Chronic pain Vs Acute pain

What is the difference between Chronic pain and Acute pain? 

Acute pain is normally a short timescale. It is the pain you feel after an accident, an injury or operation and generally will resolve itself once the body has healed.

Chronic pain is pain that continues after the body has healed or it is pain caused by nerve damage. This tends to be long lasting and doesn't necessarily resolve itself.

The pain I have is chronic pain, caused by nerve damage and I have had this pain since my symptoms first started back in July 2002. I can genuinely say that I have not had a day without this pain since it started all those years ago. 

Altered sensations and pain were among the first symptoms I experienced. I woke up one day with, what felt like, pins and needles in my left leg and the bottom of my feet. I thought I had slept awkwardly and assumed it would resolve itself but after a few days it was still there with the feeling more intense. 

I went to my GP surgery and, over a couple of weeks, I'd seen most of the doctors there. I had been given various suggestions about what it could be but each time I would go away and hope it would resolve but it didn't. 

I then saw a doctor who did several checks and eventually said that he wanted to refer me to a consultant neurologist. It was like he was speaking in a foreign language, I had no idea what he was talking about.

A consultant neurologist is someone who specialises in conditions that are caused by nerve problems or damage.

I got an appointment at our local hospital with a neurologist and was told he suspected Multiple Sclerosis. He hoped it would be a one off episode and that the altered sensations and pain would go away but it would need time for us to see what would happen. 

I ended up in the hospital in Plymouth, about thirty five miles away 

He organised the standard tests to diagnose MS, an MRI, Lumbar puncture, Evoked Potentials and various blood tests. You also have to give it time, to see what happens, whether the relapse resolves and leaves you with no lasting issues or if you do have symptoms, you need to see how those affect you. 

I know it sounds strange but I think I was actually really lucky with my diagnosis. I know of people who have struggled for years with various symptoms, that have come and gone over the years but have not had a definitive diagnosis. My symptoms started and within about six months I had a definite diagnosis. 

Finally, what I thought was all in my head and I was going mad, had a name and was a reason for what was happening to me. It was still very scary and I knew we needed time to see how my symptoms would develop, or not, as the hope was. 

Unfortunately a few months after my first symptoms started, I had another relapse, which was quite debilitating and left me in hospital. I have been on crutches ever since that relapse. 

It was about this time that I learnt about chronic illnesses and the difference between acute and chronic symptoms. My head was in a total spin but I had been referred to a wonderful consultant neurologist, who I still have today and is now a Professor. I'm so grateful for all the patience and support he has shown Martin and myself over the last twenty years. It is the support from the people with all the medical knowledge over the years, that has been so valuable to us both. My consultant, my wonderful GP and physio and all of the various services that I've used over the years, I am so grateful to them all. I knew that these people and services existed, but I'd never needed to use any of them until I was diagnosed with MS and suddenly a whole new world opened up for us. A huge thank you goes out to our wonderful NHS 🧑‍⚕️

It's amazing what an impact being in chronic pain can have on your quality of life. I wish I hadn't taken for granted all the things I used to be able to do, but I'm trying to look forward now and appreciate all the positive things I have in my life, of which there are many! 😄

XxXxX 💕

As I always like to share, here is some Rosie love for everyone 😻

At last!

At last........I have finally had my lidocaine infusion! 

It was about two weeks ago, and I am feeling about as good as it gets for me 🤩

It always takes a few days for the infusion to kick in, so the first two or three days I am pretty wiped out, because of my body's reaction to having such a hit of medication. I really do notice a difference when the lidocaine gets into my system though. The constant buzzing, the burning sensation in my back and the painful altered sensations all die down. None of it goes away but it gets a little less intense and allows me to function a little better.

While I was waiting for my lidocaine infusion, I took one of the drugs my pain consultant prescribed, in a bid to help with the pain. The drug is called Nefopam and I, hesitantly, will say that it did help. It didn't miraculously make the pain disappear, unfortunately, but it did help and the proof of this was last Tuesday, four days after my infusion. I had a physio appointment and after I had caught her up with what my pain consultant had suggested, I started going through some of my physio exercises. I have only had a couple of cycles of going through waiting twelve weeks for the lidocaine, and not eight, and those extra four weeks have felt like I have taken one step forward and two back, as far as my physiotherapy was concerned. So after my infusion it would take me a week or so to get back to doing a good set of exercises, where I would feel I was fairly strong, or as strong as it gets for me. Well much to all our amazement, I had a really good session last week. I was able to do two sets of balances for thirty seconds and my physio was thinking back to when I started doing it and I could barely do it for five seconds! 

I also managed a few other exercises and it all felt really positive. She pointed out that taking the new drug, even for just a few days, was well worth it, so we will see what happens when I take it before my next lidocaine infusion and whether it makes a difference again. I really hope so because I felt so positive after that session. Don't get me wrong, although it was really positive, I wasn't walking out of there without needing crutches or a wheelchair........I wish, but I wasn't in as much pain and I felt stronger both physically and mentally so that has to be a good thing 😊 

I have been doing physio, this time, for over a year now and, although quite small, the improvement has been noticeable to my physiotherapist. She has been a wonderful support and has given, and is giving, me lots of exercises to try and build up the strength in my legs. I have been working hard and I'm doing all I can to stay on my feet for as long as possible. Although it's never as good as I want it to be, I know that I wouldn't be doing as well as I am without her support so that has been really valuable to me and I appreciate it very much. 

I keep reminding myself though, that any improvement is only going to come from me so I want to keep at it 💪😂

XxXxX 💕

As always I'm sending out some Rosie love to you all, so enjoy😻

Pain Consultant Appointment, at last!

So I've finally had my appointment with my pain consultant. We, Martin, the consultant and I, worked out that it's been over eight years since I've had a face to face appointment with him. 

He is a lovely man and I'm acquainted with his wife so firstly we had a good catch up, then I went in to the subject of the lidocaine infusions and that I can't manage with the time schedule being moved from every eight weeks to every twelve weeks.

For anyone who is reading my blog for the first time, I have been having lidocaine infusions for several years and they have always been every eight weeks, except when there is a pandemic, but about a year ago we were informed that the schedule was changing to every twelve weeks. The trouble is that my pain is more manageable for about six weeks after the infusion but by eight weeks I am definitely ready for the next one, so pushing it to every twelve weeks filled me with dread. 

My wonderful GP has been pushing for a face to face appointment with my pain consultant for a while and I was relieved when I got the date through to see him. I explained to him how everything was affecting me and that I really needed to stick to eight weeks but he explained that if he did that for me he'd have to do it for everyone and they just don't have the staff or the space/beds to accommodate it. 

So what was I to do? 

My consultant has given me a prescription for two different medications to try. They are medications that I can use for the four weeks and then stop until the next time I need them, they don't need to be built up over time. It's the perfect time right now because I am right in the middle of weeks eight to twelve, so I am going to see whether either of these have any effect🤞

I have a bit of a history with different pain medication, including opiates. I have tried a lot of different medications, over the years, to try and lessen the nerve pain I have, but I struggled to find anything that would help. 

I had a situation back in 2012 where, unbeknown to me, I had become addicted to an opiate called Oxycodone, this was before all the uproar in America. I had to go into hospital to withdraw from it, so I'm very hesitant to use opiates again. But I trust my consultant and whatever I use, it is only going to be for weeks eight to twelve and then I can stop taking it until the next time. 

He has prescribed Clonidine and Nefopam. I am to try one for a couple of days and see if it helps, then I can try the other one. I am having my lidocaine infusion on 8th March and I can report back to the nurses whether either of these have helped. The other thing that he has told me is that one of the other pain meds that I am already taking, called Duloxetine, I can increase that up to double the amount and see if that helps. It is another one that I am able to increase and then I can decrease it once I've had the lidocaine. 

It will be a bit of a trial for the first couple of times, to find the right combination of meds that give me relief, but I'm used to that and have learnt to have a bit of patience until I get the relief I need but I'd be lying if I said it was easy 😞 

Actually the relief I need would be to stop all the buzzing, the pins and needles and burning sensations that I have but as I know that the MS has caused the damage and that isn't going to happen, I need to make the best of a horrible situation, so it's onwards and upwards 😀

Amelia

XxXxX 💕

As always, I like to share a bit of Rosie love, she is such a sweetheart! 

She actually sat on my lap for the first time in ages! 😻

18 days.......but who's counting?

So, I have 18 days to go before my lidocaine infusion and a week before I see my pain consultant. I am trying to keep myself distracted and not counting every minute but it's proving quite difficult. 

I have had, a few times this week, a feeling like the nerves in my body have felt as though I've been plugged into the electricity. It feels like they are pulsing and as well as being painful it can be distracting too. 

I also find myself holding so much tension in my body. I try to catch myself doing it and release the tension but it's not easy. 

I've been trying to keep myself as active as I can be, which is pretty difficult when you can only mobilise with crutches. There have been many times over the years where I just want to throw them away but what good would that do, apart from leave me stranded. It's so frustrating, I just want to get up and walk across the room but I can't without the palaver of getting myself set up with the crutches, getting steady on my feet and only then can I move forward. Don't expect to need me in a hurry! 😞

I've been having regular physio sessions and I'm lucky to have a great physio. She is helping me to keep as active as I can be and to keep as much strength in my legs and arms as possible. 

I know it will shock those of you who know me but I've always been quite headstrong and determined 😂 that does come in handy though because it is helping me to keep going with my physio exercises. 

Every morning, and I have done this over the past few years, I do some of my exercises and I do lengths of our living room. I basically walk back and forth across the living room/kitchen. I used to be able to do this ten to fifteen times a couple of times a day but now I'm lucky if I can do it five to eight times, once a day, but I guess anything is better than nothing right? 👍

I remember why I started doing this, I got a watch that would remind me that I hadn't stood up and moved for a while. It also counted my steps and I became obsessed! I worked my way up to walking across the kitchen and living room and bear in mind I am always using my crutches, so it's never very pretty. 

But I became obsessed with how many steps I was able to do and I would try and do that many each day. I'd be delighted if I did more. Obviously if I went out that would boost my tally and I remember when I was able to do a thousand steps or more, now though I'm only managing about four hundred a day but it's always better than nothing.

I always try and do some physio exercises when I get up in the morning, which is now between 6am and 7am and I try and do some lengths of the living room/kitchen. It would be easy to not do anything but as I said, I'm headstrong and determined and I want to be able to do as much for myself for as long as I can, so I keep going with everything. 

It's also a great distraction from my nerve pain because it gives me something else to focus on and that really helps me and when I'm able to achieve something that I couldn't manage on my own before, it gives me the encouragement to keep going.......so I will, for as long as I can! 

Have a good week everyone!

XxXxX 💕

As always I will share some Rosie love with everyone 😻

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN!

It's time for my lidocaine infusion again and I'm feeling like I really need it 😢

It's nine weeks since I had my last one and, as anyone who has read my posts in the past will know, I used to have my infusion about every eight weeks. Now though, because of the lack of space/staff, they have changed the scheduling and it's every twelve weeks.

This is a big problem for me as between weeks eight and twelve I feel my pain increase quite severely. 

Guess what, right on cue, I am starting to struggle quite a bit. 

My legs and feet have been pulsing, as though someone has plugged me into the electricity. It is so distracting, not to mention painful and my lower back, legs and feet start to get a burning sensation over them 😣 It's hard to describe but it's really not pleasant and that's me being polite! 

I know that it is the nerves, that ordinarily you shouldn't be able to feel but I can feel my nerve damage all over my body. I get really weird and awful altered sensations which I have had to learn to live with, if I didn't it would drive me crazy and there are days when it does. Poor Martin gets the brunt of that and I do feel for him, he just wants to be able to help me, but there is nothing he can do, other than be there for me, which thankfully he is, always 💖

I have been having the lidocaine infusions for several years now and, although they don't get rid of the pain, they help make my life more manageable. I am able to do more and my mood lifts, as anyone's would, when you're not in so much pain.

I have always had the infusions around every eight to ten weeks, apart from the pandemic which was more than a little trying for all of us. But a few months ago we were told that it was being moved to a twelve week schedule. It filled me with horror and I spoke to my wonderful GP who persisted with pushing for an appointment with my pain consultant. Finally, after several years of not seeing him, I have an appointment to see my pain consultant! It's only in a couple of weeks, which will be before I have my infusion, so I am going to talk to him about the whole situation and if it has to be a twelve week time period, can he help me with something to ease the pain during those last four weeks. 

In the past, and in desperate emergencies, I have been prescribed Oramorph, which is liquid morphine. The trouble is that about twelve years ago, I had to stop taking some medication I was on, it was called Oxycontin and I didn't realise but it was very addictive. This was before all the furore over opiates and I ended up being admitted to hospital to have a controlled withdrawal. It was a complete nightmare and something I don't want to experience ever again. I will never go back on anything like that medication again and I only use the Oramorph when I really need to. 

I am making myself a list of the things I want to talk to my pain consultant about. I find that, when I'm talking to any of my consultants or medical staff, I write down what I need to ask because otherwise I will always forget something. It's a bit of advice I will always say to anyone because when you're in that situation and you're speaking to someone about your health, it is easy to get distracted and forget what you want to say. My phone is always with me with the bullet points of what I need to tell them or the things I need to ask.

I'm pleased to say that I have been given a provisional date for my lidocaine infusion, which is 8th March. Fingers crossed that it is confirmed and I'll get my relief in three and a half weeks or twenty five days, not that I'm counting! 

XxXxX 💕

As always, here is some Rosie love for you all, she has been quite amusing recently but then when isn't she?! 😹😻

"I will fit in this box!" 😹

Do I just accept this?

Having a chronic illness is SO frustrating!

As I've become more disabled my frustration levels just keep on rising and I'm struggling to find ways to not let it get to me. It's the fact that there are so many things I want to do but can't so do I just accept that?

It's so difficult because, thankfully, my mind is still working - nobody comment on that one please 😂 But because of that, I find myself thinking of all the things I'd like to do, just simple things like housework, but I can't just get up and do it. 

Martin, my incredible husband, is my full time carer, which means he does so much for me anyway but on top of that he has to do everything else too. Things like the cooking and cleaning, sorting out the cat and all the other things that in the past I did, or at least helped with, and now wish I hadn't taken it for granted that I could do them. 

I am finding ways to do some bits but I have to make sure I've got nothing else on that day. I did some cleaning in the bathroom once but then had physio in the afternoon, not a good idea! 

I need to find other ways to move forward.

We've been struggling a bit since we both had COVID at Christmas and it really is very frustrating but we've been out to the cinema a few times, which we really enjoy, and that has occupied me for a while. 

The trouble is that I spend a lot of time in our flat, which still needs to be sorted out even though we moved here nine years ago in June 😳 We've still got boxes that haven't been unpacked which just fills me with horror 😱 But Martin did take some things to the tip yesterday which was brilliant! 

I think part of the issue is that between us we have collected a lot of "stuff" and we have a relatively small flat so it's packed with everything! 

I used to collect Me To You bears, you know, the ones with the blue nose! 

It started off when Martin and I first got together. We'd been working together for about four months and then moved back to our families, so we spent about two weeks apart. In those two weeks we sent those cards to each other and then they expanded and bought out the soft bears. After that they introduced ceramic figurines and I went through a phase of collecting them. I would be given them for birthdays and Christmas so my collection got quite large! 

Now though, I have decided that we don't need them to be everywhere so I am trying to lessen my collection. I'm just trying to keep the special ones or the ones that mean something to me/us. They are mainly the Christmas ones or the winter ones, which are my favourite! 

I found a unique way to get rid of some....by knocking over one of the display units! 😳

I know I could sell them but we've decided to give them out to different charity shops 💖

Anyway, this is another way of trying to help myself with not getting so frustrated at the things I can't do and try and focus on what I can do 👍

It's a lot easier said than done though! 

As always I'm going to share a bit of Rosie love with you all! 

Happy Tuesday everyone!

XxXxX 💕

Some more updates!

I have decided that it would be good for me to update you on something that I wrote about back in 2016. It was a post about my bowels and it was something that I was very open and honest about. That particular post had quite an impact and ended up being published in one of the MS Trust magazines, so I was very proud of it. 

It is about a device called Peristeen. This is the link to the post I wrote back in 2016. 

https://talesoflifewithmultiplesclerosis.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/peristeen-hard-story-to-tell.html?m=1

Back in 2010 I was introduced to this device which is used by people who are severely constipated or have problems with their bowels. That was and still is definitely me! 
I was severely constipated.......and I mean severely constipated, it wasn't unheard of for me to go days between having bowel movements and as you can imagine, this was not good for me in any way! 

It was at this time I was prescribed a piece of equipment called Peristeen and it's no joke to say that this piece of equipment changed the way I approached looking after my bowels.

Well, a couple of years ago I saw someone at the Bladder and Bowel clinic and I was prescribed something that has changed things again for me. It is a suppository called Lecicarbon A and l can't tell you how it works on a technical basis but it provides some sort of gas which then encourages your bowels to move whatever is there, down and out, I told you I wasn't technical! 😂

These suppositories really work and have definitely helped to get my bowels working. They are working in an almost "normal" way. I'm not sure that anything about my body is normal anymore but my bowels are definitely better than they have been for a long time! 

You need to give yourself time when using one of these as it can take anything from 15 to 60 minutes, from when it's inserted for it to work but it is worth the time. 

I have found it quite a pleasant change to actually have my bowels working in a "normal" way for once!

I would definitely encourage anyone who is having difficulties with anything that we, as a society, struggle to talk about, to go and see your GP. They have generally heard it all before and won't be embarrassed but they may surprise you and have a suggestion that may make your life a whole lot easier, it's always worth asking! 

Now on to my bladder, about seven months ago I started having issues with my bladder. I wouldn't make it in time to the toilet and this was another situation that I really struggled with. 

I was referred to see someone at the Bladder and Bowel clinic again and I hoped that they would have some answers for me. As it turned out, they did! 

I was emptying my bladder perfectly normally and that was a relief but it didn't explain why I was having "accidents". 

Well it turns out that what I needed was a bit more thought about going to the toilet. As I use crutches and struggle to get anywhere quickly, it was suggested that I need to try and plan my visits. Try and go when I'm in that direction anyway, even if I don't feel like I need to. 

I have started doing this and so far, so good. It has made a big difference to me and because of the hassle of using the crutches and needing to put them down before getting on the toilet, I was panicking about it all. 

So now, by going in a more planned way, it has taken the stress and panic out of it. That's a thumbs up from me! 👍

XxXxX 💕

As always, I like to send out a bit of Rosie love to you all, so I am sharing a look that we get so often from her, it's the "What are you looking at?" face!