Don't Know What To Do anymore

Elenor

It sounds like you are getting very depressed, depression is usually "part in parcel" with having chronic pain! I know this is easy to say, but you really should go and talk with your Doctor about this, maybe he/her could help you, by maybe starting you on a mild antidepressant or something like that, or maybe counseling. I know all to well how easy it is to just stay in bed and sleep to escape it all! But you know that is not the answer, it wasn't for me and probably it is not for you either! I know it is hard and difficult to be pro-active in our medical care, but if we don't take care of our selves, who pray tell who willl??? I know how hopeless you can feel after seeing some of these doctors! Allot of times I know I come away feeling belittled, berated and confused, and more than a little bit angry, and sad! I just want to "run away from it all! and say to heck with it! stay in bed and just sleep it all away!" But I know that is not the answer! and from your post it sounds like you know it is not the answer too! Yes you need to be more proactive, and talk with your Doctors, and get a new and different PM doctor if you need to, maybe find a counselor that you could go to, that might help you allot! I know when I was going through my divorce, I just felt over whelmed! mentally, physically and every other way! I talked to my pain doctor, and he got me a referral to a counselor that would take medicare and tricare, I had went and seen her for close to two years, at first weekly and then every two weeks and then monthly, I also got put on a very very low dose antidepressant, ( just enough to take the edge off, as like I told my counselor, I just felt like I wanted to cry all the time, I didn't, but..... I felt like I did!) You know it all helped me! along with all the support from the people here on this forum, I made it through a very very rough and rocky period in my life. But I had to make it happen! With the proper help and support you can too Elenor! You are not alone, you have all of us here to give you help and support!

I do wish YOU well!


White Beard

Hi Eleanor,
I can totally relate to the exhaustion of trying to teach while in severe pain. I had to leave the profession b/c it got to be too much being on my feet all day.

Can you talk to your union rep about what options might be available to you? Sometimes there are options -- shared sick days, protection & pay for disability leave, partial pay during leave or access to special union-supported programs. I know the one year I was able to get regular pay for 12 weeks of disability leave from my union. It's not a long-term solution but if you can find some sort of assistance it might be enough for you to figure out if there is a treatment that would allow you to continue teaching or if you need to change to a more sedentary position (there are a lot of companies that will hire former teachers for all kinds of work, so don't despair if you do need to leave the classroom).

CFS occurs in people who have had mono. They can test for it by testing for the mononucleosis virus. Your PCP should be able to run that test if you think you might have been exposed. There are a few other problems that can cause exhaustion, but I agree with the others that often we CPer's struggle with depression/anxiety. Teaching is so demanding to begin with and then when you add on chronic pain, it just gets to be too much. You miss a few days & come back and your students are behind. So even though you are exhausted you continue working until you are about ready to drop b/c who knows whether the sub will actually teach anything or whether s/he will let the kids run wild and refuse to follow your lesson plans. I understand all too well. I kept at it until I was so sick my PCP gave me about a week to live if I didn't get off my feet. I miss teaching, but now am looking at some options where I would at least be in the education field and could teach a class a handful of times a year. It's been 6 years since I left the classroom and my pain is so much more under control. I do still have some bad patches, but nothing close to what I went though before.

take care,
frances

Thanks all of you for your responses. I haven't been on the computer since Friday morning. After I posted that, I had to get a sub to cover my classes that day -- the pain was just too much. I couldn't even talk.

I'm just now reading the responses. Good advice on so many levels. Made me start thinking about "depression" and I've been through all the Pain Stages and eventually got on Paxil in 02. Changed my life! But I've been on it since then. I got off it when I was pregnant, then immediately got back on it after my daughter was born. So that brings up another question...do depression meds wear off after so many years or do they keep working?

I went to a 'pain psychologist' and it was a waste of money. All he was in to was Bio Feedback --- which did nothing for my pain.

I do need to reconsider a lot of things to try to TRY again. I;ve just done it all to no avail.