Neuropathy Going Nuts

For the last week this neuropathy has been going absolutely nuts.  It is about to drive me crazy.  I have had about 14 hours of sleep total since Sunday.  I am exhausted, to say the least.  I can only hope that this lets up soon.  Every time I try to go to sleep, it seems as if it gets worse.  I don’t think it is actually worse, but I don’t have anything to do and it becomes more apparent to me.

Neuropathy

This is one of those times when having neuropathy really sucks.  I should be in bed asleep right now, but I have that pins and needles feeling all over.  Laying still makes it that much worse.  In fact, the longer you lay still the more you want to jump out a window.  Unfortunalty, my window is not that far off the ground and I would only make it worse.  My wife is a real saint for putting up with my eradic behavior.  The Pope is coming to America, maybe I should mention her to him.  Ok, I think I will give it another try.  I do have to work tomorrow and I guess getting a little sleep helps your attitude at work.

Medication Reaction

I was taking a drug called Lyrica to help with the symptoms of neuropathy. About 2 weeks ago I increase the dosage to 150mg 3 times a day. After a couple of days, I began to feel a little strange, but didn’t think anything of it. A few days ago, I started to feel paranoid and was really hyper. I got really anxious for no reason. I called my doctor who has decided that I shouldn’t take that much. No I have to stop it entirely in stages. I guess there may be a dosage that I can stand.

When I tried taking Cymbalta for neuropathy, I had a reaction that was a little different. The main thing that I remember was terrible hot flashes. Needless to say I stopped that medication also. The problem is I am running out of medications that I can take. This is compounded by the fact that every year this seems to get a little worse, possibly due to developing a tolerance to the Neurontin. I have a hard time keeping a positive attitude about this whole thing. It is very frustrating.

Letter to Hillary about Healthcare

Hillary,

I have peripheral neuropathy.  I currently have insurance through my wife’s work and its not that bad, but not as good as the insurance that I previously had through my former health insurance company.  I was wondering about your plan to make sure that every American had health insurance.  Is this going to cost me an arm and a leg?  Heres my problem.  If my wife decides to change jobs and is not able to get insurance through that company, I am basically shit out of luck.  No insurance company is going to give me a decent rate because I have a disease.  Its not like it will kill me, but I do have to go to the doctor at least twice a year, take expensive medications, and get expense tests from time to time.  Insurance companies do NOT like this.  Will your plan prevent this kind of discrimination or not?  Will your plan pay for my medications, doctor visits and expensive tests without spending hours on the phone and taking all my money?  Oh yeah, a friend of mine brings up a good point.  Do you intend to be insured by this plan, see the doctors that will be available to me on this plan, and take the medications offered by this plan or do you intend to seek coverage elsewhere?  Well, let me know, because MY quality of life may depend on your answer.

Sincerely,

N3RVP4IN

My Absense

I feel I must explain my lack of commenting lately.  The first reason was my trip to Mexico.  The thing that happened next has taken up my time since returning.  My wife’s father has cancer, a very nasty one at that.  She is a nurse and of course the family wants her to make many decisions about the various treatments and tests.  WOW, what a cluster.  My wife and I have spent a lot of time setting up this appointment and that test and so on and so on.  I have just been very tired mentally and sometimes physically.

To make matters worse the neuropathy is in the middle of a flare up.  Every morning I get to “walk with daggers in my feet”.  My fingers and hands are also blessed with sharp pain.  Of course, the answer is to increase the medication.  Well, I’ve done this once and today will be twice.  I don’t think that it is doing much of anything, but I will be as patient as possible.

Neuropathy in the Morning

I have been experiencing some wonderful effects of neuropathy.  When I wake up in the morning it is as if long spikes have been driven through the bottoms of my feet all the way to my calves.  If slowly fades through the morning and there isn’t that much pain late in the morning.  In the evening, it does start to come back.  Sometimes just thinking about going to sleep and having to get up in the morning makes me cringe.  Oh well,  I will be off to complain to the doctor soon.  Of course, I don’t know that he will be able to do anything about it either.

Neuropathy and Being Sick

I have not been feeling well for the last couple of days.  My neuropathy has been absolutely horrible.  I think it is because I had a cold or something, but I’m not sure.  It feels as if my hands and feet were set on fire and someone put it out to punish me, instead of letting me just burn up and get it over with.  I’m not sure if this is a common problem among people with neuropathy, but this seems to happen to me anytime I’m get a cold or anything like that.  Its times like these that you pray for better medications even if you are not religious.

Neuropathy

As you may have guessed from the blog title, I have neuropathy.  This is a disease that unless you have it you will never understand it.  It is something I can confidently say that I would never wish on anyone, even people I don’t like.

There three main types of medications used to treat neuropathy.  Antidepressants, anticonvulsants and narcotics.  I personally can’t use antidepressants.  I have had poor reactions such as hot flashes and being in a constant “bad mood”.  I don’t take narcotics yet, but it probably won’t be too long.  The leaves me with anticonvulsant, also known as anti-seizure, medications.  Right now I take a ton of two different meds.  The side-effects of these meds can be quite fun evidently, but mainly they slowdown my thinking and I randomly run into things when I walk.  So basically people sometimes get the impression that you are drunk.