or force food down my throat.  The only thing that's sounded good here lately is Rice Chex cereal with a banana in it.  For two days straight that was all I ate...once for breakfast or should I say lunch since I didn't wake up til after noon & then once again before I would go back to bed around 7 or 8.  I couldn't even keep my eyes open long enough to watch our movies that day.  Every time we started one I fell asleep within 30 minutes.  I believe they made it through two more before I woke up & finally got to watch a whole movie.  I've never slept this much in my entire life, even when I was pregnant with my kiddos.  I love sleep but not this much!  This is just horrible.  I feel like I'm sleeping my life away & missing out on precious time I could be spending with my munchkins.  I don't know what's going on but my doctors need to figure it out & fix me! 

As far as my doctor visits are going...here's the story & why I am so upset.  Went to Dr. A for first visit because of the crying outbursts for no reason & for the sleeping all the time.  I thought depression & got on Lexapro.  About a week after that is when my back started hurting.  When my back first started hurting I was getting the chills every day all day for two weeks straight.  One week before back pain started & a week into it.  Forgot to mention that above.  I knew I was missing something just couldn't remember what it was until I went back over in my head what all has been happening.  There was no fever with the chills...I was just freezing to the point of shaking with the heater on 80, in a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, sweatpants & my big furry Joe Boxer socks, which are my absolute favorite! & I was even cuddled up under my big furry blanket!  I started taking 800mg of ibuprofen every 4 hours, using a heating pad & having my awesome boyfriend massage my back with this stuff called MaxFreeze, which felt very good, but didn't do much for the pain.  When I went to the doc for the back pain & told her everything that was going on, the first thing she normally does is order bloodwork, but she didn't & still hasn't.  I forgot to mention that I lost 7 pounds from my first appt to my second appt which was about a week and a half later.  She barely felt around on my back & then made me do some bending.  Then gave me a script for flexeril & naproxen & 6 5mg lortabs.  She told me to take those & if it wasn't feeling better in 3 days to go in for an x-ray.  No relief 5 days later so I went in for the xray.  The 3rd day was New Years Eve so I didn't make it in until the beginning of the next week.  I went back to the doctor that Friday & found out that the results of the x-ray were normal so she set up an appt for me to see an orthopedic specialist since my back is still hurting.  I go to the specialist on the 27th.  I tried to get my doc to refill my pain meds & give me enough to last until I go to the specialist, but guess what...she wouldn't do it!  So, I made an appt with a different PCP to see if they could help me out with the pain until my appt.  That appt was today, but last night I was in so much pain & all the meds Dr. A had prescribed weren't working & I had no pain med other than the Naproxen so I ended up in the ER.  The ER doc felt my lump, did a few leg bending exercises to see where my pain was & gave me a steroid shot in the hip!  It was fine goin in but about 2 minutes later it hurt worse than my back!  She gave me more flexiril, ketoprofen, tramadol & a steroid to take for the next 5 days & said that she thought I had alot of inflammation surrounding my sciatic nerve & we need to get the inflammation down before I'm going to get any relief from it.  Did she give me a script for any pain meds? NO!  But she flat out out told me that to control the pain I would need to take pain meds plus all this other stuff.  I tried to ask the discharge nurse about it because I didn't get to see the doctor again & she was just a plain old bitch about it!  She gave me some lousy excuse about how they need to follow my doctor's plan of care so they couldn't prescribe me any pain pills.  How that would not have followed my doctor's plan of care I don't know since my doctor does prescribe me a few pain pills here & there.  Needless to say, I left there still in severe pain. 

Today, I went to the other PCP which I had told on the phone that I was coming in to see if they could manage my pain until I go to the specialist on the 27th.  I really liked the doctor, but the only thing she prescribed me was diclofanex which is an NSAID much like ibuprofen but a little stronger.  I have been taking all of this medicine plus this new one only to get no relief still!  So, I call my doctor to see if she is going to refill my pain med...argued with the lousy nurse about it for 5 minutes, going over everything that had transpired in the last 24 hours and then she says well, didn't you go to the doctor today for pain management cuz your specialist is the one who will be doing pain management for your back not us.  I said no I went to a different PCP to see if they could help me with it because you all are not.  I said I don't go to the specialist until the 27th...what am I supposed to do for the pain until then?  Well, she says, I don't know, all I can do is leave a note for the doctor asking when she's going to refill your pain med.  They are so effin helpful!  They are all so damn incompetent up there I swear!  They have no office etiquette at all & are so effin lazy!  She should have known when my appt with the specialist was seeing as how she was staring at my chart! 

So now, I am still in severe pain...the new med the other PCP gave me doesn't even phase my pain even with taking all the other stuff with it.  I'm sure now I'm going to end up with an ulcer since they have me on so many NSAIDS.  I am so frustrated because I feel like they aren't listening to me.  Also, when I called to see about the refill yesterday I asked her to leave a note asking for bloodwork to be done.  Have they called me to say yeah, go in for bloodwork...NO!  If I have something serious going on & none of these incompetent a-holes have not caught it because they won't do some bloodwork..somebody better sue the hell out of them!  I know when something is wrong with me & something is definitely not right!  I am scared & worried right now because of everything that's going on with me.  I'm hoping & praying that it's just some inflammation in my back & that's what's causing all of this, but you would think that after being on all these meds everyday for the straight past 3 weeks that I would be feeling some kind of relief at least a little!  I am not & actually think it's getting worse, not better.  I want the bloodwork done because I want them to rule out anything kidney related.  Where I hurt could easily be caused from something going on with my left kidney.  When I had a CT scan done last summer from my GI doc there was a small cyst on my left kidney.  My grandpa on my mom's side died of kidney cancer when he was 36 years old.  The pain, loss of appetite, 7 lb weight loss in a week and a half, extreme fatigue, emotional upset & lymph node swollen on my neck again is enough to freak me out a little about whatever is going on inside my body. 

Now, I am, as patiently as I can, waiting for my doc to refill my pain med so I can get some temporary relief for a few hours.  Today I am having to deal with some added pain because this afternoon both my upper leg muscles and calves starting cramping.  I've had enough pain in the last month to last me a lifetime & am hoping that this specialist can figure out what's wrong & fix me.  8 day countdown begins...praying I don't get any worse before then because if so I don't know what I'm going to do. 

If you happened to stop by my blog & see this & you believe in God...please say a little prayer for me...I am really needing them right now & I know he can work miracles because I've witnessed it firsthand.  HE saved me & carried me when I could no longer carry myself. 

 

XOXO~

Just A Girl