Pain and tears

Tears first, that's easier.  Michal asked if the times I cry uncontrollably are bipolar in nature or count as crying.  Often they are real crying except that I kind of save up tons of tears and every so often it is like my head explodes and I cry hard.  Part of this is abuse and part of it is my meds which can blunt emotions.

Pain......again there are 2 factors in my not feeling pain normally.  One is certainly abuse.  I was taught to ignore it and to hide reactions to things that hurt.  That is complicated by something I do not know scientifically but I've observed it as has my dentist:  antipsychotics dull pain.  The combination is not good.  That's why I didn't have ankle surgery when it would have made sense, because after spraining it so badly that I could get a shoe on and there was a baseball sized purple lump on the outside of my ankle within just a few minutes of the fall, yet I insisted in walking in my sock feet into urgent care and through the building.  The exam hurt and I said nothing.  I was much more vocal about fighting off a tetanus shot that could kill me than I was about getting someone to understand the pain I was in.  I left with no painkillers at all and had to contact Dr. Body the next day and ask for some.  Crutches were inconvenient so I pretended to only need one long before I should have.  I neglected to tell Dr. Body that the extreme bruising was accompanied by extreme pain so he did exactly what I asked and got me into a walker boot, which I then abused by walking so much that I had to back to non-weight bearing.  I knew my dentist had a not-believing me policy after I nearly wound up septic by saying a tooth that was severely infected "hurt a little".

It wasn't until after the severity of my ankle injury, plus the healed fracture that I learned about 18 years too late that I realized the extent of my inability to discuss pain because of abuse.

That hit home even harder when I went to Dr. Body with chills, fever, and severe pain that seemed consistent with a bad UTI or a kidney stone.  He did all these weird things and I gave answers I thought should be right not what I really felt.  He sent me for a CT scan that was negative and the previous scan I'd had to rule out stones had been misread.  I waited until the 2nd day to go see him and since we didn't know there was a stone to begin with the negative CT had me in tears because I hurt so badly and felt awful and felt like I was faking.  I wound up having a long talk with Dr. Body about never believing me about pain and why and confessed to lying on the testing.  At least one test would have indicated the strong possibility that I either had a stone or had passed one.

I truly don't know how realistic it is to hope that I'm going to make great gains in this area with  PTSD treatment, but then again I've noticed and paid a minute's attention to several days since the IUD was removed that the familiar but not as sharp pelvic pain has returned.  I really don't think it's a ton of pain I'm ignoring; I think it's a low level version of a year ago.  So maybe.  The meds have a chemical effect on pain.  My childhood taught me that pain was bad.  It's not a very good combination.  I remember when I was waiting for surgery last summer telling Dr. Mind that my pain was about a 7 much of the time.  He said that it was too bad that I had no way to tell everyone who'd be treating me that this meant a 12/10.  Dr. Mind saw my ankle and helped me to my car after I fell.  He was horrified that I walked more than necessary on that.  I learned a lot about pain from that.  I should have used the wheelchair?  Huh.

It's a weird combination and it means my doctors have to be very thorough in getting information out of me.  Thankfully they do.

Could I cry because of physical pain?  Nope.  I had tremendously bad bladder spasms with the catheter with my surgery.  My body clamped down and left me with a painfully full bladder that wasn't draining much.  I was begging for pain meds and didn't have any ordered for hours.  I was sweating and trying to get into any position that felt better and saying it was 9/10 and I don't get think anyone believed me.  If I have a hysterectomy I am going to Dr. Brain to write an order for something that will make me nice and sleepy through the night.  I had anxiety meds that would have helped the pain but didn't think to ask.

Anyway, time to quit typing and work on relaxing.  I have a much healthier feline snuggled against my leg and it's time to work on sleeping.  I walked 3.06 miles today (probably a little more since I put my step length in the pedometer with the wrong math) and was so tired coming back.  I wish it had lasted. Although this looks like a 2-3 night instead of a 4-6 night so that's good.

M., I'll check out that website as soon as I finish the one I am currently reading.  I am looking for something specific and can't remember what search landed me there so I'm trying to find something to remind me.
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