Bone and Joint Pain
Those of us struggling with Systemic Mastocytosis, and all its variants, have to contend daily with a long list of symptoms. These symptoms are sometimes mild and sometimes debilitating. The symptoms can affect my legs one day and my brain the next. Sometimes symptoms are neurological in nature and sometimes they are affecting my organs. Sometimes symptoms affect my gastro-intestinal tract and sometimes symptoms affect my skin like a burning, hyper-sensitive rash. Sometimes the symptoms can be widespread throughout my body all at the same time. There seems to be little rhyme or reason to it.
One common symptom which can be relatively mild or excruciatingly debilitating is bone and joint pain. Today has been excruciatingly debilitating with this far too typical bone and joint pain.
All my long bones hurt... this is a deep pain felt to the core of my body. All my joints feel like they are being stabbed particularly when using them. Even opening a previously opened jar is so painful I can't even hold on to it. As if all the widespread bone and joint pain wasn't enough, the worst complaint for today and my most debilitating symptom today is brutal pain in my left ankle.
My left leg cannot hold any weight at all. When I try to stand on my left foot, it feels as though my ankle is broken and swollen to the size of a balloon even though there is no visible swelling.
You know that feeling when you hit your funny bone in your elbow? That is sort of what this pain in my ankle is like while at rest while carrying no weight at all. Trying to carry the smallest amount of weight of my body is excruciating. And, of course, don't forget that all my bones and joints are aching in addition to this acute ankle pain.
Everything hurts to the touch... my shins, my knees, my thighs, my hips, my spine... ugggg, my spine is screaming... my ribs hurt to the touch... my arms hurt... my hands hurt...
All I can do is hope tomorrow will be a better day.
UPDATE: Well, it is a new day and this morning I am unable to get around at all. The pain when I attempt to put any weight on my left foot is brutal... a definite 10 on the Ten Point Pain Scale. Limping out to my car to get my cane (I keep it in my car for times when my health crashes while we are out) was interesting.
Since it is a Friday, I decided I need to call the doc and make an appointment before the weekend.
The rest of my bones and joints hurt too but that pain is almost non-existent compared to the pain I am feeling in my left ankle. Funny thing is... when I got up this morning my left ankle hurt no more than any other joint when at rest. After only being up out of bed for an hour or so, it is throbbing at rest after limping out to the car to retrieve my cane. As I wrote above, the at-rest pain is like the pain you get when you hit the funny bone in your elbow... except, add some throbbing to the mix.
So, off to Waterbury Medical for a visit with a doctor this afternoon. Since my car has a manual transmission, I cannot drive my car so Sheila will be coming home from work early today so she can drive me to the doc.
UPDATE: Friday, 22 Aug 2014 - We visited the doc this afternoon. For now, we'll throw 1800 mg's of anti-inflammatory medications at it each day for 15 days. Hopefully I'll be able to get around on my feet again by sometime this weekend. I'll be seeing my primary care doc in a couple of weeks for my annual physical so I sort of have a built-in followup appointment. We'll see what happens...
One common symptom which can be relatively mild or excruciatingly debilitating is bone and joint pain. Today has been excruciatingly debilitating with this far too typical bone and joint pain.
All my long bones hurt... this is a deep pain felt to the core of my body. All my joints feel like they are being stabbed particularly when using them. Even opening a previously opened jar is so painful I can't even hold on to it. As if all the widespread bone and joint pain wasn't enough, the worst complaint for today and my most debilitating symptom today is brutal pain in my left ankle.
My left leg cannot hold any weight at all. When I try to stand on my left foot, it feels as though my ankle is broken and swollen to the size of a balloon even though there is no visible swelling.
You know that feeling when you hit your funny bone in your elbow? That is sort of what this pain in my ankle is like while at rest while carrying no weight at all. Trying to carry the smallest amount of weight of my body is excruciating. And, of course, don't forget that all my bones and joints are aching in addition to this acute ankle pain.
Everything hurts to the touch... my shins, my knees, my thighs, my hips, my spine... ugggg, my spine is screaming... my ribs hurt to the touch... my arms hurt... my hands hurt...
All I can do is hope tomorrow will be a better day.
UPDATE: Well, it is a new day and this morning I am unable to get around at all. The pain when I attempt to put any weight on my left foot is brutal... a definite 10 on the Ten Point Pain Scale. Limping out to my car to get my cane (I keep it in my car for times when my health crashes while we are out) was interesting.
Since it is a Friday, I decided I need to call the doc and make an appointment before the weekend.
The rest of my bones and joints hurt too but that pain is almost non-existent compared to the pain I am feeling in my left ankle. Funny thing is... when I got up this morning my left ankle hurt no more than any other joint when at rest. After only being up out of bed for an hour or so, it is throbbing at rest after limping out to the car to retrieve my cane. As I wrote above, the at-rest pain is like the pain you get when you hit the funny bone in your elbow... except, add some throbbing to the mix.
So, off to Waterbury Medical for a visit with a doctor this afternoon. Since my car has a manual transmission, I cannot drive my car so Sheila will be coming home from work early today so she can drive me to the doc.
UPDATE: Friday, 22 Aug 2014 - We visited the doc this afternoon. For now, we'll throw 1800 mg's of anti-inflammatory medications at it each day for 15 days. Hopefully I'll be able to get around on my feet again by sometime this weekend. I'll be seeing my primary care doc in a couple of weeks for my annual physical so I sort of have a built-in followup appointment. We'll see what happens...
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