Join me, Jason, on a wild adventure as I navigate the ups and downs of living with chronic pain, peripheral neuropathy, depression, and anxiety—all while searching for that elusive diagnosis of what the heck is going on!
Expect humor, honesty, and a healthy dose of sarcasm as I share my experiences, insights, and random musings along the way.
I recommened you start with this post to catch you up: From Chest Pain to Chronic Pain
I have been itching to write this post, but at the same time, it feels like such a big announcement that I don’t even know where to start. I guess the easiest way is to just dive right in and start talking about it. The basics are that I got a diagnosis of a condition that appears to be the root cause of everything that has been going on. And on top of that, I have already started treatment for it and it appears to be working!...
This last month has gone by pretty quickly with so many doctor visits. I am working with new specialists on a possible diagnosis, but I don’t fully understand it yet to write about it in detail. The general overview is that she ran a bunch of tests, and so far, a few of them have come back with abnormal results. I’m trying to contain my excitement until we can review them together....
I have been putting off writing this post for a while, not because I didn’t want to write it, but because I am having a hard time finding the best way to describe my experience with Spravato. Let’s start with the basics, though, which is that Spravato is a nasal spray version of esketamine, which is a drug used to treat depression and anxiety. It is given in a supervised setting, and my understanding is that it is used only for people who have tried multiple other treatments and have had limited to no success....
Look at this! I didn’t wait another month before writing a blog post! I just wish I had some better news to share, but I at least have a lot of news. This last week, I went to a neuromuscular specialist that was 2.5 hours away after a referral from a rheumatologist. The plan was that they were going to run some tests based on what I had already had done....
There is a concept in the chronic pain/illness community called being a “spoonie.” It is something that I have been thinking a lot about this week in particular, so I thought I would spend a bit of time writing about it. I mainly need to write it out so I can convince myself that I need to pay more attention to it because I keep pushing past my limits and paying for it....
I know, I know, it has been a while since I posted anything. I thought I was going to have some great news and something fun to write about, but instead, things have been a bit of a downer lately. To catch you up, I need to go back to last month when I finally got to meet with a rheumatologist. Your browser does not support the audio element. The Wait The craziest part to me about the appointment was just how long it took....
After the scariness of my last post, I am really glad to be sharing some good news. I mentioned in my last post that I had a pharmacogenomic test done and I have had long enough to make some changes. If you don’t know what that kind of test is, don’t worry because I didn’t know what it was either before I got it. The short summary is that they do a few quick cheek swabs and look at your DNA to predict how medications will work for you or might have undesired side effects....
This last week was one of the roughest that I have had in a while, and not because I had a flare, but rather because I reacted poorly to a treatment for it. This post will contain triggering topics related to depression and suicide, so you might want to skip this one if those topics bother you. Your browser does not support the audio element. Med Changes To talk about the week, let’s roll back to the week before....
This week was a rough week, but not because of the nerve pain. In fact, my nerve pain was actually not too bad this week, but I had really troubling issues with my mood. Being depressed is very frustrating because it makes it hard to take care of myself like I should, so it causes everything to compound and can really ruin my week. Your browser does not support the audio element....
I thought this would be a good time to talk about something that has been helping me out a lot more than I expected. It is one of those things that I didn’t think was going to do much, but I decided to give it a try once my therapist recommended it to me, mainly because I am looking for anything that gives me relief from my issues. When she said it might help me reduce the frequency of my panic attacks, I was all for it....