A right royal pain in the neck

One of the many, many reasons I had to stop driving a few years ago was the pain and loss of movement in my neck (this was also noted and confirmed by my Rheumatologist.) For one thing, I could no longer look over my shoulder for merging into traffic. Secondly, if I tried to do so, the pain and spasms were too much to bear and could easily have caused me to lose control of the vehicle and cause an accident. 

This is something that's been affecting me, to some degree, for years, since I suffered a whiplash injury in a head-on collision in the 80s (I was only a passenger), but like all my other symptoms has grown with the fibromyalgia and, has worsened several-fold since I've been forced to put up with conditions in the UK. For a while this year, I had it under some control, but coinciding roughly with the onset of autumn this month, the pain came back again with a vengeance.

Apart from the restricted movement and the pain the worst of it is a horrible bone-on-bone grinding noise in my cervical vertebra whenever I move my head. 

What started it off again was something so seemingly innocuous too: I went to the monthly self-help meeting of our local pain group (ironically). Previously, we've sat around a circular table, so one can see and interact with most of the people quite easily. This time, a long rectangular arrangement had been set out using two tables and so, to talk to people to my left and right, required a good degree of movement. I was only there for an hour or so and, I was careful to move my whole torso and not just my neck as often as I could, but the damage was done.

There was about a week or so before my next outing (to the gynaecologist), so I set to work to try to relieve it as best I could. I have special neck pillows, a TENS machine (which I've since had to ditch), specific exercises, relaxation techniques and a Wheat Bag Heat Pack. (Which is great, but only affords temporary relief.)

The pain had just subsided enough to get below *excruciating* the day before I was due to go out again and, taking the bus rather than walk the mile + to the station, the second the bus moved, I heard the "crack" in my neck and was in agony again. A week later I had to go back to the same hospital (same floor and no, they couldn't do it on the same day) and the day before, I'd merely leaned on the kitchen work surface (because I was having trouble standing unaided) and looked up slightly. Bang, crack, agony in my neck once more, not helped by outing. Now the pain seems to have taken up permanent residence.

Hip, hip, hoo(x-)ray ... (Osteoarthritis of hip)

Eight years ago - it was September 2001, when the now middle-aged kittehs were still only around 6 months old - I was taking a couple of cats to the vet. With a full cat basket in each hand, the dog attached to my wrist on a lead and my handbag over my shoulder ... it had been drizzling and I slipped on the wet concrete slope leading out of the house. 

Not having any hands left free to save myself, I came down with an almighty, loud and VERY painful *CRACK* flat on my arse that echoed round the valley.

For ages afterwards, I could hardly move and was in excruciating pain, but I was too hurt to be able to drive, or get the bus to see a doctor, so I could only wait for the pain to subside. It never did get better completely and I was left with a clicking and clunking in my right hip joint, which constantly gets stiff and achy, but at least in Tenerife's climate, the pain was only really bothersome on the couple of days a month when there was a significant amount of rain.

However, since I've been stuck the UK, I've been in really severe pain 24/7/365 - like having a permanent "gnawing toothache" - in my hip. It never goes away and often keeps me awake. It's totally distracting and is so bad that it often makes me cry, wince, sweat and feel nauseous. It hurts to put weight on the leg and hip and the pain is made worse by walking even short distances. I can't stand on it, I can't even sit on it comfortably and even lying down, I have to place my leg in very specific positions in order to make it just bearably comfortable.

I've spent all these years teaching myself NOT to limp and to resist any temptation to place more weight on the left hip in compensation, lest I cause more trouble (so, of course, it doesn't *LOOK* like anything is wrong), but the pain also refers right down my leg, thigh, knee and to my ankle and foot. All of those joints and muscles hurt anyway, but the right side suffers worse. 

A year ago, I mentioned this to my GP, who merely suggested I bring it up with the Rheumatologist to whom I was referred for my fibromyalgia diagnosis, which I certainly did, but they didn't carry out any specific examinations or tests on it.

Meanwhile, none of the drugs I've tried ever does anything whatsoever to relieve the pain. Warmer "summer" (which in the UK, of course, just means "the even wetter season") weather did nothing whatsoever to help any of my symptoms, so I've been way past the end of my tether with it for months.

This could just be fibromyalgia. These symptoms are typical of the commonly overlapping condition, Myofascial Pain Syndrome (or MPS), but then again, it could indicate something else. If it did, that might mean that some treatment is available. When something hurts this bad, for this long, if nothing else, it would be a good idea to know that I'm not doing myself some permanent damage.

The GP did say that I couldn't have broken my hip - partly because I'm not old enough (I laughed at this backhanded compliment), but also because I wouldn't have been able to put weight on it. Oh really? This is not always the case. Do a cursory search on Google and you'll find numerous cases like this: GP failed to spot broken hip eight times, where the wounded appear still to be walking.

So, finally this week, I decided to get assertive and demand that the GP refer me to have this specifically investigated and I was asked if I'd like it x-rayed. Yes, I would. This was done yesterday and the results should be available in 2 weeks ...

30 Sep 2009: Good news and bad news

The good news: The results from my x-ray, I was told, were that there was no evidence of damage, breaks, nor any underlying osteoarthritis that might account for the ongoing pain. The bad news: ditto all of the above.

Well, that's what I wrote at the time, because that's what the GP told me.

Fast forward 13 years to 2022, when I asked my new GP for a printout and on that printout, in black and white, it says "Osteoarthritis of hip. Rt, early OA + some degree of impingement". So, what I was told in 2009 was not true. 

How would you cope?

Once again it's raining in the UK and my entire body is screaming out in pain because of the humidity, which according to the BBC is 95% today. That's not to say things are perfect on days when it isn't raining, but when it does, it's so much worse and, it happens more often here. My muscles burn as if I have a fever, I have all manner of other flu-like symptoms, my neck, back and shoulders ache, my legs ache, my knees are incredibly painful too, in fact everywhere hurts.

My head aches, my eyes are permanently sore. Immediately I stand up it feels like multiple-gravity is weighing me down and I feel overwhelming fatigue and an incredible urge to sit down. Walking to the opposite side of the room is exhausting enough to make me breathless. If I sit in a chair, with my feet down to the floor, my feet begin to go numb and I get pain in my shins and ankles within seconds, while the latter swell like balloons. The toothache-like pain I still have in my hip after a fall 7 years ago makes sitting incredibly painful anyway, so the only comfortable position is lying down with my feet up. Now, because I don't have a comfortable position at the computer, I quickly get aching arms and a terrible pain in my hands and wrists that I've not had before.

There's a time on most days when I am crying in pain. Even the constant dull aches are bad enough to make me nauseous and, on many occasions, the pain becomes sharp and sudden enough to take my breath away.

My sleep is disturbed too, mostly because of the pain: either I can't get to sleep until the early hours or I wake up early in the morning, which leaves me exhausted and incapable of concentrating on anything of consequence.

Additionally, I no longer have my double bed with superior latex mattress and heat pad that was the only way I could manage this pain, even in Tenerife's climate. Here, I find the bed so uncomfortable and it makes matters worse. On more than one occasion, I've woken up and, you know when you're still in that half-asleep, half-awake stupor, midway between dream and reality ... I've ached so much that I've thought, I'll be OK, as soon as I can lie down.

A split second more awake and, I realise that I'm already lying down.

Nine days out of 10 in Tenerife, I could manage ordinary, day-to-day things.

Nine days out of 10 in the UK I simply can't. The constant pain is close to unbearable and I truly don't know how much more I can take.