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09
Jan
I am full of Chinese food and chronic pain
I didn’t post a pictures this week because they were posted over here. We just got back from an event. Click here to see photos of my week!
I just got back from a great chinese restaurant on rte 18 in New Jersey. Now I must commence the post Chinese food bloat! It was worth it! :D
It is getting really cold here in New Jersey. I’m not liking that part of things. I’m kind of bummed out because my feet collapsed when I was a baby. This means that I had them operated on to rebuild them (unsuccessfully) and now I am walking on dislocated bones. This cascaded into my knees not tracking properly. It feels like my knees are being ripped apart when I walk. The therapy for this is orthotics, but the last doctor I saw was unable to make them work for me due to a fused bone causing worse pain when I wore them.
I am at the point that I am very tired of going to doctor after doctor just to have them shrug at me. I want to believe that there is some relief from this chronic pain, but it doesn’t seem that there is. The cold weather makes it much worse. When it comes to wearing formal clothing, it is a serious issue for me because I really just cannot wear women’s dress shoes. I spend most of my evenings in the fetal position in hot bath water.
I have considered pain management, but I also insist on being athletic. I am nervous that if I don’t feel it I will literally rip my own body apart.
If anyone out there knows of a NJ local doctor that isn’t as likely to just shrug at me and marvel at my high pain tolerance, please let me know. It’s not easy focusing with this much pain.
Glad to see you found the Golden East.
Have you tried the Pain Center @ RWJ? My old boss @ Children’s knew the guy that ran it – which means he’s probably pretty good (assuming the same guy still runs the clinic).
I dunno man – those guys give you drugs, right? Not really sure I want to mask it so that I chew myself up without realizing it.
Pain Clinics should be multidisciplinary and about a lot more than just drugs. The one @ Children’s had PT, Behavioral Med. (this often made parents go “but my kid’s not crazy!” – it’s not about that), and even complementary/alternative Med. stuff where appropriate.
It should also take into consideration life-style stuff and offer an individualized program. The idea, as I understood it, was to deal with pain in such a way that people with chronic pain could lead a ‘normal’ life (not necessarily just mask the pain).
Well-looks like I have an appointment now! :)
I’d take all the drugs I could get!! ;)
I hope it gets better in a couple of Weeks when winter is over!
I hope so. I do some blogging from a hot bath way too much!
If you work with a pain specialist you could tell them about your athleticism, and work with them to make a med schedule that works with your work out schedule. You can use drugs with a shorter half life, I think. Do you do exercises that are low impact on your feet and knees? You might want to work with someone about that too.
I have an appointment at a place that does both sports medicine and pain management..so hopefully that will help…
Hey Girl,
The year before I moved back north I went to Seaview Medical in Freehold because my knee decided to swell up for no particular reason. I saw Dr. Spagnuola and if I remember correctly he specializes in orthopedics for athletes. He looked at my knee and said no, not the arthritis making a reappearance, you need PT. Never suggested medicine. They have a PT group right there (that also specializes in athletes- and you remember me, I no where near athlete status). I went to them for 2 months. I really liked my whole experience there. They really helped me. I think the group has a few other locations, too. Might not hurt to see what they have to offer.
Cool. I called them and got an appointment for next week!
Awesome. Let me know how it goes. Keeping my fingers crossed for you. Pain is not fun.
Yeah it SUCKS. I thought I dislocated my knee today just getting out of my chair…
Have you been to see a foot/ankle orthopedic specialist recently? You said you had surgery on your collapsed arches, but was that before or after you had finished growing? If I were in your position, and outside intervention (like orthotics) was ineffective, I’d want to get my bones looked at again. It seems to me that all your pain issues are stemming from a mechanical misalignment that needs to be corrected before arthritis sets in. Found this link, there are a few foot specialists on it:
http://www.orthopedicspecialistsofnewjersey.com/
You are right – I had gotten x rays recently but the doctors were just dumb about it. I have an appointment now for a sports medicine guy next week. Hopefully will see some improvement…