Part II
Now I was getting somewhere, I thought. I had it set in my mind that they would find something terible wrong with me and I would even have to have surgery. But at least my pain would go away. I even voiced this to my boss. By this time, after I would sit down to relax, when I went to get back up I would have this terrible pain go through me. I had gotten to the point I was sleeping on the old couch I had instead of the bed. My back would hurt all night if I slept on a real bed. Also by this time I was slowly gaining weight. Since my mobility had slowed down my weight picked up.
The day came for the appointment and I went there and they took x-rays. Then the doctor came in and said he found nothing wrong with my bones. He said "A lot of women your age have this problem. We don't know why." Ouch!!! I was only 26 at the time. No-one I knew had this problem. He charged me $150.00 for that statement. I wanted to cry. That was not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear there was something wrong with me & they could fix it.
I went back to my regular doctor. He then sent me to physical therepy. I like the massages I got there. But I could only have perticular nurse massage my back cause she did it the hardest. In one of my sessions she commented that my pains move around quite a bit. Maybe I should ask the Dr. to see if I had Fibromyalgia. So armed with this advice I asked him. He said "No. I don't think that is what it is. You are just having musel spasms." After 9 months of Phiscal therepy he desided that this was not working. So he took me off of it.
By this time I was up to taking at least 5 pills of felxeril, 10mgs each. 2-3 of the volteren, 50mgs. each. And I would hold off of the codine till I couldn't stand the pain any more. When I didn't have the extra money for the medicens, I would take up to 4 extra strength tylonol. So he gave me new prescibtions. Seems to me I was getting worse not better. But what did I know I wasn't the doctor.
I did find out I could sleep in a waterbed and not wake up as much. The heat from the bed helped some, but I had to keep it set around 90 degrees. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and go take a hot (as Eric puts it) boiling bath or shower. And just stand there and let the water run down my back just in hopes it would easy the pain. I slept on a heating pad, and often too high, I would wake up with griddle makes on my back from the heating pad. My oldest son would sometimes rub BenGay on it. I would ask my boyfriend, at that time, to rub my back, but he would just tell me he wasn't good at it. He wouldn't even try.
This went on till around January of 96. It had gotten so bad it was affecting the way I walk, sleep, or even to move. I was up to taking 8 tylonols to get through 3 hours of work. If you sit and think about it, that is any where between 24 and 32 a day just to work my shift. I was now a manager, and was required to work 53+ hours. Which meant I worked 10-13 hour days. I usually had two days off. I wouldn't miss work cause I need the money. So I would suffer. And taking anything I could to get the pain to quit. ( ie, Advil, Aleive, Exedrin, Tylonol, or anything else that was extra strenth) I was lucky if I had just one day go by that I wasn't in pain.
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