Yes I added physical therapy. But as most know with fibromyalgia, our once great minds often can not remember short-term events and long-term memory is usually triggered by something we see or hear. Very frustrating for me who for 8 years of family court could remember every detail on my case and had 183 pieces of evidence. I could write a whole blog on family court and how to prepare. Maybe some year.
When I went to see my neurologist once again, my muscles on my upper back were so tight I looked like a football player with big shoulder pads. My shoulders were stuck way up to my ears. Neurologist did her exam and scheduled me for six weeks of physical therapy. She also wanted to up my pain med dose. The pain I was feeling I should have been relieved to hear that, but I declined as I felt it was making my depression worse. Looking back, it is unbelievable what negative thoughts does to your body, mind, and soul. More on that in a later post. Neurologist also wanted another MRI to again see if herniated disc/bulge got worse since last MRI. I wasn’t happy. I left feeling that throwing more pain meds and doing another MRI was her doing something, yet really not doing anything to help me. MRI was with mirror, blah blah blah. Same old MRI experience as the others. I won’t bore you with that again.
Went in to get kidney scans. Not much different than liver scan except no IV and I learned my lesson not to try and follow camera lol easy peasy. I got the call a few days later that they did not find cancer….ummm what? I did not even know that was what they were initially looking for. Now I am glad I didn’t know, because I was dealing with enough anxiety. I have never mentioned before, but I am a single mom and I have a special needs child. More on that later as well. What they did find were cysts. Not just one cyst on one kidney, but four on my right and three on my left. What does that mean? I get to see yet another specialist, an Urologist. Now I have more anxiety, which intensified my pain, which also intensified my depression and negative thoughts because I have no clue what this all means. What I do know is our organs play a big part and I would like to keep as many as possible please.
Physical Therapy started out pretty basic. The physical therapist showed me different stretches and had me take home two big rubber bands to hook on my door and to keep doing that every day until she saw me the next week. Then by the third visit, she used a deep tissue machine that she said penetrated down three levels of muscles. Did it help me? Nope. Did not loosen up my muscles at all. Then she had me lay on the table as she put a tennis ball under my neck and had me extend my chin to the ceiling. I reminded her I have a herniated disc and bulge. I am very careful with my neck because it hurts a lot. The tennis ball exercise did not help. She would apply pressure to the back of my neck and instantly with one touch my face would feel like it was on fire. I even asked her, is my face on fire because it feels like I got a bad sunburn. She looked at me and said, wow your pressure points are way over sensitive. I would sit up after she applied pressure to all my pressure points in my neck and back and I would instantly get light headed. When I stood up it was worse and I felt like I wanted to vomit. Physical Therapist was puzzled why I was feeling worse and not better. Each week it was same thing…not helping and I would always walk out feeling worse. The last visit (although I was scheduled for one more) she wanted to see if stretching my neck would relieve any tightness and help with my tension headaches/migraines. As I am laying on the table on my back, she starts stretching my neck on my right side. Didn’t hurt, just sore. As she was going to move the stretches turning my head to the left, I reminded her once again about my herniated disc/bulge. She stretched a little farther and I said I think you are going to kink my neck. Most of us have at least kinked our necks by turning too fast or before backup cameras on our vehicles, turned looking too far back….and we all know they hurt. Well with a herniated disc/bulge the pain is intensified to a 100. Just as she was going to stretch even further…yep she kinked my neck. My right leg shot straight up in the air and the rest of my body was paralyzed for seconds, but really felt like long minutes. It hurt so bad when my leg shot up tears also shot out of my eyes. And guess what she said after all that? Well there is nothing I can do for you because you should be getting better each week and you seem to be worse. I agreed and never went back. While physical therapy helps many, many, many people, I am just the minority that it was not for me.
TIP 1: Do not think negatively about physical therapy. It might be a great option for you.
TIP 2: When a specialist, who has not diagnosed you, wants to throw more pain meds at you…it might be time to look for a new doctor. That’s exactly what I did.
Next post- Urologist and Back to Primary Doctor…Bye Bye heart monitor
Fibromyalgia Warrior Woman 