Aloha! I want to introduce myself....

Aloha everyone! I just found this forum last week and it is a God send. I've been posting in the RSD thread and a moderator suggested that I introduce myself to everyone in the forum instead of just one thread. I hope this is what he meant.

 

I am 52 and have had chronic pain for about 5 years. I was only diagnosed with CRPS/RSD about six month ago. I was forced to go on disability in 2005 and no longer work. More day’s than not I live with Chronic Pain. I live at home with my long time partner and 10 yr old daughter who both have ADD/ADHD. I also have 3 older children (girls 28 & 33, and son 38) who have given me 8 beautiful grandchildren ages 6 months to 16 years old. I am pretty much home bound and only have one friend with MS that understands what I’m dealing with (other than my doctors). I can do little except watch TV or play PC games. I find it hard to drive for fear that I'll hurt someone while driving. I'm not much fun to be around these days and hate the life I've lived over the past 10 years. What I need from this forum is a shoulder to cry on and a support system that will help me understand & accept CRPS. I want to know how others cope with chronic pain/CRPS/RSD and do everything else they have to do like dealing with family obligations.  I look forward to chatting with everyone and making some great online friends. 

 

My journey to chronic pain is a long story that began 10 years ago when I 42. It happened when giving birth to my daughter and is a rare event that occurs when giving birth. I'll try to keep it short so if you would like any more detail regarding what happened just let me know. => 6/10/00 Uneventful natural delivery of my beautiful daughter; 6/20/00 Angiogram w/Balloon; 6/21/00 Acute MI;  6/22/00 Off oxygen CABG (heart bypass/open heart) surgery; 7/5/00 Sepsis + Staph Infection; 7/00 to 1/00 Antibiotic therapy & wound debridement; Numerous angiograms; 2/05 CVA (stroke); 7/00-present unstable angina, occasional syncope/near syncope; 2010 CRPS/RSD.

Medical Team: PCP, Pain Medicine M.D.; Cardiologist; Neurologist; Psychiatrist.

Medicines: Crestor, Altace, Coreg, Lipitor, Trileptal, Aggrenox, Neurontin, Klor-Kon, Savella, Buspar, Endocet, Fentynl Patch, Nitro Spray/patch. (If you name it I've probablly been on it at some point)

 

 

 

Hi venus2471

 

Welcome to the Healing Well Chronic pain forum, well if you want a shoulder to cry on, you will have a bunch of them here, and you will find them caring and compassionate shoulders at that!  You have definitely have came to the right place! It is to bad that you have reason to come here, as none of us want to have CP, but with that said you I do not think you could have found a better web site or forum to have come to! I personally think we have the most caring and compassionate people on this site that you will find any where on the internet! We well lend you our ears and when you are frustrated, or overcome with pain, please come here and vent, we all understand and can empathize with you!  You have our support, and again Welcome to our CP forum family !

 

White Beard

Good morning venus!

I too would like to welcome you to the CP forum! Were very glad you found us here, and yes we understand the "God Send" it was to you, that you mentioned.

It looks like you and I share some of the same things. I too have a family member who suffers with ADHD and that can be very difficult to deal with, but it is treatable not only with med's, but a good structure plan in place.

Also I see that you carry the Nitro Spray! I do as well, as I had a massive HA in 2002, and still suffer some Angina from time to time. (Kinda scary at times)

Anyway, I will agree, in that you have certainly come to the best CP support group on the web, and we want you to feel at home here with us. Feel free to vent away, or ask questions when you have a need to know something. The members here are warm and friendly and will be happy to support you.

If you have some free time please feel free to read the "Chronic Pain 101" at the top of our CP home page, and we also encourage new members to take a peek at the forum rules while their at it.

Again Welcome and Enjoy!

SE

Welcome to the forum you have come to the best place It really is a place that you will always find support. Sorry that you need us but glad that you are here. lol



soft hugs

Betsey

Wow everyone thank you so much for the warm welcome. Apparently, I did find the right place. My heart goes out to each and every one of you. I actually am sitting here with tears in my eyes just knowing that there are not only others that can relate to and validate what I'm going through. It sounds like we all were living productive happy lives when all of a sudden the rug was pulled out from under us. I have to think there is a reason for this. I think back to all the times when I was working my 16 hour days wishing I could be a stay at home mom. You know the saying, be careful what you wish for...LOL...anyway thank you so much again for letting me be a part of your group and I look forward to getting to know each of you better.

I suffer from memory loss so if I forget a lot of things. I may chat with you and then can't remember who you are or what we talked about. What I do is I will just ask you agian who you are and what we discussed. Please don't be offended. it's just what I have to do. I call it my 'gimp syndrome'...LOL...

I noticed that there are chats that we can participate in. Since I'm in Hawaii there's a big time difference. When do these chat's take place so I can figure out what time it is here. What time zone is used for the chats. Right now we are 6 hours behing eastern time. I really want to participate. If someone can let me know how it works I'd appreciated it.

Venus,

Re: memory loss/remembering things - no worries at all :)  MANY of us suffer from that here! 

Re: time differences - I'm going to let someone else answer because I always mess that one up.  :)

Again, welcome....

--Tina

Thanks Linda and Tina for the warm welcome!

I would love to chat with some of you! I have been in severe pain for around 3 months now with no answers from my doctors other than "it might be lupus" and "we need a diagnosis before we can treat it" and so he is not giving me any kind of pain relief at the moment and he at first wouldn't even give me any steroids which do help relieve quite a bit, but now he finally broke down to give me a tiny bit each day till I can see the specialist. I am completely and thoroughly discouraged. I feel so alone and sad and cry because I want my life back. I can't do anything any more but lay in bed in so much pain and feel like when I talk to the doctors they make me feel like I am a bad person or druggie if I tell them I'm in pain as if I am trying to get pain pills from them, but they are not willing to give me the steroids I need that take the issues away and then won't control the pain either and I think its really unfair. I am at the end of my rope with all this and turning to you for help! I think you all understand what I am going through after reading so many of your kind and supportive posts you wrote to others. Thank you. Nicki