9/6/2014

* I was reluctant to write a new post until I got FIVE good comments on my previous post HERE... but I had a thought as I was up all night and felt like sharing because I don't know if I cover my everyday life very well.  So while I would still very much like to get some comments (random, creative, far-fetched, whatever!) on my previous post (PLEEAASSSE) here's an expanded post of what I jotted in my pain/endometriosis journal last night:

Sometimes I feel like I spend all day just trying to minimize the pain that may surface at night.  That's an annoying way to spend the day!  I talked with my doctor about it and she confirmed that most people who suffer pain do feel worse at night.  She also talked some about normal cortisol levels and how they are different for pain patients, which made total sense while I was there talking to her, but now I can't remember exactly what the difference is.  (I'll have to Google to refresh myself).  At least I learned that there is a physiological reason for pain being worse at night and the irritating part is that pain at night throws off an entire day, if not more.  I either sleep in too late and then I'm not tired the next night, or I try to wake myself up at a regular time and then I'm just the Walking Tired for the rest of the day.  Also, for me at least, the less sleep I have, the more pain I feel.  It's almost always that inverse relationship.  So it's likely that while I'm up and unable to sleep, because pain that I can deal with during the day can definitely stop me from getting comfortable enough to fall asleep, I also have these thoughts and knowledge in the back of my head and that can't help my subconscious with the sleeping part either.  I do experience nighttime flare-ups of pain.  I can deal if it's a night when I went to the gym and expect it but on random days when I have done nothing of consequence I do get an occasional bout of extreme pain and that is extremely frustrating.  That happened to me this past week and it sucked but I felt improvement the next day and better the day after that, so that's a pretty quick turnaround.  It used to be a flare in my pain level would last a week, so if we are grading on a curve, my grade is improving.

Not A Fun Night

Ugh.  It's about 4:30 AM and I am having pain that just will not quit tonight.  It is frustrating and I know by this point tomorrow will be a pointless day that will just be me being exhausted.  I've had insomnia in the recent past, mostly when I get nervous about Mom's chemo or something to that effect, but tonight it's old school: straight up pain.  I am uncomfortable, feeling that wonderful endometriosis pelvic pain and remembering when this was my life 24/7.  I thought I'd be okay with the valium suppositories, but I guess I'm going to need more than one night to get back on track.  I feel like I've taken enough meds to stop the pain, but I also think I spread them out too much, not realizing how bad it was going to be.  I should have just doubled the dose when I went to bed 6 hours ago.  Sometimes it feels like medication that knocks me out in the middle of the day becomes ineffectual at night and I have never understood that.  Wish me luck with sleep, and be not at all surprised if I'm out of touch tomorrow (or today really).  I know that all the other EndoSisters out there know what it's like to get these days and they just suck.  Plain and simple, tonight sucks.  Pain sucks.  Pain not allowing me to go to sleep sucks.  And at this point my stupid medications not giving me the relief I need also suck.  I hope everyone I know is having a way better night and not reading this because you're curled up asleep in bed.  (Did I mention this sucks?)  I am so much less into positive thinking when I am exhausted.  But these nights happen sometimes.  Ignoring them is ignoring a big part of endometriosis so I'm sharing it with you... the not great, the bad, and the painful.  At this point most of you are closer to waking up than to having fallen asleep so I hope you have wonderful Fridays and I hope I sleep through your work!

A Night In the Life of Pain

Ahh... bedtime.  It seems to come around oh so often.  I think I would enjoy longer days and less sleeping...  But we all know that we have to sleep.  Well sleep is something that has been consistently hard since I began having endometriosis symptoms.  

At the beginning, I don't know if I would have been sleeping or not, but the pain was so bad, I basically didn't sleep normally for months.  The thing with sleep is that we try to relax and turn off our brains and let the sheep counting take us away...  Well when you have acute pain, chronic pain, post surgery pain... it is not easy to relax.  I could make it throughout the day simply by keeping myself distracted by doing about 3 mindless things at once.  But if I stopped doing those things, it didn't matter how tired I was, all I could think about was the pain.  I was uncomfortable every second before I found a doctor who could manage pain while also dealing with the endometriosis.  I have never slept with the tv on, radio on, or even been able to fall asleep to music, but I started leaving Netflix playing on my computer while I was in bed trying to sleep and I am only now getting myself able to sleep without the computer playing some television show.