New Plan from the Doc and my Surprise Present!

Hi Wonderful Friends,

Well, I went to the Dr. on Thursday and I've been pretty much on so  many pain meds that I can't even see straight!  Turns out my doctor is not only a pain management specialist, but also a doctor of osteopathy, and he can do trigger point injections!!!  For me, that's like three docs in one!  Thing is, he gave me a chiropractic adjustment, which I haven't had done in a long time and it threw me into a really deep flare.  For those of you who don't know what a flare is, with Fibromyalgia it is where certain things trigger your body into major pain mode and for me, flares generally last a week or so.  My back and neck feel great, but for some reason my shoulders (which is where I have most of my troubles) really acted up (arms and hands too).  I always have pain there, but this is really something!  It will be good in the long run though.  My body was completely out of alignment and had been locked up that way for so long that my shoulders were starting to curl inward and that's just not good!

Also, while I was there we decided to try a different way of managing the pain for now.  We decided to get rid of the Vicodin and try Opana IR (immediate release).  Now, for those of you wanting to try this, most doctors have never even heard of Opana.  It's twice as strong as Oxycontin and a sister drug to Morphine, but still you can function.  At least on the Opana ER (extended release) you can.  So now I take the IR 4 x a day, along with my Opana ER, Lorazepam, Naproxen Sodium, and Citalopram.  I have to tell you though that I have really good insurance, thank goodness.  The Opana ER would be $600 a month and the Opana IR would be $1000 a month!!!  I cannot believe that!  I have taken my first two pills and so far it seems to work a little better than the Vicodin was, but the copay on Vicodin was much cheaper so we'll see.  If it doesn't do too much, my doc said it's a good indicator that Opana is no longer working for me and my next steps might be to do a complete detox (with monitoring and a drug to help me wean given in office either IV or injection).  Then we would start with a clean slate and start over with meds, but I'm pretty darn scared of the detox and I can't imagine being off pain meds for 2 to 3 months!!!  I can't even be off for a minute at the moment, so that seems like a huge step, but at least it's an option.  That is what I went in for, to see what my options were.  If you're wondering why I'm writing all this, I just want everyone who has this to understand some of the options out there for pain management.  It was hard to even find a specialist who understands Fibromyalgia and will listen to my needs.  I got really lucky, but it took a really long time to find him!

On a totally different note (fun stuff now), my husband surprised me with a present last night!  We have been common law married for almost two years now and we don't (didn't :0)) have rings.  I opened my present last night and inside was a BEAUTIFUL diamond ring with pink sapphires!  Even sized down to a 3 1/2, which is still a little big on me, but I'm not takin' it off! LOL  He also had another box with a ring in it for him to wear!  I'm so stoked, now hopefully people will actually believe that we are really married even though we did not have a wedding.  If you look closely at the picture, you will see that it has pink sapphire accents on each side.  Hard to tell from this pic, but I'll take one of my own to post tomorrow.  Just had to show you guys what it looks like now! LOL I just love it and am so happy to have something to wear on my ring finger.  :0)  It's just a temporary one until we can afford something else, but by temporary I mean like 5 years or so! 

Well, I'm off to finish reading some blogs, but I hope you all are well asleep (if you're supposed to be), having fun (if you're not)!

XO ~ Amy Jo