Ouch!

I hurt. It hurts to sit and type this right now at the end of a long day of work. I've been hurting since September. At the risk of sounding like an old woman who talks about her pains all the time, I thought I'd tell you what was up.

For about ten years I have successfully ignored the stiffness in my back and neck, and the annoyingly increasing problem of my arms going numb. I figured those were the reasonable outcomes of knitting, quilting, and basically working at a desk too much for a living.

But in the fall, I developed bad pain in my forearms, wrists, and hands. I started using bands for tendonitis ("tennis elbow") on my forearms and it helped a little. But the wrist pain got worse and I kept feeling weak in the arms and hands. One day I grabbed something with my left hand and felt a horrible rip. My hand swelled and the back of my hand bruised. This finally sent me to the doc who said I had tendonitis and severe carpal tunnel syndrome causing me to tear a ligament or muscle. He poked me with a pin and discovered that I had lost feeling in several parts of my fingers. I wore wrist braces day and night for a month. No real improvement happened which was weird.

He ordered an electrical conduction study (not fun!) to see where my nerve damage really was. The results of that were strange so I found myself going through an MRI of my neck followed by a series of x-rays and a consultation with a neurosurgeon. This in turn resulted in a second MRI of my brain (I have decided I hate MRIs). These tests were drawn out and those weeks were a very frustrating period. I was in constant pain and had no help except drugs which made me feel bad.

Finally, several things were decided:

I have a birth defect called a Chiari Malformation. This means I have a congenital abnormality at the base of my brain stem which has resulted in herniation of my cerebellar tonsils. There's a bunch of swelling in places of my brain and spinal column that aren't supposed to swell.

I have a bulging disc in my neck (cervical disc herniation) and swelling in my spinal column at the neck.

I have bone spurs in my neck and some arthritis.

All of this has caused stenosis and neuropathy, which basically means I my hands, arms, shoulders, back, neck, and head hurt/don't work well/go numb because the nerves are ANGRY.

I also DO have severe tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and (here's a new word I learned!) thorasic outlet syndrome. These problems were all caused by a combination of the neurological problems above and the fact that I sit at a computer a lot.

As if that wasn't enough, the brain MRI also showed an odd area that could be nothing serious ("just the way God made you" as my neurosurgeons says) or could be some other problem ("do you have a family history of multiple sclerosis" asks my neuosurgeon nonchalantly). Nothing was decided about this but it will be monitored with more brain MRIs in three months, six months, a year, etc.

I've been treated a lot in the last five weeks since I got my cluster of diagnoses. I was given transdural cortisone shot (nasty procedure of putting drugs into my spinal column with a big needle!) in order to reduce the swelling of my nerve roots. I have also been in physical therapy with an amazing doctor. I get TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation), trigger point pressure, manual traction, ultrasound therapy, and cold treatments. My therapist hopes that soon my pain will be down enough for me to do exercises for my problem areas.

I have a lot less pain now and much more movement ability. I can't sit in one position for too long or things start hurting, and typing is a chore I have to plan carefully to avoid paying for it later. My headaches and neck aches are much rarer, and my arms don't go numb nearly as often. This is great change and I'm pleased. At the same time, I don't think I'm out of the woods. If I don't work on this continuously I will quickly be right back where I was a few weeks ago. And I don't know what my chiari malformation might mean down the road, nor do I know if the additional brain MRIs will reveal anything of concern.

So that's what's been eating my life in the last months (while being a mom, teaching full time, traveling some as a consultant, running a grad program, and trying to finish a manuscript). If I've been a bad correspondent, now you know why! I'll let you know if and when I learn more about any of this!

Peace! Love!