Tears of pain

The last couple days have been horrible for me. Last night was the first time this year that I've cried because the pain has been so overwhelmingly painful. Two nights ago, I was having trouble sleeping because my brain wouldn't stop running a mile a minute and the pain made it even harder to fall asleep. Eventually, I did fall asleep and I was able to help out with creche at church on Sunday.

I felt fine during creche and was able to help out pretty well. Then we went to Westfield to pick up some things, including lunch to bring back to our friends' house. As we were leaving Westfield, I was in so much pain. I knew that I couldn't go to our friends' house for lunch, so I stayed at home when we went to drop off our stuff from Westfield. I turned my heat blanket on high and took a nap after finishing my lunch.

I started feeling a bit better in the afternoon, although I remained on the heat blanket on high all afternoon. Then it all got worse that evening. It seems to be that the immense pain no longer sneaks up gradually, but explodes like a bomb. I started whimpering in pain, so Rohan grabbed me some panadeine, which my rheumatologist prescribed for me for when my pain gets really bad. It eventually helped, but after about an hour or so of me crying while holding onto Rohan for emotional support. He said he's never seen it this bad and wanted to take me to the hospital, but I knew there's nothing they can do if my rheumatologist, who I've been seeing for a few years, can't even figure it out. Plus I don't think it's been as bad as it got last year, because there were times that the pain made me cry while I was at work, but Rohan obviously wasn't there during those times.

I didn't start having these sorts of pains until much later into winter last year, though. We're only about a month into autumn now! I can't imagine how I'm going to get through this year if the pain is already this bad. I don't have another appointment with my rheumatologist until 30 May, so hopefully it doesn't get too much worse. I've been hoping that the exercise, weight loss, and physio would help, but so far I'm not sure. Although I guess it could be that I'd be in even more pain if I wasn't doing them. I'm just at a loss of what to do other than keep continuing with my exercises and stay on the heat blanket when I'm not exercising. I think my rheumatologist will have me do another x-ray when I see her and base the next step off of that. I guess we'll be hoping for a bad enough x-ray to qualify. Again. Third time's the charm, right?