Still Smiling

Another rough day. Slow start. Slow brain! My brain was slow all day, I had a lot of pain, my muscles were at the point of cramping many times, I was so tired. After I rested in the afternoon, I was able to help teach a class in the afternoon. Although I was in a lot of pain (dysesthetic pain in my left foot and leg), I had a good time. I like to do something to help distract me from the pain.

One new pain I had today was from my ear (maybe just anterior to it) to my eye and cheekbone. I looked it up: trigeminal neuralgia, aka "suicide pain." Mine is definitely not at suicide level, and I hope it does not get worse.

I emailed Alyssa this evening to let her know how I have been (crappy). I hope I do not need Solu-Medrol (steroids) again. I hated the side effects last time, and I had a rebound relapse afterward, which was when the dysesthetic pain began AND I got a UTI. I do take the cranberry pills now...

OH, and I tried to drink a lot of water today, because tomorrow is shot day. Hydration is part of the plan. :)

Sensory:
-Pins and needles: 6
-Tingles: 1
-Dysesthetic pain: 7
-Paresthesias: 3, some electric shocks
-Numbness: 5, things keep falling asleep, and my tongue numbness is really bugging me
-Vision: 2, no change
-Nerve pain: 4, leg and face
-Hearing: 0

Motor:
-Walking: 4, weaving, stiff, poor for distances like walking from my car to my front door
-Sore muscles: 4
-Fine motor: 3
-Weak muscles: 6
-Spasticity: 6

Cognitive:
-Processing: 3, sometimes I had sentence after sentence where my words were disfluent and often incorrect. Other times I was fine.
-Memory: 2
-Attention: 0
-Confusion: 3, still foggy. Morning was bad. I wandered around the kitchen picking things up and putting them down for at least 10 minutes. That was called packing a lunch.

General:
-Fatigue: 6
-Balance: 2
-Sleep: 4, I woke up HOT, because I was dumb enough to set the thermostat to 67 last night. Too hot for me to sleep. I know that, but my brain was fogged at that moment. And every time I woke up, one of my limbs or extremities was numb. That made it harder to fall back asleep.
-Bladder: 2
-Proprioception: 3
-Swallowing: 0
-A: 2
-B: 0

Emotions: OK, all things considered. I am probably a little sensitive. I was happy during the class. I was nervous while I was emailing Alyssa, but afterward, when I googled the nerve pain in my face and found that it was trigeminal neuralgia, I knew that I had done the right thing. That is definitely new, and it is definitely a problem. I felt more sure of myself and my symptoms. I do not want Solu-Medrol, but I also do not want to deal with all this pain and movement problems. And sleep problems because of these symptoms. So I am ok with the steroids if Dr. Rick feels I need them.