It's All In The Ink

It's much easier to ignore a crappy diagnosis when it's spoken. In one ear, out the other. Of course, I didn't ignore mine but still, that letter makes it a little more real.

Yesterday was 30 days of Copaxone.

I started with heat before and ice after but during our getaway to San Francisco, I didn't use either. And I haven't since. I discovered while in San Fran that the heat and ice really didn't help much. To me, it was just an extra 10 minutes of nothing.

Now, I head to the bathroom and spend maybe 2 minutes doing my injection routine. Much quicker and still the same amount of pain. Now that I'm somewhat experienced (and I use that term loosely) with the injection process, I have to get my depth setting right. The depth setting controls how deep or shallow the needle goes in (holding back the vomit sound).

I saw my physical therapist last Thursday and complained about my neck, back and head pain. Lucky for me (his words), I had a headache when I arrived so he was able to show me how to easily get rid of it. It worked, for about 10 minutes, until it came back with a vengeance and lasted until Sunday morning. Crap!

He did some deep tissue massaging of my neck and loosened up some of those areas. I'm still not feeling any better but I have another appointment this Tuesday, hopefully it'll improve over time. He's thinking that I may get tingling in my hands because of a pinched nerve. I doubt it's just a pinched nerve but we'll see.

To other MS'ers, and anyone else who can understand...

When I visit places/people that I have to disclose my current health issues to, I'm discovering that I'm almost like a science project to them.

Nutritionist: "I've never dealt with anyone with MS before so I've been looking up a lot of stuff and it's quite interesting." And "So what do those lesions do?"

Chick at the Gym: "Oh, MS. Wow! Um, well we have these panic buttons over here." And "Maybe you should just workout when staff is here." And "So what's it feel like?"

Physical Therapist: "So, what causes this?" And "How long have you had it?" And "Can you tell me where your lesions are located?"

General Doc: "So you're taking Copaxone, what does that do?"

I think I'm going to create a business card that has "Important Facts About Me and MS" on it so I don't have to explain this crap over and over again. Some of the questions were legitimate but many of them I just had to breathe through in order to keep from laughing.

Oh and I forgot one....

The Vitamin Shop Girl: "What's that?"

Needless to say, I won't be taking her advice on which vitamins will work for me.