All Wound Up

We're still working on this getting pregnant thing.  I hate the uncertainty.  I suppose it's good practice for me - to have to continue living and enjoying life while this weight is on me.  It's ridiculous, really, to be so stressed about it.  But apparently, I am. 

This time around, during the 2 weeks when you're just waiting to find out if you succeeded or not, I developed a terrible pain in my back.  It felt like I imagine a pinched nerve would feel.  It was so painful that I could barely sleep, or even sit comfortably in a chair.  I couldn't take Ibuprofen since you're not supposed to do that during pregnancy, so I was constantly on acetaminophen.  I couldn't go to the doctor for an x-ray, of course, but it was bad enough that I still considered it.  I had 2 massages, which helped for about a day before the pain came back.  Then, the moment I knew I was not pregnant, the pain went away - not completely, but significantly and immediately.  It's been getting better ever since.

This is not the first time I've had stress-related pain.  I've had almost continuous problems since 2001.  October 2001, that is.  Can you think of anything directly prior to that time that might have caused stress?  Ever since then, I've had back and neck pain, along with the constant need to crack my neck.  The only relief I've had from this problem was when I was pregnant.  I had pregnancy aches and other problems, but the old back and neck problem was non-existent. 

About 13 months after Samantha was born, however, I developed a new problem: a pain in my right knee.  We had just moved from Michigan to San Diego - a 6 week journey that was the most stressful time of my life.  The combination of living out of our 2 cars with a dog and a cat and a baby, for 6 weeks straight, along with postpartum hormones, was unbearable.  Over the next year, the pain spread to my right elbow, my right shoulder, then the whole length of both my right arm and leg, and then to both hands and feet.  I couldn't open jars or walk down a flight of stairs (I went down backwards or on my bottom).  I was scared.  I was sure I'd be in a hospital within a year.

I had x-rays, an MRI, nerve-conduction tests, and blood tests for arthritis, lupus, Lyme disease, and all kinds of other problems, but I never got a diagnosis.  I tried yoga, painkillers, antidepressants (they're supposed to help with pain for some people), physical therapy, and a combination of fish-oil and probiotics.  I'm sure there is more that I've forgotten.  I was on my way to chiropractic and maybe even acupuncture, but ended up finding relief with something called platelet-rich plasma therapy, or PRP.  It's a cool technique:  the doctor takes your blood, separates the red blood cells from the platelets using a centrifuge, and then injects the platelets, which I guess are the part of the blood involved in healing, back into the affected area.  In my case, the doctor injected my right knee and elbow, where the pain seemed to have started.  I was sore for about 2 weeks, but then I started getting better.  I'm not cured;  I always have a little bit of pain somewhere.  These days it's usually in my feet.  But I'm functional and I don't take painkillers on a regular basis.  Most of the time I don't even notice the pain.  I've been feeling better for about 9 months now.

I know this problem with my back is related to all the rest of it, so I'm really hoping that it doesn't kick off the chain reaction again.  Luckily, after all I went through, I'm pretty sure that PRP would help again if I needed it.  In fact, I would have done another round of PRP a long time ago to see if I could totally knock out the pain, but there was one problem.  Getting  blood out of me is almost impossible.  When the phlebotomist drew my blood for the procedure, she spent over a half hour and was getting nothing.  My veins just move around or close up when the needle touches them.  Finally, my doctor had to come in and take over.  He needed to get a pint of blood - about the same amount that you give when you donate blood.  (Needless to say, I've never donated blood.)  By the time he got it, I was weeping with pain.  Remember, I'm the one who gave birth with no drugs and said that it wasn't even real pain, but just pain like when you work out your muscles.  I can take pain.  This was torture.  I'll do it again, but only if the other pain starts to interfere in my life again.

So I guess the moral of the story is:  I need to take a chill pill.  If only there was such a thing that was safe to use when potentially pregnant.