#is it weather aches? arthritis they keep telling me i don't have?

[dangerpronebuddie]

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[gooses-trenchcoat]

i'm reasonably pain-free and therefore feel semi qualified to share my opinion (opinion though i could be wrong about things)

pain with a physical cause is normal. eg. you slept funny and now your back hurts, you sat weird and got a leg cramp, you ate too fast and got indigestion. that's all normal

pain with a weather related cause i'm less certain about. it's very common and therefore not worrying but like, i don't have it so. not normal?

pain all the time: yup. that's not normal baseline! to take the specific examples from this post:

you shouldn't just have a headache all the time. if you continuously get/have headaches that's a chronic issue (eg. my mum gets migraines, which is a thing she puts on forms alongside like, arthritis and asthma and shit). stress headaches just sound to me like you need to find a way to destress but. i don't know you and i'm not a doctor so i have no clue

backpain after getting up says to me either you sit weird, have bad chairs, or it's a back problem. again, i don't know you and i'm not a doctor (i will keep saying this it's important)

tummy aches aren't normal. you shoudln't have tummy aches unless you ate something bad or you're sick or you're on medication that can cause them or you have a condition that gives you them. i get phantom stomach aches because i'm anxious (specifically i'm emetophobic so yeah. not real, evil brain tricks.) but i can tell it's anxiety because it always happens in the evening/night from like, 8.30/9 ish onwards and is always gone when i wake up

joint pain is basically the same. some people have bad joints but some people have completely pain free joints. wild thought.

finally random pain? i get it too, occasionally, which makes me think it's just a normal thing? but mine's only ever really mild and doesn't last long. basically bodies are weird but ideally we shouldn't be in pain unless something hurt us, so. yeah.

sorry if this was unhelpful/unwanted, like i say i don't get chronic pains so if this was not a response anyone wanted to see. feel free to ask me to fuck off. (politely though, please, i'm a sensitive boy /hj)

This deserves its own post:

The normal level of daily pain for an able-bodied person is ZERO, without needing to take pain medication, not even off-the-counter meds.

Not a little, definitely not enough to be "distracting but tolerable" with or without Tylenol. ZERO. (I'm shocked too every time I remember that the norm is to live pain free unless something happened to you, I know.)

If your baseline of unmedicated daily pain is above zero, you're dealing with chronic pain and you need to come to terms with that reality.

[ladydragonhawke]

I broke my back

So I have a really long and terrible history of back issues that has no known origin. Trust me that's a road we'll just avoid because it'll open up too many questions that I don't have the emotional stability to answer. But basically I have 2, possibly 3 herniated disks. Severe arthritis in my lower lumbar, as well as Degenerative disk disease. Yea I definitely hit the jackpot on back problems.

So about a week ago I did something to aggravate my back, at first it just ached that morning. I thought, "eh must be the weather" and went on with my day. Drove all the way to work as it seemed to just slightly annoy me. Within 2 hours of arriving to work I literally could not stand up straight, within the next 30 mins I couldn't even walk without some level of pain shooting in the range of 8 to 10. I called my mother who worked close to me and she drove me home.

Upon arriving home I went straight to bed and passed out hoping some rest could work out whatever kinks I was experiencing. Five hours later I awoke having received no relief. I attempted to get up to get some water, screaming in pain as I walked. As I was attempting to return to bed at the behest of my mother I passed out with my upper body splayed out on the dining room table. I couldn't sit, couldn't stand, but I could lay down. Luckily that morning I had already called my pain management doc and made an appointment.

45 bucks and one long painful car ride later, the next day my mother drove me to my appointment. We had to use one of the buildings wheelchair. I cried the entire time we were there because I was in so much pain sitting up. My doc takes one look at me and basically says, "you need to go to the ER. You may have thrown a disk out." We heed his advice and head to one close to home. After an x-ray, 2 shots of morphine and a heavy dose of muscle relaxants they tell me, "we see that your back is bad, but we tested your urine and you have a tiny bit of a UTI." After an extremely long day of nothing but crying in pain and longing for the sweet release of death at this point, I had no fight in me to retort to that. I KNEW what she was saying was bullshit and that they didn't want to deal with me, possibly thinking I'm only in there for drugs. We left having achieved nothing, big surprise there. AND THEY DIDN'T EVEN SEND ME HOME WITH A PRESCRIPTION OF ANTIBIOTICS LIKE THEY SAID THEY WOULD!

Let me run that by you again.

They THOUGHT I had a UTI, and then proceeded to forget to GIVE ME THE ANTIBIOTICS!!

I really just wanted to die, I was in so much pain.

It's been a full week since then. I've made the proper appointments with surgeons and docs. But I'm still in loads of pain. I've been popping pills like a drug addict. Can't sit for more than a minute. Standing about 5 mins is my limit, with no weight on my right leg. I have to use a rollator to get around. Worst part about it is. I CANT EVEN WIPE MY OWN ASS. I've already burned through a lot of my pain pills, and my muscle relaxants aren't strong enough for the constant painful spasming. And now that I'm running out I'm resorting to laying in bed in pain so I don't run out of meds.

The even worse part about all this is I'll most likely be out of work for another 2 weeks as I wait patiently impatiently for surgery. Meaning, I'll have absolutely no money. The shit just keeps piling.

So to get my mind away from things, and inbetween all the phone calls I'm going to be making all week, I'm going to be painting small pictures to pass the time, and sell them to get some extra cash.

I got some inspiration from one of my favorite artists, Frida Kahlo.

I'm working on an 8x10 right now and should have it finished tomorrow. I'd like to sell prints but seeing as I am stuck in bed I'll most likely have to settle with selling the paintings outright. I'll have them up on my Etsy. https://www.etsy.com/shop/LadyHawkeMerch

Other than that, I wish everyone a happy new year... and take care of your back. Also if anyone wants to hit me up for a small commission peice, hit me up.