New to the forum

Hi, my name is Cathy.  I am the 42 year old mother of 3, granna of 3 and wife to an amazing man.  I've suffered with Chronic pain for 2 years, have been in PMT for nearly 2 years.  I sought out a forum to give my family relief from having to hear me complain about my pain, because I know it can be troublesome.

Just want to connect with others who understand and have a place to vent when I need to.

 

    Hi Cathy and welcome to HW, our chronic pain forum.

You have certainly come to the best place for chronic pain. The members

here are wonderful, so caring and understanding. I am sure you will find

it a great help. I have been here for almost three years now and my best

friends are from here and have actually had the opportunity to meet some

in person.

Can you tell us more about what your chronic pain stems from? what

treatments you have done and perhaps meds that you are on so we can

be of more help to you. You can always come here to share and vent

as well. We all care about each and often help each other to get thru

those rough days. Keep coming back and posting as much as you can.

Myself, I am Suzane, live in Ontario, am a registered nurse, but now

on disability. I suffer from chronic severe headaches which started more

than eleven years ago. Nothing has helped me unfortunately.

I look forward to chatting with you.

Have a nice day.

Suzane

I was diagnosed with bi-lateral CTS in December 2007. In March 2008, I had the first surgery for the release. My recovery didn't go well at all. I still had all of the same issues, not as severe, but I had sharp shooting pains go up my arm to my elbow. Over time, the pains were causing me to lose sleep. In October, I went ahead and had the 2nd surgery done. The surgery did not offer any relief at all. The symptoms were just as bad as before the release. I had to literally beg for help. I didn't beg for meds, I begged for relief. For one year I dealt with the pain without meds. The last visit I had to my surgeon, he reluctantly told me that he felt he had no other option but to send me to PMT.

They've done additional EMG's, three times, and I still have moderate CTS (original diagnosis was severe). I am not a 2nd surgery candidate, so PMT is all I have. Recently, I have been having some extreme boughts of pain up to my elbows. We've not had any change in weather, it's actually been quite nice, so I have no clue what is up with this new pain spree. I go back to my doc on Monday, and I'm beyond ready for it.

At this moment, I can not tell you all of the meds I am taking. I don't commit that to memory, I just carry the list with me so I have it when ever I need it. I'll go get it in a bit and add the info.

Hi Cathy, and I am Kathy, thats the way it is supposed to be spelled, lol.  You know women have argued for years about C or K.  When my youngest daughter was very young (she is 26 now), I think she was 3 at the time, she thought my name was "Kathy with a K".  She had heard me say it over and over to different people and thats how she thought that was how my name was spelled.

But welcome to the cp forum, you will feel at home here very quickly.  I just joined in March of 2011, and I have many friends already.

So come back as much or as little as you feel like.  You have found a home where most all of us have found our way to talk to people who know just what we feel like.

Take care, hope you feel well soon,

Kathy

 

Cathy I am sorry to hear that the surgeries were not successful. Having both hands involved really has to be a tough one. I remember back in the old days, lol, when they first started dxing carpal tunnel syndrome and doing surgery, there were a lot of stories just like yours. I ended up with it in both hands, way too much typing, I was a paralegal. I chose not to have surgery and just live with it the best I could. I just did not want to take the risk of potentially ending up worse off like some of our clients.

Several years later I was in a motorcycle accident and ended up with bilateral ulnar nerve entrapment. One again, surgery was recommended and I declined. Never saw many successful surgeries on that & I needed both hands for work.

The winter months are the worst for me too. Something I use in the winter a lot is a hot wax machine, I found one on sale for next to nothing and bought it. That was a wise move on my part, as the heat does feel so good and seems to go deep. Now using my hands for much is out of question because I have no strength in them. Of all things to pop up, is a ganglion cyst. This thing just appeared out of no where and it can be quite painful at times. I get a lot of numbness in my thumb.

I hope your dr can figure what is going on with this extra pain that has come on recently. Let us know what your dr has to say about this.

Hi Cathy, and welcome from me too. I'm also in the CTS club, but mine responds reasonably well to splinting, plus I'm on pretty heavy medication for full-body Complex Regional Pain Syndrome so I think that covers a lot of the CTS pain.

I'm sorry you are suffering so much with your pain right now, but glad you've found us.

Laura

Hello, and welcome to the forums Cathy!

Sorry to hear about your pain problems, but I am glad you found the site and decided to join up and post here. I was really glad that I found this site because it's actually one of the more active sites to talk about chronic pain, it seems like it is much easier to get a response here.

I always feel like I'm burdening people when I have to remind them that I'm not 'feeling well' or that I am having a bad pain day. Its hard for people to understand when they don't have the experience with chronic pain, so I can understand how others could get tired of hearing about it. Still, hopefully over all your family understands and is supportive of you. Based on what you said, that seems to be the case so I'm glad about that.

Keep us informed, and thanks for posting! :)