The Lyme Light

Today was a bad day. It wasn't that every moment of the day was saturated with pain or fatigue or tachycardia. It was that the moments that were happened to be especially bad and, for some reason, especially sad. There was a moment of panic over the tachycardia and the fact that it may mean I have to stop Flagyl, again. The fact that if I do try to tolerate it, that I might need to go to urgent care at any moment. Because I know that I cannot ignore the seriousness of it. But I also know that I haven't been reacting appropriately. At a certain point, simply monitoring it will no longer be enough.

That was today. Tonight was a different story. After work, pain became the focus. I am almost always able to control the pain if I am able to lie in bed. I am usually able to reserve pain medicine for the times when I am away from home and need relief. This approach has served me well because I know that I can manage the pain once I get home. At home, I have ice packs and a comfortable bed and pillows to put under my knees. Only on very rare occasions have I been unable to manage the pain at home since I started extended-release morphine and then, eventually, oxymorphone. 

Tonight, however, I was startled by the intensity of this unprovoked pain and the fact that I couldn't manage it. It started suddenly. I was sitting up in bed eating a late dinner when a deep, pulsing pain started in my SI joints. It was so severe and so jarring that I quickly downed my next dose of Lyrica, a muscle relaxer, and an Aleve. All of this after I had already been using ice packs to control it. It is the very definition of breakthrough pain. Next, I shifted to lying on my side with a pillow between my knees. The pulsing returned and intensified. It would go back and forth from the left side to the right side. It was such a deep, severe pain that it brought me to tears immediately. Each pulse made me shake and tense up. They came in waves. Each wave caused more tears, more panic. I dreaded having to move again but I knew I had to. I had to go to the kitchen to get another ice pack. This time, on my back, on an ice pack, with a pillow under my knees. I managed to numb the pain enough to breath again. It was a nightmare but it is under control now. I'm not really sure what caused it. My best guess is Flagyl. If this continues, I'll have to stop it, again.