Winter Rain Storm Pain and Sleep

Joint Degeneration From Age Ten

I have had arthritis for decades now. In my early twenties, my knees were so rife with arthritis that I was advised by my sports medicine doctor, my general practitioner, and an orthopedic surgeon, that I had the joints of a very old man.

I skipped the surgery hoping for a cure, or some better form of treatment - hoping that the pace of medical science would result in unimagined ways to alleviate my condition.

Years before I even linked the word arthritis to the non stop joint pain, the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, the feverishness, and the fatigue, I suspected it was going to be a lifelong malady. No matter how many anti inflammatory pills or hot showers I took the pain would return.

I could feel sharp jolts of pain in my neck, and my knees at first - and I'd run to the television to check out the radar screen, and would learn what I already knew, that a thunderstorm was coming. I soon realized that a storm could be a hundred miles away, and that I could still be affected by it. I couldn't believe that I was experiencing the same symptoms that elderly people often complained about on television programs and commercials.

As the years passed the joint degeneration spread to my fingers, back, shoulders, and hips.


In Search Of Pain Relief - Legal And Not So Legal

Some days the pain was so great that I would take ten to twenty ibuprofen tablets in a day and the natural result was ulcers.

I'd tell myself that prescription strength ibuprofen was one gram, and that directions for post operative pain was one pill every eight hours, and so I could safely take fifteen over the counter capsules - knowing that it wasn't a good idea - not in the long run.

Every once in awhile I would "score" some prescription pain medicine from a friend or relative. I'd take the medicine, and all the pain would go away. Tears would come down my face in relief. My body is so rife with crunchy joints that my brain simply must produce a great deal of its own pain killers, and this works relatively well, but the sensation I get when I take a powerful pain killer is this - it is like going back in time to when I was a child. My body feels good again - no pain at all.

The elation of feeling no pain is nothing short of ecstasy. This is how I felt up to my middle teens. And I ask myself why I can't just stay pain free, why I can't be allowed to stay on some powerful pain killer which would make my pain go away. Yet it isn't very long into such a feeling that I come to know my own nature, and decide it is best to feel the pain - that any pain pill yet devised would render me an addict - and thus I chose pain over slavery.

I have never asked a doctor to prescribe such pills, because I know what would happen. I know I'd end up abusing them for I have experienced the rapidity of tolerance. Take one pill at first, and soon I'm up to many more. That's the downfall of narcotics - anyone in pain will take so many that they'll eventually kill themselves taking such a drug to eliminate their pain.

I did once ask for a renewal on a prescription for a steroid I was taken for my back pain. The doctor told me that I would have to wait for several months before prescribing them again, so I never asked for steroids again, but I did start to look around for steroids over the Internet.

I soon realized that my craving to be pain free would drive me to finding, and purchasing steroids over the Internet, and so I stopped searching, and never bought it. Steroids are remarkable, but I've never known anyone taking them who hasn't had a personality change.


A Safe, Legal, Effective, Healthy Treatment For Pain - Fish Oil

In recent years I have found a pain medicine that is safe, with no known toxicity, has many positive side effects, very effective, and inexpensive. I'm talking about fish oil. Combine fish oil and glucosamine chondroitin and you have the perfect combination for joint pain. Fish oil can be taken all by itself, and it is such a remarkable anti inflammatory that you can take it for injuries, head aches, and arthritis.

Last night, feeling the shift in barometric pressure, and perhaps the lightning strikes from miles away, I knew I had to take plenty of fish oil, and so I doubled my daily dose to twenty fish oil capsules. That's eight grams of Omega 3.

Another twenty fish oil capsules (four more grams of Omega 3) today and I'm for the most part pain free (actually, that's not true) compared to what I would have experienced if I had not taken them.

I don't have to worry about damage to my liver from fish oil, nor the damage to my stomach that aspirin or ibuprofen would have caused - with the added benefit of reducing my triglycerides.

So with the intense winds, and freezing cold rain my major symptom was some low level pain in every joint in my body, and the overwhelming desire to sleep so as to avoid the pain.

In fact my entire family is asleep now, including our cats.

It's not like there would have been much of a loss - this cold dark horrible day, it's better to sleep through it, and pretend it never happened.

Just hibernate, and wake up on one warm Spring day, crawl out of my den, and go eat some fish - love that fish oil.