When the pain seeps through the meds
I woke a few times in pain during the night, and generally shifted uneasily in bed for much of the night. Each time the pain woke me, I pressed on the seeds that my acupuncturist had taped to my ears and abdomen to remind me of my pressure points.
The pain reached searing level by 6:45am. Pressing on my abdomen just made me want to scream. I got out of bed and felt nauseated from the pain.
I popped a Tylenol 3, but it did little good. A half an hour later, I took more Tylenol 3 (a half pill this time), ate some leftover gluten-free pancakes with jam, and drank some goat milk.
The pain medication kicked in to make me stoned, but the pain remained for a bit. I was not able to return to bed until around 9am. I napped for nearly an hour, and was startled awake by my cat letting out a sudden, jarring howl. I’m guessing he’d glimpsed himself in the closet mirror again or something. He’s a bit insane.
His howl startled me, which set off an endorphin rush, which in turn flared the cramps.
It’s two hours later and I’m just now ready to head back to bed. The pain had been too intense to sleep until this point. Now the pain is at about a 7 on the scale, and I have a codeine-headache, but I think I’ll be able to sleep for a bit.
Edit: I was able to get back to sleep, and woke up at 2:30pm with a pounding headache, but at least the cramps were gone… :/
At 6pm I still had a pounding headache. I cannot remember how much Tylenol 3 and Ibuprofen I took, but I didn’t want any more of it, so I tried some Jasmine/Green tea, which is caffinated. That worked, and my headache went away.
I went to bed again around 10pm, and woke up sometime after midnight with excruciating low back pain and a new round of cramps. I stayed awake and created my “Doctors I have seen” page, which I’ve been wanting to do for awhile. Interesting, eh? Fifteen doctors in nine years. As I wrote on that page, the high doctor turnover is common with endometriosis patients, because doctors think we are drug seeking, or they don’t believe our pain, or they misdiagnose us, or they present a type of treatment we feel is wrong for us.