It was at this point that I started to get pain in my lower right arm and it would radiate up my past my elbow. Now I’m not talking about muscle pain; THAT I could deal with. This pain would stop me from functioning, at all! It was a pain that would send me to the floor in a ball and I would just cry. It would be the type of pain that I would not wish on ANYBODY. It was such a bizarre, disabling pain that it’s very hard to describe. It was more than one type of pain, too. Sometimes it would be dull aching pain… another time I would get a FREEZING cold pain… other times I would get a “Stabbing” pain where if felt like someone was taking a large fork a stabbing my arm and hand… other times it felt like it was burning hot like I was on fire… other time it felt like an electric shock to my arm and hand… other times it would be more than ONE type of pain at once… The pain would last for some hours and then it would settle down, and I could think of something else. I hated it…
I was under the care of a Dr. who was a nice man, but I couldn’t express to him what was happening. Come to think of it, I’m sure that he didn’t know my whole history, so I would explain the pain I was having in my hand and arm… he would just prescribe me some Vicodin and that would be it. It did absolutely nothing to help me deal with this monster pain that was plaguing me! All this went on for about six or eight months or so; and I was starting to get desperate because this excruciating pain was happening two of more times per week… I wanted to be rid of it!
I went back to him again and again asking for something stronger that might allow me to cope with this pain I was having… After a while I think he thought I was a drug seeker who was just out for a “high”, and he DID give me some Percodan… with the stipulation that I should go to UCSF and see the Dr.’s there. I agreed, as the Percodan wasn’t making a dent in this pain either… so, I asked him to make me an appointment to the Pain Management Clinic at University of California San Francisco…
See you in my next post…