Being Tested.....

Here is a picture the difference between a healthy muscle and a muscle affected by psoriatic arthritis. On my personal MRI's you can actually see the black dots all over my spine, knees, feet and hands. Nasty I know...

Well, I'm certainly being tested in patience and faith. My last labs showed that my inflammation had increased and not decreased with the treatments. So they are going to increase the dose I take for my chemo and the IV treatment and will probably put the IV treatments closer together.

Since the radio frequency ablations didn't work as well as they had hoped we are now going to do epidurals on my lower spine, medial branch blocks on my middle back and injections into my neck, plus chiropractic work regularly. At least once a week. My poor chiropractor. I go in once a week and every week pretty much every muscle that can be popped out of place is. My muscles are just so week that i can't hold things into place. She spends and house just popping me back into place. She has to pop my hips in several different areas, my neck, my spine, it's nasty and freaks me out but it helps so I keep going back.

I know that something is going to work and help me. I REALLY believe that. I feel blessed that my MRI shows that something is actually wrong. I was watching dr oz and it was about chronic pain in people and so many of those people have nothing that shows up on any tests but they are in horrible pain 24/7. I could relate so much to each of the people on the show. Once woman describes how she has to get up early to make sure she has enough time for her pain medicine to work. I set my alarm for an hour before my kids will get up for the same reason. I can't get them ready for school in the morning until the medicine kicks in. Then there was another who said she was not the mother she had envisioned herself to be. I wanted to much to be an active fun mom that was always running and playing. I use to be that way, and I hope to be again, and every now and again I am able to but mostly I'm just not the mom I want to be. Another woman went through 1o doctors who told her she was just depressed or it was all in her head. I went through 8 that told me I was just having depression cause I had just given birth to my daughter. so many people don't believe you and if they can't find the answer they just say it's in your head. They either think you're just over reacting or that you're trying to score drugs. Dr. Oz touched on all those things. It's sad how many people suffer and no one pays attention to them.

Maybe someday I can be a spokesperson/advocate for pain management. That would be cool. :-)