Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Trigger Points Gone Berserk

For over a fortnight now, I've been dealing with some ridiculous knots in the muscles near my shoulders, neck, and upper back. Since it started, I've had two really great sessions of trigger point massage therapy on the troubled areas. I have also used my TheraCane, a tennis ball, my rice sock, my heading pad, hot baths and showers, stretches, pain medicine, and now, finally, rest, as I write to you from my bed today.
It started on my left side, mostly in the side of my neck, down to the mid-back. It has been restricting movement in my neck and just causing this constant, awful pain.
It has gradually spread into more of an upper back problem on both left and right sides. Today, it is settling into the right side of the upper back and top of the right shoulder.
I don't know exactly what triggered this particular flare, but I can look back and see plenty of possible contributing factors, including the ongoing foot tendonitis thing, stress, and weather extremes, to start.  But I also kept going to work and doing things, acting like a normal or something. Why do I keep doing that? I think I have been busted, living on borrowed spoons.  I worked through it until yesterday around noon, when I decided I couldn't keep pressing on. It's a shitty time for me to be off work, but as I tell my fibro friends, I cannot take care of anyone else until I take care of myself first. So I am resting until something changes for the better.