I convinced myself that it's only pain, to cope with it and live happily.
I was happy... for the first 4 months. But now I'm starting to freak out.
Can't even study properly. Just going to lectures and listening amidst the pain. Lectures are almost soothing since they distract me from the pain. But when I try to write notes, and stay seated for too long, it gets really painful.
I can't hold a book to read it and study for exams. Everything seems pointless.
Let me tell you how everything started...
With all my heart and sincereness, I'm aware of the fact that there are people here and in the world whose priority for attention/care is greater than mine, I'm aware that there are more serious conditions and more important things than this, and with all respect I'm aware that some healthcare professionals are doing an amazing job... yet I'm simply frustrated and at the same time
puzzled about
what is actually happening to me.
Secondly, I'd like to ask whether anyone here has gone through similar situations and/or found a solution and/or has any ideas as to what else I could do next.
To be short and sweet, while I was doing some routine physical exercises four months ago (June 2007), I did a stretching/yoga posture known as "
the plough" (a pose I had actually done numerous times before; thanks to my own stupidity though I always self-learned that stuff), and something happened to the area below my neck.
Initially I thought it was just a whiplash, but the pain was unbearable.
A few days later I went to my
general practitioner who assured me that it was "absolutely nothing", and thus I continued living my normal life, walking and going to lectures, doing a few exams (badly, due to the pain... imagine walking around and writing with the feeling of a knife stabbing the base of your neck), but avoiding all physical exercise for a while.
As time passed, the
pain snowballed, reaching shoulders, arms and fingers, also making my neck muscles completely rigid.
Everyone thought maybe it was just the compound effect of exam stress and similar factors, but it became only worse, stabbing throughout my neck.
It became so unbearable in July that I was admitted to the emergency department, where several tests were done (but "you still have an amazing flexibility and bending range") and I was prescribed several
NSAIDs and to keep a cervical collar for a week.
The pain [obviously] went away for a while (and I swear that during those days I didn't do
anything apart from staying in bed and reading books), but as the effects of the drugs wore out, the symptoms relapsed.
Emergency dept once again; and this time they told me to take 2-3
injections a day for two weeks... (omg, all the funny side-effects).
Like the previous time, the symptoms were treated, but relapsed again, despite all my efforts (I literally was like a mummy at home during most of my summer vacation).
Apparently, I had all the symptoms for
spinal disc herniation which was what most experts later suggested to be the cause of my pain, but an
NMRI scan of my spine (performed towards end of July) revealed only that... my neck was rigid
So everything they did was keeping dismissing me and reassuring me that "nothing was wrong", that everything might actually have a psychogenic cause, etc.
Reassuring words (and also a reassuring MRI), and I'm a pretty positive person... but my body kept sending new warning signals every day.
In mid-August I quit taking medications since I was also told that they are bad and won't really help the cause of the pain. I also traveled to London where I met an osteopath who - keeping in mind the results of the MRI - conjectured that all I had was nerves pinched by the rigid muscles.
Indeed, in the meantime my muscles around the whole neck-jaw area had become somewhat strange, not really responding to my orders.
He performed several massages and stuff and I felt less tension, more relieved and with time also less pain in the arms and fingers.
Also according to the osteopaths, I had an "incredible range" (bending neck sidewards, backwards and forwards).
He told me that I should really forget everything and even start dancing again
(I obviously didn't
dance).
As time passed, and I came back home, the pains kept relapsing with different intensities, with no real episode of total lack of pain (except the few seconds after I wake up in the morning... but now also that isn't anymore).
That "knife in the nape/neck" feeling is constantly there throughout the day.
The "pins and needles [and nuclear missiles]" now come in hundreds of different variations, accompanied by that implosion feeling between nose and palate... the feeling you get when somebody just punched your nose, light dots flying around in my vision field, sensation of raindrops or acid falling all over my body. I also feel as if some of my mechanic functions are limited (strange "clicking" feeling when I expand my mouth to yawn, swallow water, etc.), in addition of course to the stabbing and dull pain that occasionally comes along the nerves in the eyes, teeth, chest, ears and other places.
I try to enjoy life, go to parties, work and do what I always did and learn new things.
And every night I fall asleep telling myself "This is just pain, nothing else. Just get used to it." But the next day I wake up with a new pain or a stronger form/intensity of a previous pain in the area...
I'm wondering whether whatever I did to myself didn't show up on the MRI because it hadn't "matured" enough in order to be visible enough.
And even the doctors... maybe they're waiting for whatever happened to completely deteriorate so that they can increase their health care revenues. No I'm serious, I also get these kinds of thoughts amidst all pain...
I'm also wondering whether I should interrupt studies for a while because I can't really
study (such as sit and do writing stuff) and read.
I only attend lectures.
If you have any ideas or suggestions, please let me know.
Thank you.