Re: Unsure of myself....Dixie

[Guest guest]

Dixie: First may I say welcome to the group, I don't know about

giving you advise, but an opinion?, and I am sure you will have many

varied responses. I think with any of the autoimmune diseases that we

have to learn to pace ourselves, and not give in to the guilt, of I

need to, should be......ect....this is the hardest to implement ..but

all the should be's usually wait....I agree with Tawny , i also find

if I keep moving my joints treat me better, on the other hand there

are days when I just can't and if I ignore those signals and keep on

trucking my body makes me pay twofold....if your body is telling you

to rest there is probably a good reason.......I don't have RA I have

scleroderma with some side dishes to make life more interesting

heaped on a type A personality, I figured I would just keep on at

normal pace, then I would end up paying for the pace, if I rested I

had the guilt thing going on, and understand some of your post

growing up in a narrow minded New England family that believed there

was no middle man(docs)..life was work or the morgue....anyway my

rheumy insisted I make a guilty jar, when I was feeling guilty about

everything that I should be doing I was suppose to write them down

seperatly and put them in the jar, I felt this to be a really stupid

exercise, but I had promised.....after writing them down I began to

realize that most could and would wait....so I think you need to go

with what your body is telling you , if you need to

rest....rest...the med thing is a personal thing, I also fought

adding of drugs, hated any new ones being added, question all, and

always question my docs about which ones can we weed out....I will

say after fighting narcotic pain killers, I finally gave in after 3

years. My rheumy said quantity of life or quality of life, you don't

become addicted you become dependent for a chance at a decent life,

it is a very personal choice, but I have never regretted saying yea

to oxycontin, it is 1 in the morning and 1 at night, because it is

slow release over the day as opposed to 2 every 4-6 hours of the

percocet. Eventually all of us suffering with chronic pain also end

up with depression. Opinions in this group help me see the light , as

a pretty smart person said, if you are diabetic you take insulin, if

you have high blood pressure you treat it.....On and on..if you have

chronic pain it is a medical condition caused by your disease and it

can and should be treated. I hope this helps you some, and please let

the guilt go...there is always tommorrow or the day after, our what

we should be doing usually waits......hoping to learn more about

you...Kathi in OK

> I have what is a problem to me that I'd like some advice on.

> Like pretty much everyone here, I have good days and bad days.

Unfortunately, there have been a lot more bad days recently than good

ones. I have meds I can take, but tend to be cautious about narcotic

painkillers. I also have muscle relaxers for my fibro, and valium

for my AS when the inflammation starts pinching the nerves. I try to

take only what I need to bring it down to a tolerable level.

Sometimes, even 2 Percocet doesn't have much of an impact. And that's

something I rarely do - take 2 of a med.

> So, on the trally bad days, when it hurts just to walk, I'll go

back to bed and put on a relaxing CD. Sometimes, I'll end up

spending most of the day in bed.

> And I feel guilty when I spend a lot of time in bed. I think

it goes back to my childhood when I was told literally every day that

I wasn't good enough and I would never be good enough. Spent 15

years in therapy getting rid of most of the " ghosts " .

> I was also taught that there was always someone worse than I

was. My Dad was fully fused from AS and worked full time. Of

course, he took massive amount of prednisone and painkillers to be

able to do so, and died at age 51 from the side effects of all those

meds. It's one of the reasons I watch my meds.

> But I know there are people all over the world who have many,

many more problems than I do, and a lot of them have no meds to help

them out.

> So, the bottom line is that I don't know if I should be pushing

myself more than I do on the bad days, or if I should find a way to

stop feeling guilty for resting on those days.

> Any help would be most appreciated.

> Dix

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