Dead Arm, Bad Back, Painful Neck and the Beast…. come on give me a break!

Yet again another wake up call from the beast this morning at 3 am. I am quite surprised as i haven’t had any attacks all day yesterday and no signs of any shadows. Apart from my bowls playing up something rotten and the strange feeling of my left arm going dead and pins and needles i feel fine. So to be woken in the early hours by a rouge attack is quite strange. Normally i am only woken when i am having a bad day or even week. I did manage to go back to sleep at 5 until 7 so its not as bad as it usually is. Let’s hope its the start of a rest period where i won’t get any attacks for a while. The longest rest period i have had to date since last year is 6 days. i haven’t quite reached a full weeks rest yet.

I made my appointment with the doctor at 20 to 5 yesterday evening to see what was going on with me. The doctor seemed to think that the arm going dead all the time is due the the nerve being trapped or the muscle damages dome how and aggravating the nerves in the arm. She said it could be that i have hurt my muscle during my sleep as i have very restless nights with my head the way it is always tossing and turning until i drift of and that could have been enough to damage the nerve. I have to admit she could have a point as i have been feeling some strange pulling sensations in my neck going into the shoulder over the last couple of days and that could explain what is going on. With regards to the panic attacks she said its only normal that i have had panic attacks especially when my arm is going dead for no reason. She would panic if her arm was going dead all the time and the strength just disappearing. especially if she had my illness and had to deal with the attacks i get every day. i was very shocked at her comments as she seemed to understand what i was going through. The doctor was a locum and  she seemed very nice. She said she suffered with bad migraines so that could explain her understanding. She said all i can do for the panic attacks is to try and stay calm and ride them out when they happen. As i am used to getting milder panic attacks due to my bi=polar she didn’t see the need of extra medication on top of everything else i am taking.

It also doesn’t help to be taking extra medication when suffering from constipation either. Due to the stress and me worrying about what is going on it has set of the IBS and made it very uncomfortable for me at the moment. I am constantly feeling bloated and have wind travelling all over my body causing pain and agony when it hits an internal organ. The doctor has again given me Lactulose solution to help get things moving again and also some Buscopan tablets to help calm down the bowls and help deal with the extra wind. The last time i was this bad was due to the Verapamil and me being either allergic to it or another medication conflicting with it causing me IBS.

I have to admit i have had a couple of very stressful weeks witch would explain for all the problems i have been getting with my bowls and why the IBS is so bad and i am not surprised i am getting panic attacks when my arm goes dead. the first ting that came to my mind was i was about to have a stroke due to my attacks or even worst a full blown heart attack. It human nature to think the worst all the time so i have to try and keep calm and knowing what is causing these problems is half the battle. i am just hoping the panic attacks stay away for a while and let me get on with things. Again i have been shut away for weeks in the flat only going out once for fishing on Saturday and once for Sunday dinner at my mothers. i really have to start getting out in the fresh air a bit more than i am as it will help me with my depression and stop me feeling so down and alone all the time. I think that's why the panic attacks have been so strong as i am on my own all the time and fear the worst, if something happens to me there is no one here to help.

I do have a little bit of the shadow this morning so i am not completely out of the woods yet and could easily have another attack yet. Normally after an attack i get strong shadows so for them to be slight is a good sign at least. One of the things i hate the most is the ringing in the ears. Ever since these attacks began i have been getting a loud ringing sound in my ears and when the attacks is gone and i feel normal the sound goes quiet but i can still make it out. It is there 24 hours a day 7 days a week and i don’t remember a day where i didn’t have the ringing. I used to put it down to loud music as i used to DJ in a night club in Ayia Napa in Cyprus for a few years and the loud music could have had an effect on my hearing but i don’t think it’s that. Ever since these attack began just over 13 years ago i have had this sound and when i have a bad attack it gets so loud it can drown out the outside world and you can’t even hear people who are speaking at you directly and end up trying to read their lips. I was lucky as when i was very young, living in St. Neots just outside Cambridgeshire, i used to have a friend who was completely deaf. He taught me to communicate with him by sign language and used to try and teach me to read lips. I wasn’t very good at the lip reading but seemed to pick up the sign language very quickly and for years we used to hang around together every day and go fishing together on the river Ouse. You don’t think at the time you could be using these skills for yourself in years to come but i am so glad i had his friendship and remembered the tricks he taught me. I wonder what happened to him? maybe one day i should look him up and maybe even go pay him a visit.

Well at least i know i am not having strokes or heart attacks and am thankful for the help the locum doctor gave me yesterday. At least it has put my mind at rest as to why it is happening and why the arm keeps on going dead with pins and needles all the time. The only thing i don’t understand is why the lack of strength all of a sudden. I can only assume it is because of what ever has happened to the muscle in the arm to have caused all the problems in the first place. Fingers crossed i don’t get any more visits from the beast today and hope the weather improves soon as i think all this rain and low pressure above us at the moment is sure to bring the beast out of hiding again.

Talk about being scared half to death…..

Another wake up call from the beast but this time it was only a small attack and i was able to go straight back to sleep after it had calmed down. I then managed to sleep in until 8am this morning when my alarm woke me up as i had to get up to ring the doctors to make an emergency appointment.

The reason for the emergency is due to the other day. The day before we went fishing, Friday, it was in the evening when suddenly after having an attack and aborting it using one of my injections i was laying calm on my sofa watching a bit of television when suddenly i jumped up out of breath and all panicky. I felt like i was unable to breath and my left arm had gone dead with very strong pins and needles and a feeling as if my shoulder was in a clamp. The chest began to hurt and i had a very strange feeling come over me. I sat in my chair placed the oxygen mask on my face and just sat there stunned at what was happening to me. For several seconds it was if time had stood still and i thought to myself this was it i was about to have a heart attack and it was going to be game over. I suddenly snapped out of this trance like state and began to panic again.

If it was a panic attack it was the scariest i have ever had and it took me ages for me to calm down and i had to get one of my friends to come down and sit with me for an hour in my flat just in case. My mate David was a star, he flew down from his flat and stayed with me until i felt calm enough to go to bed. The next day we were fishing so i didn’t really worry about what had happened and just put it down to another panic attack. When i got home from fishing i was again watching the TV in the evening after cleaning all my fishing tackle and whilst sat there calm again my left arm suddenly went dead and i had strong pins and needles through it. I kept shaking my arm to try and bring it back to life but it just didn’t want to and my chest again became tight my breathing again became shallow and hard to get any air and my shoulder again had a feeling of pressure as if someone had gripped it tightly. Again it took a while for me to start to feel normal but this time i didn’t panic as much and just waited until i felt tired enough to sleep and went to bed.

When i woke up in the morning on Sunday i again started to feel funny and my arm again became dead and pins and needles came just as strong as the night before but it didn’t last for long this time. the thing that was worrying me the most was the fact that i couldn’t lift my arm above my head and the strength i had was gone in a second. Then when the arm returned to normal my strength then started to return but by that time i was again worried and scared of what it could be. I then decided to get some fresh air and walked over to my local supermarket witch is only 10 minuets walk away from my home. I bought some aspirin tablets as my shoulder was still feeling a little funny and then after i took the tablets it came back to normal and the problem was gone. I am not sure what is going on and what ever it is it is scaring me half to death. I have had loads of panic attacks in my life time so far and none of them have ever done that to me or made me feel like that. i know how bad panic attacks can be and at times you believe you are going to die but what ever this was it was different to those kind of feelings.

It is possible it is just a nerve being trapped or is trapped and that is what is causing these problems but i just wish it would go away as i think i have enough problems already and i don’t need any more. Due to all the worry my IBS is playing up and causing me loads of problems with my bowls and trapped wind. My back has also been playing up badly and my walking …well….. the feeling i normally only get once or twice a month where my legs turn to lead and all the muscles ache and the pains in the back on both sides seem to spread into my bum cheeks seems to have decided to stay for a while as i have been fighting it now for just over 2 weeks and it doesn’t seem to want to go again. I have been getting terrible aches and pains in both sides of my lower back and these pains are spreading up the spine slowly. What ever is causing the back to play up so badly seems to be getting worst.

I can’t believe the state i have got into and all the problems i now have. I am a complete mess and think someone needs to check me out from head to toe and find out what on earth is going on with me and my health. It just seems to me that i am slowly getting worst and no matter how bad i get the doctors just don’t seem to be interested in making me well again. All they do is throw more tablets at you and tell you to call back if things don’t improve. The trouble is things never do seem to improve and the problems always seem to come back no matter how hard i try to avoid anything that could make me worst or set off some part of my illness. No matter how hard i try i just don;t seem to get anywhere and my health seems to be slowly getting worst as time goes on. I really do need to chase up my specialist and find out when my next appointment is. I just can’t go on like this. Well at least i now have my appointment with the doctor at 20 to 5 today so hopefully we may get some answers as to what on earth was going on the last couple of days and why did i feel like i was about to die.

A Shocking wake up call from the beast…..

Another wake up call with a visit from the beast at 4am this morning. This time it was actually the shadows that has woken me first and then the attack didn’t appear until an hour later. It was yet another massive attack resulting in me diving for my injection and using extreme heat treatment to deal with the pain. What i mean by extreme heat treatment is that i use my electric fire to put heat on the side of my face and then move away slowly decreasing the heat levels as the pain eases. It helps to reduce the time an attack will last but can result in you throwing up for about 10 minuets for some unknown reason.

I don’t mind it waking me up so early today as i am off fishing with my mother, step father and John my mate. It has left me with strong shadows that i will no doubt have to deal with for the remainder of the day. Also when i woke this morning i was in for a very nice shock. My mother was rushed into hospital last night whilst i was sleeping with chest pains. It was her heart. She believes it was angina but where she was waiting for the cardiologist for so many hours and he didn’t turn up she decided to come home and sod than as she was feeling better.

I woke to an urgent message on my mobile to ring my brother as she was rushed in so immediately i called at 5.30am this morning only to get my mother on the other end, as i had woken her, witch gave me a shock of my life as i thought she was actually still in hospital. She has decided to still go fishing even after wheat has happened and i have to say has inspired me with her strength. She didn’t really rest after her operation on the kidney and is still in agony as the nerves repair themselves where she was cut open and the kidney removed. She is on pain killers but they don’t seem to hold off the pain for long so she has had to get extra tablets from the doctor to try and bridge the gap in between doses.

With al the problems i have been having and the pain i get each day with my attacks i can honestly say i respect my mother for the strength she has and the way she is just getting on with her life, despite being nocked down she just keeps on getting back up. I don’t think i have any where near the amount of strength and courage she has and i don’t mind saying i am proud to be her son. With my illness through the years and then being diagnosed with another illness, this time rare and incurable, she has always been there for me and when i fall always picked me up. This is one of the reasons i started a fishing journey around the fisheries of Wales.

I didn’t want to give in to the beast and just rot away stuck in my flat, not going out and shutting myself away in fear of the attacks all the time. It’s from my mothers strength and support i have been able to take up my hobby again and fall in love with it all over again. Fishing has now become my release and relaxation method. I am able to get rid of all my stresses just by going on a fishing trip. It’s crazy the effect it has on me and that’s why I want to do as much as i can. That’s a good thing really as it gets me out of my flat and stops me shutting myself off from the world. For the first time in many years i have something positive happening in my life and want to grab hold of it with both hands.

Weekly Update due to loss of connection…..

Well what a week i have had. Firstly i had my internet restricted all because i carried £5 over from my last bill to the next one and had to wait a whole week for them to switch me back on so i haven’t been able to do any work on my web sites or update my blogs so i decided to sit down and write them each day, save them and then just do one major update at the end of the week to catch up. I have to say this has been one of the worst weeks i have had and one of the most stressful.

To start the week off i was waiting for some order to be delivered from certain companies that i won’t mention their name but when the order showed up there was half of it missing. It actually wasn’t their fault it was just a clerical error but as you can imagine when you are waiting for stuff to arrive and only half shows up you tend to get a little upset and stressed. After sorting out this problem the next delivery i received was also wrong and the next company had also made some errors and actually sent me the wrong products. By this time i was pulling my hair out. I managed to get them all sorted and now the correct items have been delivered but i am still waiting for one order that i am hoping will arrive sometime today (Thursday). The items i am waiting for are new wheels for my fishing wheel barrow as the last time i went fishing the wheels burst and split under the weight as i was carrying 3 lots of fishing gear and its only made to handle one load. I don’t mind as the wheels are only cheap to replace but it stops me from going fishing at the moment.

THURSDAY

The beast has been playing up all week with its constant attacks in the early hours of the morning. I have only had 2 days this week where i haven't actually had an attack and the lack of sleep is starting to get to me. Yesterday i had a massive attack at lunch time and by the evening i was really suffering. I ended up with yet another big attack by bed time and ended up having to take my injection before going to bed. For some reason when i took the injection it had a strange effect on me and as soon as the attack aborted all of a sudden i started to feel unwell and extremely strange. My breathing became difficult and i suddenly became ice cold. I jumped up and moved to the other chair where my oxygen is and placed the mask over my face and turned it on full. I began to shave and my back became so cold i can only describe it as standing up against a freezer with you back placed on the ice, that's how bad it was. Something inside me started to think i was about to have a heart attack or stroke. I then began to panic and ended up having a massive panic attack and was convinced it was my time to die.

There has been many occasion when i have been having the massive attacks where i have prayed for death to come and put an end to all my suffering and pain. To be so bad that you welcome death is not a good thing and i really need to start chasing up my appointment with the specialist as yesterday gave me a wake up call. No matter how much you pray for death to come when it actually comes down to it and you think you are about to die you suddenly change and fear death. The feeling i had yesterday when having the panic attack was very strange. I have had loads of panic attacks in my life time due to the mild bi-polar that i have suffered all of my life since a small boy. I was diagnosed at the age of 8 years old when my mother found me in my walk-in-wardrobe hanging from the railing by a neck tie tied around my neck. If she hadn’t have found me at the time she did i would have been dead. The feelings i had back then when i was a child and thought i was going to die is the closest thing to what i felt yesterday. It brought so many memories flooding back to me and my life flashed before my eyes. The coldness that came over me was like nothing i have felt before and i can only describe it as death itself.

It took a good hour before i calmed down enough to start realising what had happened to me. When having the attack i became so weak i couldn’t even get out of the chair for quite a while. It took all my strength away from me and scared the life out of me at the same time. That was one of the worst panic attacks i have every experienced and it was very different to the panic attacks i was used to. I know the body can do some strange things when it want's to but i just wish it would just stop these attacks from happening or at least let me know why they are coming so i could take precautions not to set them off. After my scare yesterday i have now woken up with some strong shadows and a lot of pain in the back. I hope it will improve as the day does on. Fingers Crossed!

FRIDAY

Again i have been woken by the beast at the ungodly hour of 2.30am with yet another massive attack. The attack happened so fast i didn’t even get a chance to take my injection before i was in so much pain i couldn’t even move. I actually dreamt that i was in agony and having an attack and then suddenly realised it was actually happening whilst i was asleep an woke straight into the attack. This has happened a couple of times before where i was actually dreaming about the attacks i have but its the first time i woke up half way through an attack and in extreme pain. Normally the start of the attack and the strong shadows are enough to wake you before the attack comes. I was so tired after having a week from hell i suppose that's the reason for me actually sleeping until the attack got to a stage where the body couldn’t take it any more and woke me up.

I ran into the living room to take my injection but where i was already into a full blown attack i couldn’t see properly out of my eyes and walked straight into the edge of the door causing me even more pain. I then fell to the ground hard. It was like i passed out for a few seconds and then came around whilst i was actually falling and hit the floor with a massive THUD! It looks like i must have twisted as i fell as i now have pain in the left leg just behind the nee on the lower muscle so i must have pulled or twisted the muscle as i fell.

My back has been playing up something rotten the last couple of weeks. Normally i get walking problems once or twice a month, a strange feeling like my legs are made of lead and pains and aches in the lower back area followed by shooting pains up the spine into the neck. The last 2 weeks i have been getting it almost every day now and it is really starting to worry me. There seems to be so many problems with my health all of a sudden i just don’t know what to do or how to cope with it all. I am going to book in to see my doctor on Monday and ask for extra help in order to deal with all these issues. I need them to investigate my back problems and try and push the referral that she made months ago to the back specialist. It seems like the back problem is making the head and my condition play up a lot more than it usually does and this time of yea i am getting almost 3 times more attacks than i had last year so something is definitely aggravating my condition.

With every thing that has gone on this week and the problems i have been having my stress levels are at their maximum so i have decided i want to go fishing and try and relax and release some of the stress. My mother and Brian, my step father, have decided we are all going fishing on Saturday (tomorrow) at one of our local carp and Coarse fisheries. My mate John is also joining us so myself and John can get some practice in at Carp fishing and get used to some of the new gear we have got. I am so looking forwards to getting out in the fresh air and relaxing by the lake side its unreal. Fingers crossed we have a good days fishing. I can’t wait.

Another painful day, shut away. Shame you can’t shut out the attacks…..

Again the attacks continued right through the day and into the evening and no matter what i tried i just couldn’t stop the onset of pain and agony i had to put up with. Trying to get to sleep was a challenge in itself as each time i kept moving to try and get confortable i would either end up in pain from my back or neck or make myself so uncomfortable i would feel an attack build. this continued up until the early hours as the last time i woke up due to me moving and making myself uncomfortable i looked at the clock and it was just approaching 1am. I did manage to get to be early as i just new i would have difficulties in getting to sleep and i also knew that the beast would be paying me a few visits during the night and i was correct as i had 5 or 6 quite large attacks before i managed to get off to sleep. Thank go i did go to bed early, at least by doing so i ended up getting enough sleep not to feel like the living dead today. I wasn’t woken by the beast this morning, thank god, but i do have some strong shadows and my neck feels just as sore as ever. I crawled out of bed at 6 am this morning witch is really good for me as normally about 3am the beast would be dragging me out of bed by the head.

It must be down to the horrible weather front we have at the moment bringing all the wet weather and wind with it causing stormy conditions for most of the weekend just gone and the week ahead. We do have a couple of days that are forecast to be clear but most of the days next week are forecast to be wet and windy. It looks like i have a week ahead of me that i would rather not have to endure. When the weather gets like this it causes havoc with my condition and i always end up paying for it. The attacks seem to get stronger and the duration of the attacks longer as the weather gets more and more unsettled. I don’t know why the weather has such an effect on my condition but after reading back through my blog and looking through all my notes i seem to come up with the same conclusion every time and that is that the weather is THE main trigger for my attacks and the extremities of each thing such as extreme heat or cold seems to cause me more attacks than anything else i know. It always seems to be a change in the weather or the start of a bad spell that always triggers off my attacks and with the attacks comes bad backs and aches and pains all over.

Last year i remember my attacks suddenly stopping and going away for a while when the warmer weather came and through the spring and summer months i didn’t have hardly any attacks but this year has been completely different with the attacks remaining bad all the way up to summer and then it did improve but no where near as good as last year. I believe it has been my back that has aggravated my condition mostly this summer, if i wasn’t getting so many pains up and down the spine all the time i think i would have had a lot less attacks but can only make assumptions. I know the Pregabilin tablets did make a difference when i started taking them as i could actually see the difference in the amount of attacks i was getting but then after a while it seemed to level out and i wasn’t making any more improvement. I did try the Verapamil treatment but due to me being allergic to something in the tablet or actually to the drug itself it made me really bad and made everything worst and has now given me IBS to deal with on top of everything else. I am praying that with the help of the specialist we will find some other combination of drugs that i can take that will eventually put this beast to sleep once and for all.

2 Days of non-stop attacks….God help me!

What an absolutely horrific day i had yesterday starting of with an attack from the beast at around 3am and then another at 5 just to start the day. Both attacks were big ones resulting in my eye swelling shut and my face drooping like i am having some kind of stroke. the pain was so strong all i could here was the loud ringing in my ears and feeling faint as if i was about to just pass out again. I hate actually passing out from the strong attacks as when you come round you feel just as sick as you do at the start of the attack and then the pain returns until the attack has run its course. What ever i going on inside my head is causing me so much agony and pain its just unbelievable. If it was happening to someone else i would say they were exaggerating the pain as no one could be in that much agony,… but its true!

The day continued with on and off attacks all through the day but the main attacks i think reached about 9 or 11 i am not quite sure but the big ones were very bad and scary. All i could do was sit and wait until the next attack came and then had to go through the process of dealing with the pain al over again. By the time the end of the day came and i went to bed i was almost asleep on my feet i was that bad. The worst thing is i was then again woken this morning at 3am and 4am with bad attacks and then had another at 9.30am. It seems like there is a weather system just passing over is bringing rain and storms and it seems to be effecting my head yet again. No matter how much i try i just can’t seem to stop the attacks from happening. OK it’s great to have the 2 injections to abort 2 of the big attacks but witch two do you choose? at the start of the day or at the end? keep them for when you wake up or keep them for when you are sleeping? Some times it just drives me insane.

My mother and step father managed to get out and went fishing yesterday at one of the local fisheries and by the sounds of it they caught loads of fish and had a great time. I had to miss out as i was waiting for parcels to arrive plus my head would just not stop playing up so i think it was for the best that i didn’t manage to go. I was thinking about getting out for a couple of hours today down at the local lake at the bottom of the road i live near but unfortunately it has been closed due to a problem with the water and the hot weather. What's actually going on i am not sure but there is no fishing for at least a week down there so that idea went out the window. To be honest i think again its a good idea i didn’t go the way my head has been today. Yet again i have another attack forming and i can feel my neck getting tighter and a feeling like i have a golf ball stuck in the joint. This means i have a big attack on its way so i will have to leave my blog at this for today and do the update sometime over the weekend.

The beast is here to stay… another day of agony

I spent the entire day yesterday suffering from attacks all the time and the after effects of the attacks. Not only was i having a bad head day but also a bad back day as well. The beast wasn’t content with just making me suffer in pain from  the head and the attacks all the time but also wanted me to suffer pain with every movement i made. I couldn’t even get up to go to the toilet with out serious pain starting and resulting in me spending most of the time laid on my bed un able to move in fear of pain all the time.

I really do dislike it when my back plays up just as bad as the head as i end up feeling helpless and unable to do the smallest of tasks. Not only does it make you feel helpless and useless but also starts off my depression and i end up in some sorry states.The attacks are only half of the battle and drain all of your energy so even after the attack is over all you can do is lay there waiting for your strength to return hoping it will come back before the next attack shows its head again.

I have experienced the worst of the attacks before but nothing prepares you for a full day of them. One attack after the other, the next just as painful as the first and nothing you can do except rid it out and let it takes it course. I can only put the day down to the weather and all the rain and wet  weather we are getting at the present moment. Maybe this low pressure area is what has set off all the attacks and will hopefully be over soon especially as the better weather approaches.

My head at the moment is not only suffering from strong shadows but also aching like it is swollen and in pain. The throb i am getting in my head is worst than having a migraine yet not as powerful as an attack and is constant. If it was only a n ache every now and again i wouldn’t worry so much but this is just non stop and doesn’t even show signs of stopping any time soon. My sides feel like someone has been punching me in each side leaving it bruised and in pain and my back also feels as if i have been run over by a truck or something.

I am hoping that today isn’t as bad as it was yesterday but i have a bad feeling as the aches and pains are just too strong at the moment and aren’t showing signs of easing off any time soon. All i can do is try to stay as still as i can and try not to do anything that will aggravate my current condition and end up making me feel even worst than i all ready do, if at all possible. :Lets just hope this nightmare ends soon as i just don’t know how much more i can take.