Acupuncture saved my life

In the last half of 2016, I began seeing a pain rehabilitation doctor I was referred to by my rheumatologist. My neck has been just god awful for me lately.
For a long time, I hadn’t been sleeping in my bed but on the couch. Even then, I was barely sleeping.
We started with trigger point injections. This is where lidocaine (a numbing agent) is injected directly into very tight muscular points. It relieves the tightness and allows you to move in ways that will help work that knot out. These were really effective at the start, but began to very quickly lose effectiveness past the first few days.
Our plan b was to start acupuncture and see how that went. It isn’t covered by our insurance and y’all know how I feel about ‘alternative’ medicine things, but I was willing to give it a try.
 
I can honestly say right now that I don’t know if I would be alive without acupuncture.
People may think I’m being melodramatic in saying this but, for me, it’s a reality. I can deal with pain in a joint on a normal basis – heck, I lived and worked with bursitis for several months. This neck pain is something that is just demoralizing and awful in the worst way.
I can avoid using a joint like my knee but not my neck!
We’ve only done the acupuncture a few times, but this last time I went for three weeks until having real neck pain again this past Wednesday. And, when I say this, I mean little-to-no breakthrough pain to manage as well – no TENS unit, hot packs, ice, ointments (aside from those to ease my sunburn), etc.
This is practically a miracle for me.
I’ve been able to sleep! And in my bed next to my husband at that! Tuesday night was the first night since I got back from Mexico that I didn’t sleep in my bed once my sunburn cleared up enough.
All that said, this has been also a practice in self-care. For example, I can’t be upright all day. It’s just not something I can do and survive. That’s actually been part of what’s wound up causing me more pain this week.
The amount of time I’ve spent upright the last two days, though, has been productive and amazing. In addition to publicly speaking out again sexism and sexual harassment that pervades our patient communities, I’ve also been working on some great things for Chronic Sex and related projects. I won’t talk too much about it here, but it’ll advance a lot of research and information on sex/intimacy and illness/pain/disability.
I get acupuncture next week Thursday and I couldn’t be more excited.

 

Sometimes you just need a reset

The last few weeks have seen me having a lot of good days which I desperately needed.
It all started with a trip to Cancun, Mexico with my college roommate. It was a great way to take a break from social media and work. I mean, I did manage to get a horrible sunburn because we were drinking margaritas in the ocean, but that’s beside the point.
It’s hard to not rest and want to soak up as much sun as possible when you’re around this instead of frozen tundra Wisconsin life.
It was nice to get a sunburn honestly. It was a good reminder that pain usually comes to people after they do something.
Katy and I also just really needed to spend time together in the wake of all the political ick going on.
Despite having a sunburn when I got back, I really felt like I had a fire lit under my ass. For the first time in a while, I had really just taken a legit break and felt ready to attack things.
A week later, T and I got to go see one of my favorite bands – Boyz II Men!
I’ve been listening to them ever since I was little and I have always enjoyed their music. Seeing them in person was amazing.
It also got me thinking about other things from my youth that I really enjoyed… like albondigas soup… which all connects back to Mexico, funny enough. I talk about it in my latest piece over on Medium.
Hey, and I lost like five pounds within a month!
It’s not that things are all going right. My inflammation levels are high. My fatigue is being a butt. I have a million things I want to do and not always enough energy to do them.
Still, things feel better. Rest is incredibly important, especially in times of resistance. Make sure you’re taking care of you.