Doing a 180...

 

Have you ever done a 180 with RA ?  I have ,several times and with each time let me tell you it doesn't get any easier.  What do i mean by doing a 180??  I'm talking about going from practically no pain to being in pain all the time again.  With each time of coming out of Remission it gets harder & harder to deal with. (well for me anyways , that's the only person i can speak for on this)  Harder to deal with the chronic pain, the mind trick that you are some how no longer ever gonna be in pain, that it was gone.  You get it in your mind that the pain is long gone the worst is over.  Let me just tell you from experience you never know if you have seen your worst or not when living with RA.  You may think you have seen the worst then something else comes along that totally tops it.  The worst thing I hate about doing a 180 from remission to pain is not being taken seriously by people or even your doctors.  I had such an experience just yesterday.  It was time for my appointment with my pain management doctor.  I'm praying to God she will up my pain meds a great deal because I was taken off of Enbrel ( this is in another post on my blog, "Yet , another bump in the road" post) due to possible "drug induced Lupus" .Without Enbrel, the pain can get nasty and in a hurry!!  So I go for my appointment with hope and optimism.  I was gonna make sure she really understood what kinda pain I'm talking about and how dead serious the pain can get in a hurry!

I had my case and my plee already rehearsed & ready to convince any nah sayers!  So there I was setting in the waiting area with about 25 other people with Chronic pain conditions rehearsing my plee that i was about to give my doctor.  Finally 40 minutes later I hear my name called.  Then the usual pleasantries , Hi, How are you?  Just go to the left then the right and step on the scales, ya know the normal stuff of any doctor appointment.  As I was setting waiting for the doctor to come in the room I was convinced she would understand.  I was gonna make her understand.  She walks in...time to start my plee.  I knew I deserved for my pain meds to be upped.  I know first hand how bad the pain can get and how fast it can get there.  I explained to her about how my primary doctor has taken me off Enbrel and how i was on nothing at all right now for my RA and how fast my RA turns for the worst without very good, strong medicines and I had already been off it 4 weeks now and I would be at the 6 week marker by the time i even saw my Rheumatologist.  I had no idea what was even in store for me at the Rheumatologist visit.  Would I be taken off all TNF Blocker medicines because they can cause the drug induced Lupus?  What meds would i be put on?  Would they work?  It took me 10 years to find any medicine that even remotely helped and now it was taken away from me.  Would the next thing he tried even work.  My future was uncertain as I plead with the pain management doctor as i held back my tears.  All i wanted was for her to understand just how bad and how fast it can turn and will turn on me but she wasn't listening.  I guess she had gone deaf from all the other patients she had seen up to the time of my appointment.  I do think they get desensitised by peoples stories then there are the people that just want drugs and ruin it for all of us and those people really piss me off cause you are making it very hard for me, the person that is legitimately in pain, to get the right treatment.  She barely upped my pain meds.  Not enough to even make any difference at all.  I left in tears.  You would think by now i would be used to not being taken seriously but I am an optimist , always hoping for the best. So I leave my appointment once again  knowing the medicines & and the dosage she prescribed was pratically worthless.  She just didn't get my plee nor was i taken seriously.  So as i walk to my car and feel the cold air on my skin and tears running down my cheeks I wipe my cheeks and once again try to make the best of what I got dealt with in life &  begin again.