Farrah's Right Fulkerson TTT 1/8/08, now RSD/CRPS...Left Fulkerson 11/16/10

[arkitect06]

It is 12:30pm, well after taking my hydrocodone, and still no relief!  UGH!!!  This freakin' sucks bad!!  I am so happy for those that have such a "normal" recovery!!  This pain stuff kills and really gets me exhausted.  On top of that, the pains meds I take make me so drowsy during different times of day.  So I have been sitting at work this morning falling asleep!!  So instead of falling asleep, I will eat saltines and drink cold water. I have to work late tonight, so that may mean more saltines later!  Maybe at some point the pain meds will help!  It feels good to vent on here even if nobody is reading or responding

Farrah

[arkitect06]

Still in pain despite hydrocodone ever 4 hrs.  I still can't walk with 1 crutch unless I take really small and slow steps...I can't always do it...same thing with walking with 0 crutches at home.  Today I stayed on 2 crutches all day.  I have my 3 rd PO OS apt tomorrow at 2pm, so I will post more after that.  I know it will be nothing!!  Same ol' muscle weakness crap that is not controlling my knee cap and making it maltrack. 

Farrah

[austinknee]

If I were you I would tell him that is BS......dont let him ask you if you are smiling. Give me a break. Dont let him make you laugh or what not...it is your knee ...you are in horrible constant pain.....make him understand.   It is crazy.   We all have pain. I have weak muscle pain...but...that is different b/c I can move my legs without torture pain...yours sounds awful!!!  I hope he listens.

[arkitect06]

Today I am just over 9weeks PO.  I still have miserable pain.  I feel like the meds don't really help anymore.  I am definitely worse without them, but I still can't do anything with them...they just help enough to get my mind off the pain and make my attitude better.  Anyway, I am nervous about today's PT and OS apts.  The way they operate at my OS and PT's offices is that I sign in at 2pm and tell them I am in PT.  Then later my OS comes in and calls me in to do the regular OS apt.  Then I go back to PT.  I don't know if my PT would be in the room or not.  I actually hope so b/c she knows how things hurt and when.  Anyway, I have taken the rest of the day off from work.  I may have to go coach straight from PT today, so I may not be able to post anything til after 8:30pm.  Have a great afternoon everyone!

Farrah

[KW]

Farrah,  Good luck today... Please don't leave you OS office with out some REAL answers as to what is going on.  No more of this BS they are feeding you about weakness causing the pain.  Chain yourself to the table if you need to!!!

Karen

[Brittany0183]

I agree with Karen!!  I took me a year to convince my OS that I was even having a problem before he agreed to do surgery.  I finally had to be kind of rude and in his face about the pain I was having.  Don't let him blow you off, that's ridiculous! 

Go get 'em tiger! 

Brittany

[GemmaLeigh]

Good luck Farrah, I really hope you get some answers. 9 weeks seems a long time to still be in so mch pain. It's inevitable that the pain meds were going to stop having an affect after a while. Mine stopped doing much after 2 weeks so i can only imagine how useless they become after 9!!

Anyway hope all goes well.

Gemma.

[smkelly4kds]

Good Luck Farrah. WE are all pulling for you.  I agree chain your self to anything that will get your OS attention!  Be blunt this is your life not his.  You leave the room and he no longer cares he moves on to the next patient.  That is the way things work.  Make them understand.  Personally I cant understand how they can keep saying its just weak muscles.  I could understand weak muscles causing mal tracking, your knee giving out ect.. but pain I mean honestly if they are that weak then why are you not having to wear a brace?  I hope you get the answers you so desperately need.  Good Luck!  Be strong and stand up for your rights as a patient, and more importnatnly as a human being in pain! 

melissa

[arkitect06]

First, thanks for all the support...this is a little long response, but if you don't want to read the whole thing, the last few sentences pretty much sum it up!  I think it went well! 

So I just got back from my OS and PT apts.  First, my PT had a little chat with me saying that I do too much and this and that.  Anyway, she made me understand again that I am doing too much.  So I was in my PT's clinic for about 1.5 hours until the OS came in to see my knee.  I did get more x-rays to make sure everything was healing right....which I already knew was okay.  Anyway, so my OS and the PA came in and examined me with my PT standing there ready to answer anything.  I loved the set up b/c everyone was on top of everything.  The PT told him what I struggle with the most and what I can do without pain.  She did say I have a lot of pain during certain exercises.  She explained it perfectly.  So then he examined my knee...touched it around, extended it, made me flex, etc.  He made me do an SLR.  I gritted my teeth while doing it.  Then he asked if it hurt, and of course I said yes and showed him where.  He asked me about my typical daily schedule...asked me about how long and often I coach gymnastics, etc.  I told him all my activities.  He then said that I need to change my lifestyle to acommodate my knee...in other words stop doing things that hurt.  He said I just need to do as little as possible to make my knee hurt.  He said I really need to communicate with them and my PT as much as possible when I am having pain during certain things.  He said when I have a busy week or weekend, to not come to PT.  He said if I have a busy day and my knee hurts, don't come to PT.  In other words, if it hurts, don't do more things to make it worse.  The idea is to prevent pain.  The more I do to make it hurt, the longer it will hurt.  I completely understood that.  He then told me about how many x-gymnasts he sees during adulthood with so many knee injuries....I was kind of curious about that.  He did blame gymnastics on my problems.  So then he started asking me about pain meds.  I told him how much hydrocodone I was taking every day.  He was surprised at how much I had to take and asked me what happens when i don't take it...I told him I could barely move around at all and was in a ton of pain.  He then explained to me that I could have an addiction b/c you can get addicted faster to narcotic pain meds than cocaine.  I am glad he brought that up!!  He said that addiction would not be my fault and they will try to prevent it from happening.  He told the PA to give me another prescription for a smaller dose of hydrocodone to see if that helps the pain while taking just a little less.  He also asked me if the pain meds help with PT, and I said that not too much b/c it still hurts with the meds.  So he then examined how I function from hip to foot...how I use my hip to move my legs around, how I sit, etc.  He asked what happens when I stand up from a chair to do anything.  I told him where it hurt while going from sitting to standing and what happens if I walk and keep walking.  He asked if it kept hurting when I continued to walk...I said yes.  Then he asked me about orthotics and if I have them...I sad yes (he made me get them years ago).  So I went to the locker room while he stood there and watched me walk and commented on not putting hardly any weight down...well I just had PT, what did you expect.  He also started talking to the PT while I was going to get the orthotics.  Anyway, so he is having Dr. Julien look at them next time we are both at PT at the same time.  He said they do help with pronation, which is what I do when I walk.  So in other words, that is not the problem.  So anyway, ultimately I am happy with how the apt went.  I am so glad that my PT was right there.  What I got out of my apt was that I need to calm down with my activities, prevent as much pain as I can, communicate with them about when it hurts during whatever I do, get my orthotics looked at, and continue taking pain meds.  He said that the pain is still from my weak quads and told the PT to work around my pain.  She said we are trying our best.  If something hurts, she always takes it out or changes it to not make it hurt.  I will not get stronger if the exercises hurt.  I am happy about my apt even though some of you guys wanted more than that, but I feel like he was thorough in his examination.  He took note of lots of things that I wanted to tell him, but he asked them before I was able to.  Anyway, I am still called his "project" whatever that means.  I still know I am in good hands.  My muscles need to get stronger!! Sorry to type up so much, I just didn't want to miss any detail of the apt!!  I will go back and read this another time if I forgot what happened.  He wants me back in 5 weeks!  One extra week than usual!  I hope everyone is doing well.  I am sitting on my couch with ice thinking about how badly I don't want to coach tonight!

Farrah

[arkitect06]

I forgot to mention that if I am still having a lot of problems by next visit, my OS wants me to see someone about the pain...whatever that means!

Farrah

[KW]

I forgot to mention that if I am still having a lot of problems by next visit, my OS wants me to see someone about the pain...whatever that means!

That means your OS is going to send you to a Pain Management Specialist. 

[arkitect06]

Hmmmm....I hope it doesn't get to that!! 

[austinknee]

Farrah...ok.  So....Im glad that he listened to you. And I hope that you REALLY listen to the rules on taking it easy.  I know it is easy for me to say..I have five hundred things I want to do....but..I can say that 90% of the time Im sitting on the couch when I am home. Now..it sucks...Im sooo sick of it...but it helps. Any time I break a rule and do something my knee hurts a bunch....so...I stop. I have TRIED to break the rules but my knee screams every time.  I think b/c you are so far out and you are so much further from the acute surgery stage it is hard to think that you have to start from scratch and sit around....but.....you just have to so you can get better.   Go back and read your posts for the past few weeks. You are busy busy.  Not just work..but gymnastics, family events, dave and buster, tennis, dinners...etc.  Life will come back for you but you get to be really lame just like me for now.  I totally agree with the PT plan of taking stuff out that hurts and modifying it.  Seems like your brain will never let your knee move on if everything tortures it.....  The weekend is here....hope that means you will lay very low and be lazy!

Laura

[fettucine1990]

Farrah
SO glad you feel as if you made some progress at your appt. today.  It does sound like your team did take you seriosuly and try and dig deeper into why this recovery is so painful and challenging for you.  The key is for you to listen to what they told you.  Like Laura said it is hard to feel like you have to step back to eventually move forward but it will be worth it down the line when your knee finally gets to heal.  I am also glad that it finally seemed to register to them about how much medication you have resorted to taking-it is way too easy to get addicted to rx pain meds and that is certainly not something you want to deal with in addition to rehabbing your knee.
You sound like you are relieved and probably exhausted after the long day.  Was it too late for you to get a sub for coaching tonight???  You already broke the rules-yes I have to sound like the mother that I am for a minute!
Do you at least have a quiet weekend to start the new "less is more" plan of action?
Carol

[arkitect06]

Okay, so just so ya'll know, taking it easy means sitting at gymnastics instead of standing or asking people to get me stuff instead of walking to get it, etc.  I can't stop coaching or anything, but I can say no to activities.  This weekend I have to coach on Saturday morning for 1 hr, then go to work for 4-8hrs to make up for my time off today.  Then Sunday I am not busy until my birthday celebration on Sunday night at 5:30pm at Dave and Busters...again!  I chose a Sunday b/c it is less crowded.  I will be careful, I promise.  I really don't want to deal with this forever.  I am going to try to get rid of my pain or prevent it as much as possible.  I don't want to see anyone for pain!!!  That would be stupid in my opinion.  Anyway, I have been in a great mood despite severe pain.  I even had to put my TENS on tonight to go coach.  The girls all asked why I had wires hanging out of my pocket...it was funny, but it kept my mind off the pain.  As soon as I turned it off, the pain came right back.  Maybe I will sleep with it on tonight!  Anyway, I am happy that I have ya'll's support!  It really means a lot!

Farrah