Jonngo

The news for your wrist is no fun! At least you've found a way to manage it! Is the surgery complex?

Things now are a complete 180 from how they were. After I left the joke that was my "treatment" at Hopkins, I floated a while, came down with bronchitis which turned into pnuemo... so that was a blast. I got over that with the help of a new plumno that sent me to St. Agnes Pain center here in Baltimore. Wow, THIS is what a real pain center should be. From the moment I started going, they covered EVERY possible aspect of my life. I immediately started once a week group classes, education about everything from dealing with insurance, meds, drs, family.. everything. I did a run with biofeedback, learned some new tricks, went thru and am continuing with myofacial release massage, and started trying a few different combos of meds. I still go to my accupuncture once a week, which helps with the side effects of my meds, along with just makes me feel better.

I can't express how diffrerent of an experience this has been from Hopkins. I'm sure you remember my last days visiting this board, the misery I was in from being in and out of withdrawl due to the docs office losing or screwing up my scripts, all the rediculas garbage the office at Hopkins had been putting me thru as far as screwing up my appointmets, botching nerve blocks, etc.. I haven't had a SINGLE problem with the new pain place. They are just great! The goons at Hopkins shouldn't be allowed to touch living people. They put me in a place, both mentally and physcially that I NEVER want to be EVER again in my life. It's ironic that the place is supposed to reduce peoples pain and all they did was make it much worse! It has taken me months to get to a point where I can even talk about it. I'm sure you remember some folks here insisting that the problem had to be me, that I was instigating, abusing my meds, etc, etc... yeah.. that was def not the prob. As soon as I began treatment somewhere else, those problems simply disappeared. The folks at St. Agnes are kind and compassionate, not to mention a LOT more educated in pain related care than any other docs I've been to. I never have any errors with my scripts, my appointments are always on the days they are supposed to be (no more getting there and being told they forgot doc was at another office that day), and most importantly they listen to me.. I play an active role in my treatment and the direction of things that we try. The massage and biofeedback has made a huge difference and has really decreased the number of "bad days" I have.

I had an MRI the other day.. hehe boy that was wierd. They said that it SHOULDNT bother the titanium staples in my lung, but no.. it did. Nothing horrible, they just heated up and kinda almost like they wiggled. Nothing painful, just a wierd feeling.

Has there been any change in your conditions? Any luck with treatments?

They diagnosed things right now... the lesser, outer pain that I have they think is RSD, and the inner pain they think is from nerve damage and adhesions. We tried this IV bloodpressure med thats been shown to help with RSD, but didn't have any real effect. Since then we've been doing trigger point injections every other week, they've been doign a LOT of good.. reducing the outer pain almost to nothing. Until we started with those, I never realized just how much I would swell up on bad days. The difference was HUGE. Apparently that swelling was also putting pressure on nerves near my shoulder, which just made things worse during a flare up. As far as the more serious pain, we tried a few different things, opiate and non opiate, with so so results... then we tried Methadone. This med really has changed my life. It works on the pain better than ANYTHING I've ever tried. Pretty much no side effects after the first few days, and even then it was just some sleepyness that went away quickly. No foggy head, no getting sick... just pain relief.

I am so grateful that I've found the PM that I have. They've made such a difference in my life. I'm able to work full time again, get out more, and become a more stable person. I couldn't ask for more. After almost 4 years, I finally have a chance at a mostly pain free life again. I hope that you have as much luck as I have.

What kind of treatment are you getting right now? are you at a center, or being treated by just one doc? Have you had any other procedures done in the past few months?

good to talk to you again,

~Jonny