Oh great joy.

Sunday we had a cookout and my knees were a little achy. Okay, fine, I've got crappy knees anyway and they usually ache when we're about to get rained on.

By Tuesday the right knee was pretty much fine but the left knee hurt like hell. I didn't sleep worth a damn Tuesday night because the left knee was hurting so much and the carpal tunnel syndrom was acting up in my right hand, making my whole right arm hurt.

By Wednesday my entire left leg hurt from my hip down to about two inches below my knee. I fixed the carpal tunnel syndrome problem by finding my wrist brace and wearing it until it made my thumb stiff but that seems to have worked and I can use my right hand again.

My leg was another story. I took a Lortab (hydrocodone and acetominophen) that we had lying around and stayed off it as much as possible. Not only did the Lortab not help, the pain just kept getting worse and worse.

So I had a friend drive me to Baptist ER. They did a sonogram on my leg to check for clots, and that was clear, and then the doctor started manipulating my left leg around and asking me if I had any pain in my back. I told him my back was a little sore but not nearly as painful as my leg. He starts fiddling with my leg (press, "does this hurt?" lather, rinse, repeat), and diagnosed me with sciatica.

Great joy. So I got Percocet (YAY for good pain drugs) and steroids to try to make the nerve swelling go down and I'm supposed to ice my lower back for 20 minutes every four hours and stay off my feet as much as possible until the pain goes away. The ice feels wonderful on my poor back and my leg is feeling much better after I took the first day's dose of the steroids and two Percocet and actually got a decent night's sleep.

So that's the news in my world. I'm 32 years old and falling apart at the seams!

Pain, pain, go away

Okay, so I went to the ER yesterday for the excruciating pain in my left leg.

The ER doctor was very nice, and manipulated my leg around, sent me for an ultrasound to check for clots (no clots, so yay for that), and then manipulated my leg some more and diagnosed me with sciatica.

He gave me a course of steroids to reduce the swelling of the sciatic nerve, told me to ice my lower back for 20 minutes every four hours (which feels WONDERFUL!!), and gave me Percocet for pain (yay for good pain drugs!).

I had to borrow money from my parents to fill the scripts, and they also gave me gas money and money to replace my very bald two back tires, so now my car is happy, I have good drugs, and I'm in MUCH less pain. I'm more sore than in actual pain now. My stepdad also gave me 30 Darvocet that he's not going to use, to supplement the Percocet. I've been taking the Darvocet mostly, and saving the Percocet for the really bad pain, since I only got 15 Percocet.

So now I get to research sciatica and find out if there's anything I can do to make it better, because it's probably not going to go away. Joy.

ETA: Sciatica isn't actually a disease, it's a symptom. So I've probably either got a herniated disc in my lower back or a bone spur from arthritis in my lower back. It will require a spinal xray to confirm that, but I suspect the arthritis. I've already got arthritis in my hands, feet, and knees.