Hi Brenda.
Just wondering if you know that Ibuprophen is an anti inflammatory and has to be with food and Tylenol is only a pain killer. That the two can be used together within limits and that Tylenol 3s only have 325 mg Tylenol in them and are mostly codeine. I used quite a bit of Robaxacet at the time I used to get it. But I knew after the first time it went away that it would the next time too. I never worried about riding my horses either I just watched how I lifted things. When I did get panic attacks they were not, then, related to pain.
Now the staph infection was a different storey. It was so horrible I wanted to die. I wasn't afraid of dying, I actually wanted too. I was never given the opportunity and I am mostly happy I am still here.
Where I used to get panic was when I would get better. It is odd but the disability and pain was real and I knew where I stood. When it was time to re enter the world again I freaked. I didn't know how or what I could do any more. There was still some pain but my safe routine was gone. I was going to have to clean and cook and shop and I didn't know if I could. And every time I proved I could still do something, something else that I now had to do would have me panicking. Bad too. I built some pretty negative core beliefs on my seven year period of pain and incapability. Now I'm unravelling them.
They are still there but I have built a positive one on them. It is that it is possible to tolerate long periods of intense pain if you have something or some one to look forward to when it is over or even if it is only giving you temporary relief.
For me it is attitude since I already know what I'm dealing with and my attitude now is that concentrating on making and enjoying small periods of pleasure when ever I can is worth all I go through to have them. I still lose it once in a while when the pain or disfunction just won't go away. But this too I know passes. It is one heck of a world we are forced to live in with our pain but the alternative is permanent, so I guess it isn't that bad.
One thing I hang onto is that I can remember having had pain but not the actual sensation. I know when pain passes that I will never actually feel it again till the next time it happens. So I only have to get through what ever pain I have at the moment. That from the past doesn't count, nor does the pain from the future since I don't actually know if I will ever have any again or how much or when.
It takes a lot of positives to block the negatives from pain, but I am doing it. Even if I do have to have a special bed and still sometimes sleep in my chair.
Davit.
