There's a concept that Melissa and I invented between ourselves once we learned that I was never going to be undisabled again. If I couldn't be better, then I would have to settle for better. I know. Come again? Better is pronounced with the reverence you see most often when a kid talks about Santa Claus. Instead of depending on such nuance, we refer to regaining all of my health or close enough as "Big B Better." Little b better is some improvement in the margins that makes a little better to live.
When I posted about soul tearing pain, I had no idea how I would cope with it through the next hour let alone the two weeks until my pain doc appointment. The good news is that the problem unraveled for me. First, there was the ungodly stress. I cannot begin to describe the strain I was under from the end of May road trip to see the New York family until the last week of July or so. All I can do is describe the effects the stress had on me. I've mentioned them before but I am almost certain that I understand them for what they are now. That makes a big difference.
The pain in my teeth has been a reoccurring thing. In several place, it appears that my teeth are partially torn from my jaw. I'll leave how painful that was to your imagination. It had been happening to me when I really needed a vacation since I was disabled. We took one in 2005 and in 2012. Both times, I went in with severe tooth pain and came home without it. No, I'm certain that I did not take better care of them in any meaningful way either time.
I was convinced several times that this was some sort of recurring infection. When my PCP told me that there were no lymph nodes or glands in the swollen areas and nothing to get infected where my jaw hurt, I gained a terror of bone cancer. Each time, she gave me antibiotics and the problem went away. Antibiotics and orders to rest without taking on a lot of stress seemed to do the trick. In fact, those times included neck pain that was so awful I could hardly cope minute to minute with it.
Those are the symptoms in reverse order of how they worked. Something would cause me great stress and I carried the tension in my face. I would clench up from pain and stress in my neck. I would grit my teeth from the pain and from trying to hold the pain in without yelling. My jaw would set in a few different ways from stress, pain and because the neck muscles controlling it were clenched already. The whole thing took on a life of its own. Once the teeth were sore from being gritted, they became sensitive to just about everything. The fastest cure for them is to chew on something very chewy like taffy chewy. Oragel worked but it took too long.
I found no sure cure for the jaw pain. Narcotics aren't really meant to work on muscle pain as I was told by an urgent care doctor once during a previous flareup. Cold worked some of the time but not others. It isn't easy to get something both cold enough to help and soft enough not to hurt. I have a big old soft gel back we keep wrapped in a dish towel in the freezer. It worked best but it always seemed as if the thing was warming up by the time the cold seeped into my skin deeply enough to help.
The neck was toughest to diagnose because it sent out so many false clues. One of the first things I noticed years ago was that it helped my teeth to lie on my side with my cheek on a soft pillow. Unfortunately, the pain seemed very affected by gravity. The pain would sink to that side of my jaw and I thought of terrible infections. The neck pain would follow as well. Recently, I discovered that the neck pain seemed to worsen if slept in my broken recliner because my head would lean too far back or rest forward on my chest. Both of these things are true but they are mostly results. My neck had to be cramped up from the stress in the first place.
Before this sounds like the plot of Catch-22, remember the title of the post. First, the stressed eased off and then went away. It went back to my normal stress levels which I think might stun the average hippo but I'm used to them. I spent more time in bed sleeping until I started to approach normal numbers of hours spent asleep but with my schedule reversed. The phone calls full of threats and tension ceased so I stopped staying half awake just to enjoy them. My sleep became better again. I devised a jerry rigged neck brace for my poor recliner so that I didn't have to stress about falling asleep there. I started using the cold pack on my neck regularly for a while.
It seems that I have pulled ahead in the battle to be rid of the extra pain. Stressful events remain but concluding them should lead to what will have to pass for a vacation. My arthritis has chosen the middle of summer to act up so that's a bit disconcerting. I still get my agonizing bouts where the headaches exceed what I can ignore for a couple of hours each day and any storm in the area will torture me. If I were looking to become Big B Better, these things would bother me more. Instead, I'm pleased with myself for managing to find improvement. I'm little b better than I was.
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