I wanteed to start this post off with a bad pun about Fall in the title but my ironic sense of humor would jinx me if I made a pun about falling. Physical humor isn't my strongest suit right now and I'd rather not have to check off that box about falls with injuries at the pain doc. (Have you over the past year suffered one or more falls with injury? 2 or more falls without injury?) That's not the right quote but I always got the odd impression that they cared more about falls without injury than those with. It's either some highly advanced diagnostic tool or a typo that no one has caught yet.
If I were to make a typical bad joke, I'd have to say that Autumn fell on me with the usual ton of bricks. You would think that all the tooth pain would numb me to the more typical fibromyalgia/Chiari pain but it doesn't work that way. It's a different sort of pain (Thank God!) so practice coping with one does not assist against the other. I learned this in the latest installment of "John decides he's doing something terrible." Narcotic pain medication does not affect tooth pain at all. There is a biological/chemical reason for this that the experts understand and I know from experience. In fact, alcohol doesn't do much of a job against it either. Therefore, my only defense against tooth pain that has spiralled out of control is to sleep.
At one point, I confused one (or possibly several) of my doctors when I explained how pain helped me sleep. It's a rather indirect relationship but pain forced me to learn to relax my body and mind. Narcotics require a willing mind to get the job done even with the things they handle well. You can't fight to stay alert and get proper pain relief at the same time. Fighting to stay alert is something I learned too long ago to set aside easily but, when I manage to set it aside, I drop off to sleep way too easily. I go from insomniac to a layman's narcoleptic with the flip of a switch. It doesn't matter what I'm doing. I've fallen asleep eating way too many times and I'm glad I quit smoking going on 20 years ago. Has anyone else fallen asleep completely upright without falling over? I'm not even talking about sleepwalking. Ironically, the main instance of this that I can remember involved standing at a light switch that I had just flipped.
Learning to manage pain helped me learn to sleep so I've never had to check the box about pain depriving me of sleep. Well, this month's paperwork will be a first. I decided that I was drinking way too much and losing my pain tolerance. (Try growing up hearing that you're wimpy for not having any pain tolerance and then having to report chronic pain to a physician. The constant self examination wears me down.) I had asked for some beer for my birthday since I like the taste of it so much and my beloved bought me a 4-pack of really good and potent German beer. Since I was having a nice little vacation from the intense tooth pain, I decided that I didn't require whiskey for pain at all. Some beer would do nicely.
Well, a weather front of one variety or another came rushing through and that beer went fast. I was in screaming/howling agony overnight as Melissa sat up with me for quite a while trying to keep me calm or, at least, not frothing from the mouth. At one point, I could tell she was just as upset as I was when she joined me in wishing a liquor store could just open up. Well, we survived the night and I got my bottle. It lasted a couple of days at most because I was interested in being semi-conscious at most.
As with any total loss of pain control that I've had, there were a few days of what you might call aftershocks. At the same time, I was suffering from the usual muscle cramps, spasms, twitching, headaches, neck pain and that really big guy who was pummeling me with the kitchen sink. That's when I remembered the whole Fall thing. Changes in temperature are bad for me. The aftershocks may be over but I've learned a new rule. Running out of money and whiskey at the same time while in extreme pain is a bad thing. I should be able to get whiskey on my prescription drug plan and, yes, I'm happy with generic mixed with tap water. Well, I guess satisfied is more appropriate than happy.
Must remember to act early. Pain is easier to stop the lower it is on the pain scale. Also, must remember to rest this afternoon.
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