Sorry About Last Week
I'm very sorry about missing last week without notice. I meant to write something on Monday, which was naturally madness, so that didn't happen. As for why I didn't do something on Tuesday... or Thursday... It's a bit of a story. Let me start at the beginning.
So, the good news is Cymbalta is hitting the nerve pain right in the nuts. It's dropped probably by half and I legitimately could not be happier about that. My wrist still hurts, but not as much! Same goes for my back, my shoulder, my neck, my knees, my pelvis (which is doing the testosterone shifts and those HURT), my ankles... Well, honestly there's nerve pain basically everywhere right now. The hazards of EDS, yeehaw...
The bad news is, that makes it a little difficult at times to tell what hurts... like first thing in the morning. Which is basically what happened on Tuesday before my entire left leg buckled and then twisted when I failed to catch myself.
Long story short, my adopted brother has sleep paralysis. I have had it too, so I know how this goes. He wasn't answering his phone on Tuesday morning and when I went to check on him all he could do was whimper. It helps to have someone kind of gently run their hands over frozen limbs, sort of helps ground you, so I was bending over to do that for him when all of a sudden my leg gave. I tried to catch myself on the bed, but I was feeling very sick that morning and didn't know why and all of a sudden my choices were remain standing and vomit or let myself fall.
So I fell. At least it was only about two feet between my butt and the floor, but my leg got twisted as I fell and absolutely everything is angry in it. I spent Tuesday basically asleep, too drained from the injury to exist beyond bathroom breaks and staggering to the freezer for another ice pack, plus eating. I slept like a rock that night too, and Wednesday was better... but I was brain fogged. I have probably been in a minor CFS flare, in hindsight. Injuries like this tend to set them off.
Unfortunately, it was only after I fell on Tuesday that I realized the leg had already been hurting. I essentially made a bad situation worse, purely by accident, by not paying attention and the lessening of extremely painful nerve symptoms to the extent that I couldn't tell where the pain was with my morning brain fog. So... Whoops!
I am happy to say I am doing much better now. Ice and rest and a metric butt ton of protein powder have worked magic and some very gentle stretching the past three days has done me good as well. I have EDS, so I am going to be very careful with it for another two weeks after tomorrow.
None of this, by the way, excuses missing Monday's update. It should have already been written, edited, and scheduled. That did not happen. Mostly that's on me, but some of that is on Cymbalta.
See, Cymbalta is an SSNRI, which means it hits both serotonin and norepinephrine, two very important neurotransmitters. You probably know about serotonin and dopamine, but most people miss norepinephrine. I have problems with dopamine, as I have ADHD, but I'm pretty good at stimulating that from outside activities. No, the one I struggle with most is norepinephrine. So Cymbalta is pulling triple duty right now, hitting my nerve pain, PTSD, and ADHD.
Previously I was on an SNRI, that's just hitting norepinephrine, called Qelbree. It worked well, but the side effects of getting off it were... ugh. So I wanted to try something different anyway. But being on Qelbree for the first two or three months of that time taught me an important lesson about how my ADHD reacts to drugs that poke that neurotransmitter: it gets worse temporarily. The first three days that I was noticing things being different, I did the laundry instead of making breakfast. Yes, three days in a row.
I dunno. I just work here...
While I have more or less got myself back on my coping mechanisms until this stage passes, I dropped the ball for Monday. Pain ate Thursday. I am really sorry about missing last week.
Hypothetically, things should start improving soon... We can hope.
