Yesterday I went to see the RA doctor. The doctor asked me several questions regarding my joint pain.
Doc: Tell me where does it hurt?
Me: My hands, fingers, wrist, elbows, neck, spine and knees.
Doc: Describe your pain.
Me: I don’t know, sometimes my hands feel swollen and heavy. My fingers and wrists hurt and their achy. Every night I wake up in the middle of the night because my hands are tingling and numb. They feel heavy and I have to shake them to get the blood flowing again. Um… (I’m trying to remember).
Why is it that when I finally go to the doctor I always seem to forget the important stuff?
Doc: When would you say you started feeling these symptoms?
Me: Um, it’s been a long time.
Doc: How long?
Me: I don’t know, a few years, maybe.
Doc: When you say a few years, are you saying 2-3 years?
I’m trying to remember the first time I went to the doctor and complained about my pain, tingling, numbness in my hands, neck and back pain.
Me: I think it’s been more than 4 years.
Doc: When do you feel it the most?
As much pain as I have been for quite some time now, you’d think I remember everything. But I can’t seem to recall. My answer to the doc: I’ve been in so much pain for the past few years that I’ve learned to ignore the signs. True.
When my hands, back or neck start to hurt, I ignore it. Sometimes it’s only one thing that
hurts, other times it’s everything at the same time. There are nights I go to bed and I feel like I’ve been through the wringer. Everything hurts! It may happen sporadically. It could last for a few hours, or it could last the entire day. I keep myself busy so I’m able to ignore it. Much like a sore throat, it hurts but if you keep swallowing enough fluids or food, it kind of numbs the pain. Same thing here, I either continue to keep myself busy, move around or eventually stop what I am doing if the pain persists. (Like now, as I am typing this. I have some pain on my neck, back and hands, yet I can't sleep so I continue to type). The pain becomes tolerable and eventually seems to fade but I still have a dull achy feeling or sensation.
The pain becomes intolerable when I feel my bones, joints, muscles swell up (or at least that what it feels like) and my skin feels hot and tender to the touch. There are times when my husband puts his hand on my lap and a simple tap on the lap hurts. How could a tap on the lap, shoulder or arm hurt?
Sometimes I am in too much pain and I can no longer take it. That’s when I finally give in and am forced to take Advil or Tylenol to relieve it. It doesn’t completely take the pain away but it relieves it for a little while.
The doc asked me questions that will help him diagnose my problem and I, at that moment, could not recall those things. What is wrong with me? I felt like an idiot. Why am I here? How do I explain, if I can’t remember.
Why is it when I do go to the doctor, I don’t feel any pain? I was hoping to feel
something so that I could explain and pin point exactly what I felt and where. But of course, nothing and what I felt then was very faint and minor. Now I felt like a complete fool.
He was telling me that the way I was describing it, may just be “mechanical”. He believes it may be carpal tunnel syndrome and he will have me run a test to determine if that was the case.
And before he even finished his sentence, I burst into tears! The doctor is looking at me in disbelief! He then showed a little concern and asked, “Are you o.k.?” I felt so embarrassed. Why am I crying? I’m sure the doc was asking himself that same question. I felt like a total idiot as tears continued to pour down my checks.
Then I realized that for past several years, I've complained about the same thing, and to this day, I still don’t know the cause. I have received the same answer every time. There’s nothing we can find. Not that I want something to be wrong with me. Believe me, I don’t want any problems. When I first told a doctor about my symptoms, I was sent to a specialist to check if I had carpal tunnel syndrome. When he checked me, all he checked was my hand movements, press here, push there and with that he determined that I did not have carpal tunnel syndrome. Yet I continued with the numbness/tingling sensation at night. It did not happen every night but it was beginning to happen regularly.
Another doctor’s visit (a different doctor this time) and I was told that it might be related to my neck pain so my doc sends me to get an MRI done. This is after, I was sent to see a chiro. I was prescribed pain medication, which I have to admit, I did not take as recommended. The reason being that after the first couple of times I took the medication, they made me sick. They made me sleep and when I wake up, I felt worse. So I just simply stopped taking them. The chiro relieved some of my neck and back pain but I still continued to have the tingling/numbness in my hands and sometimes my entire arm. After the doctor got the results of the MRI, I was told that there was nothing there. There were some signs of degenerative bone disease (or bone degeneration), if that’s what it’s called. I can’t remember. That was two years ago.
A few weeks ago, I went for a second MRI. I went to my doc for the results and again was told that nothing had changed from the last MRI.
As I’m sitting in there, listening to the doctor speak, I’m trying to swallow my tears. But the more I tried, the more they kept coming. After a minute passed, I composed myself and with a big sigh said, “If there’s nothing wrong, that’s fine. But why do I feel this way? Why am I hurting so much? I need to know what’s going on!”
I guess I’m just so tired of going to doctors and never getting an answer aside from, “there are no signs or indication…” I feel like I'm waisting my time and theirs.
If they can’t find any reason for my symptoms, then I must be going crazy! Is it all in my head? Am I making this stuff up?
After I made a fool out of myself, the doctor continued telling what he thought I should do. He even recommended that I get the test for carpal tunnel done that day.
I felt a little relief that the doc was taking quick action and hoping that I soon may get some answers.
And just my luck, as I went to check on it, the person I had to see for the test was gone for the day. Great. Oh, well.
That day I was out of it. I still don’t really know the reason for my crying, why I felt so
emotional. I guess I’m just tired. I just need relief!
But one thing is for sure, I need to start keeping a diary. I will call it my “pain diary”.
