Exacerbation - three and a half weeks now

[Guest guest]

I posted before, this exacerbation is very atypical for me.  The nerve pain in my skin I had only previously had when I had a fever - or if there was any nerve pain going on, my dose of amitryptiline I guess blocked it before I felt it.  I didn't even realize it was an exacerbation at first.  I just thought I had a fever, but after taking my temperature day after day, and it was never higher than 100.3 (I generally don't go outside unless I have to, so I don't think any of this is heat related, plus this has lasted through heat, cool periods, etc.).  I didn't pay attention and notice the numbness spreading in my hands, and it really isn't so bad (the numbness) and I'm not getting a whole lot of tingling.  It was 10 days into it, when I finally was able to see my MS doc, that she told me it sounded like an exacerbation.  Since then I've been trying to take notice of other symptoms. 

Between getting my 50 mg dose raised to 75 mg (before I saw the doctor) my nerve pain ebbed and flowed, and the day before I saw the doctor, I thought that maybe the amitryptiline was dealing with it.  Then I woke up the day of the appointment much worse.  That day (Monday) and Tuesday were hell days for me.  Was having the issue of needing to go to the bathroom and very little being there, so I decided to check with my primary doc about whether I had a UTI on top of it.  Wednesday I woke up with less pain, but still slight UTI symptoms, and went in to see him.  I had a very slight UTI.  He gave me a three day course of Cipro, with 1 refill on it.  As of Thursday (5/26), I had no UTI symptoms.  Even though I had no symptoms, my nerve pain had increased again, so I took the refill just in case, and saw the doctor last Tuesday just to double check that the UTI was completely gone.  It was.

I should add that when I saw my MS doc, she increased my amitryptiline to 100 mg permanently.  Now, by the time the UTI was over, the nerve pain had changed somewhat - instead of the burning skin hurts if anything touches it nerve pain, I was having what I can only describe as like when you feel something is tingling, but it was painful.  That was almost exclusive to my arms,  legs and feet.  And it itched.  The only way I got through the Memorial Day parade, where my son's marching band was marching in, was that it was this kind of pain and not the " don't touch me it hurts " kind of pain.  But then a couple days ago, it switched back.  I actually asked my husband yesterday if we could kick the kids over to my in-laws' house (they live a block away) so I could walk around naked, or at least from the waist up, because the pain was worse in my back.  That didn't fly over very well.  In addition to my nerve pain medication, I've been taking Fiorecet and iburpofen to combat the pain. 

I woke up at 7:30 in the morning this morning in pain, couldn't get back to sleep.  I generally function on close to 12 hours of sleep.  Last night I got 4 hours of sleep.  I've never had an exacerbation bother me this much - I mean, they bother me, but in this much pain, and it's one of those where you feel like you can't take it anymore, but it's still there so of course you do.  I just don't know what to do anymore.

Tina