Dear Maw,
Boy, do you have my sympathy!! Yesterday was the kind of day I dread, when I'd take off my skin if I could just to relieve the pressure and pain!! I also need to lose weight...and I need knee surgery on one leg and have an ankle and heel on the other leg I have to keep getting shots to dissolve the bone spurs on. I had been out with my son and his girlfriend Saturday and ended up walking the mall--the whole mall--for that! So while the spasms were earned, I guess, there just seem so many other worthy people out there I'd like to have "feel my pain" sometime when they are keeping the cost of prescriptions so high.
  I remember your situation, and i remember writing you, but I'm not sure if it went through or is floating out in the ether somewhere. If I remember, you were staying where everyone was walking through your room all the time and that has to interfere with both your rest and how much more stress that places on you--the last thing you need!!
  I think either your grandson or granddaughter should trade places with you so that you will have someplace to retreast and they will get an idea that you rate farther up on the food chain than they do. It may be "their" house, but then they wouldn't exist if you didn't. Just getting out of a common area would be so good for your nerves--and it sounds like you are more than pulling your own  to deserve a room change as soon as the current school year is out. I know it is hard to ask your daughter for anything else, but it is a medical necessity to keep your stress levels as low as you can. With everything else going on in your lives, I don't think that one room you could retreat to is too much to ask. If you are acting the part of live-in-help, doing the errands, laundry, etc.--all the things like that which help your daughter--just being allowed to "camp out" with all the animals dumped in with you--no WONDER your pain is through the roof!!
  While I'll freely admit that lots of the other members know a lot more about programs to get people who can't pay for the medications they desperately need, there ARE programs that could get those medications for you at low or no cost. I went through the joys of a mini-withdrawal when they shipped my main pain relief patches 5 days longer than they'd ever taken. I was on day 5 of 3 day meds and thank God I had an appointment with my Pain doctors that day. While the policy is not to write prescriptions for things you should have had, they did for me. The patches came the next day--they'd paid for expediated shipping themselves because they'd screwed up...but all I knew was that the patches hadn't been shipped until the day of my appointment.
  Listening to music on headphones helps sometimes--I recently got a Best of Simon & Garfunkel tape that contains so many songs my sister and i used to lie in bed and listen to in our room. With my eyes shut, sometimes I can almost feel like I am there, before all the pain started. Since you are doing all the grocery shopping, anything high in antioxidents will help cut your pain level more than you would think. Cranberries, blueberries, cherries--all of these were used by the Native Americans to relieve arthritis symptoms. I can hardly wait for cherries to come in season--and get within my budget--because those worked the best and the fastest for me. Frozen, fresh, canned, dried--these fruits will help and taste good--a win/win situation. I was also told to double the amount of the B-vitamin complex by one of my doctors who has fibromyalgia.
  You can always come here when you need to SCREAM about your pain; knowing I wasn't alone anymore, that I had friends who really DID know how I felt without my needing to explain about the conditions I have was a true Godsend to me. We could send messages, reach out...and be in pjs at the same time. Maybe the beauty around us with Spring will help--it odes me.
The one thing you aren't now is alone. For me, that was so powerful that my family and my docctor noticed a difference in me. Not feeling cut off from other people--and you really aren't now--helped my depression. It's hard to explain to other people who aren't going through it what fibromyalgia and all its nasty little playmates are like, isn't it? I've tried telling them it's like arthritis but in the connective tissue as well as the bones and joints like you and I have. The closest I've gotten to explaining it to people who aren't in our little "club" is to tell them it feels like my body is made up of a lot of cranky 3 -year-olds, all wanting my attention at the same time.
  I'll tell you what we always tell people--I'm glad you found us and sorry you needed to. Sometimes all we can do is put one foot in front of the other--a great cliche for days like yesterday when I was in bed all day!
  We try to keep our sense of humor--it keeps me relatively sane. We pray for each other, too...so that's another way I hope things will get better for you!
Hugs,
Karen

[QUOTE=RememberFriends;475295]Hi - most everyone calls me MAW. I have chronic pain. My husband & I had to quit working in March of 2004 because we couldn't do any work. He is missing 5 discs in is back. He is not a candidate for surgery because when they think they have him completely knocked out he wakes up during the surgery. He ended up on all fours. Not good. I have degenerative disc disorder in my lower back, need both knees replaced, have carpal tunnel, asthma,restless leg syndrome, & fibromyalgia. I have been on morphine & percoset for the last 4 yrs. I am also on medication for depression. Unfortunally we lost our doctor & are desperately looking for another one. We are both running out of medication!!!  I found a doctor on the internet who soons pretty good so I think I am going to try to get  an appointment with him ASAP. I hoping if I tell them we are almost out of meds they will be able to get us in quickly. I know everyone will probably agree with me when I say I'm so tired of being in pain all of the time. There isn't a time during the day or night that I'm not hurting.  I desperately need to lose weight & that will help my knees some. They are getting worse everyday!!  How do the rest of you cope? I have to admit I'm not really good at handling my pain. With my depression so bad it just makes the pain worse.  We have had so many things go wrong in our life that it really makes it hard to handle the pain. We are living with my daughter now because we just weren't making it & my daughter needed help with her house that she just bought so it might benefit all of us. The only thing is my 2 grandkids.  Alexandra is 17 & Keith is 14. If I ask or tell them to do something they just ignore me! Especially my grandson. it seems like since we moved in we are doing most of the work around here plus the grocery shopping. I'm hoping it works out because if we could stay here for a couple of years we could save up some money & get some of our $16,000 bills paid.
Well I guess that's it for me. Thanks for letting me sound off. MAW[/QUOTE]
Because of my nightmare of a childhood and teenage hood and a husband so abusive he fractured my skull(he'slong gone), in my fortiees I just couldn't carry it anymore. In therapy I began to think, maybe there is some sort of life justice, and life in the second half will be better, even goo. Then, from a six foot fall and degeneratiive disc disese in my neck (I've had3 vertebrea replaced, two more next month), three years have passed with severe pain 24/7. I was flabbergasted, surprised, disbelieveing that this would happen at this time when I was learning to Hope! I wwas bitter for a very long time, still am. Medications makes the pain minimal ("")(morphine)enough to
keep working, but with lapses. It just sucks. But it has made me compassionate and sampathetic for people with more than one condition, or no legs. I find anger towrards G-d creeping up on me sometimes and when I catch it, try mentally listing for all the things I am rateful for: for instance, Him letting me survive a lethal oerdose of Imiprimin. The paralysis in my right arm eventually going away (after the surgery)(not without effort of
physical therAPY AND ALL THE THERAPIES i THOOUGHT OF MYSELF). tHE NEUROSURGEON, MY DOCTOR, MY THERAPIST, ARE ALL BAFFLED. aNYWAY, I get so sick of it and sometimes it peaks and I''m just fed up and suicidal. But I think I am learning to live with it. Maybe with the nexy surgery it will improve, however slowly, even more. Maybe not. Maybe it is here to stay, the rest of my life. That infuriates me but I have no choice but to keep trying acceptance (while not giving up fighting).Were it not for the nearness of G-d, I surely would be dead. ...The Patches are phentatly patches. They come in
25,50,75 and 100 mg. Most people swear by them. You wear each on seventy two hours; as a controlled substance you get seven at a time. Here in CALIF anywyay...If it's not in G-d's plan to cure us, Ihope we can live, not just exist, with  this denilitating pain--you,I, all people with chronice pain. I have no asnwer. But at The Healing Centre across town, where there is a lot of prayer, they say sometimes healing means coming to terms with  your pain, not having it completely cured/eliminated. Mazel Tov and Shalom. MAD MAEL

Hello MAW: I feel your pain.  I have chronic, relentless pain also.  Today is snowing and icy so my back is doing its thing.  I have two back surgeries and the neurosurgeon said that my back is now inoperable and permanently disaligned.  Not a day goes by that I don't experience acute pain at some point during the day.  I am new to the support group but I joined to come out of my shell.  Pain changes you.  It is still difficult for me to express myself about my pain without breaking down crying.  My chronic pain is the engine that drives my depression/anxiety disorder and my PTSD.  I attend group therapy each week with other ladies with depression, I am learning socialization rather than toleration.  It's a process.  I am a fighter!  I have been dealing with chronic pain for 34 years but I will never give up. I can walk and stand up straight because I constantly work on myself.  I use all sorts of techniques to ease my pain.  Today is one of those days where the pain is so acute anything I do doesn't help at all.  It like that sometimes.  I do things that I enjoy to keep my mind occupied on something fun and positive.  I take a lot of bubble baths with the water as hot as I can stand it.  Sometimes an icepack for 20 minutes helps quiet my back.  I learned that since I've been in therapy I control by activities rather than allowing my back pain to contol my life.  Also, pray, MAW.  God will help you and your husband but you guys have got to give God control so that you can get some healing.  Because of God I am no longer miserable--chronic pain, depression, anxiety and PTSD are no longer in control of me.  I no longer am just reactionary toward my maladies--I take action.  That morphine is a real bastard; try to get off it.  Get out a walk if you can--six blocks out and six blocks back 3 to 4 times a day will have you feeling better.  Deep breathing exercises and along with safe place visualization will ease the pain tremendously.  Get a hobby.  Go to church regularly.  You need to develop a support system of professionals and friends/family to help you deal with you maladies.  Do not suffer in isolation because that's where the black hole of depression will try to take your life.  Volunteer.  When you help others it takes your mind off of your problems.  Stop sitting/lying around in the dark.  Turn on the lights, they will motivate you.  Treatment for our type of ailments is about variety of techniques and maintenance.  Also, take your medication regaularly, and the same time everyday to stave off acuteness.  Hey, I love you MAW.  Drop me a line sometime.  Peace.  DEAU

Maw I wanted to let you know I feel for you deeply. I have fibromyalgia along with migraines and other chronic problems. I am on pain meds that doesn't seem to be helping me in the least bit. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia at a younger age than most people they have just started me on medications to help with it and I am still having problems with the pain. I have to be extremely careful with my pain meds because of rebound headaches that can take place. I am hoping that things work out for you with getting into a doctor soon. I will be praying for you and your husband.

how did you lose your doctor you dont just lose him how? thats all thank you