Dec 15
Yesterday and most of today wasn’t too bad. I didn’t have any schedule yesterday, so I was able to lie down as soon as the pain / tingling started climbing. Basically this meant that my AM pain level today was 0 instead of the 1 or even 2 it usually is.
My chiropractic adjustment went very well. Then I ran a few errands. One was to get my imaging records to the surgeon, but there wasn’t anyone in his office, and no one answered their telephone. So I went to Imaging and asked to have the full set and reports sent to him. I’ll call their other office tomorrow and let them know. I figure this will allow the doctor to look at them at his convenience, instead of having to wait until my appointment.
That took me up to lunch time. Then I had to drive my husband to pick up some ham radio equipment. The drive was about an hour each way, and we stayed to visit about an hour. By the time we got home, my shoulder was a little sore, so I lay down for a bit. By the time supper was ready, the pain was gone.
I did have some pain in my right hip tonight on the way home from my Civil Air Patrol meeting, but it didn’t persist long after I got home.
I did manage to figure out a good way to describe the way my arm actually feels. Pain isn’t accurate enough, because there are so many types of pain. This wasn’t sharp, dull, throbbing, pulling, compressing, or any of the other “normal” types of pain. It also wasn’t a burning in the typical sense. There wasn’t any heat feeling, nor was it like an electrical burn with its underlying stiffness. Finally, yesterday afternoon I remembered what it felt like. It was almost exactly like the feeling of a dilute lye solution being sprayed on bare skin. The only difference is dilute lye stops burning as soon as it’s rinsed. This doesn’t stop until after I’ve lay down for a while.
So, generally, after I’ve been up for somewhere between 2 to 4 hours I begin having some tingling in the back of my upper left arm. Usually this is near the top. It then spreads down my arm, and sometimes over my left shoulder blade. As it spreads the lye-burn feeling begins, and sometimes the right side of my neck gets a pulled-muscle type pain.
If I don’t lie down at this point, the pain begins to spread into my upper back. It usually doesn’t go far below my bra line, but occasionally goes as low as the bottom of my ribcage. If I continue to ignore it, the feelings begin to extend to the right side and down the right arm. Once in a while I get pain/tingling as far as my wrists, and also occasionally my elbows feel as if they’ve banged on something. This funny-bone feeling can happen anytime, and does not seem to be related to the other symptoms. The other feeling I occasionally get is as if someone is holding my left arm right above the elbow. Not tightly, but completely surrounding in a ring about 2 inches wide.
Feel free to comment. I will try to answer any questions.
December 16, 2008 at 8:53 am
Barbara from the chores you undertook yesterday i can see you are making good progress and am happy to note that