UPDATE!

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I've been off Ritalin for... eh, maybe a month-and-a-half, and haven't been able to write a single sentence that would be of any interest to readers.

Tomorrow I see my doctor. I'm going to get down on my knees, praise her as the goddess of all creation (or at least my personal goddess of pain control), and beg like hell for Provigil.

I can walk and move and a lot of things I couldn't before. But I can't write.

Anything of interest. (See this post.)

Hope to be back soon... And with a wicked vengeance.

PS: Posted in an Apple store. Buy a MacBook.

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Why I Haven't Been Posting:

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Since moving to Portland I've been weaned off the medication I was using to assuage my chronic fatigue (a disorder comorbid with fibro), and now can't get anything done. I have a ton of half-posts I can't finish, which is just as well because they would seem half-assed because I can't focus, think, ad infinitum.

I'm working on getting a shrink who can get me on Provigil and should then be able to write. In the meantime, please stop by from time to time. When I can give my un-posted crappy drafts the care they deserve, you'll be deluged with the best writing since Shakespeare.

I hope to get a shrink and some Provigil ASAP. I figure I should be back on attack in mid-April.

As ever: Stay Tuned!

Kisses!

--C. Bandini
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Foot baths for fibromyalgia!

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A friend told me her Mom has been much better lately, since she began using Fentanyl patches. (I had to tell her how to correctly pronounce "Fentanyl," and what it is.)

She told me she's proud that her Mom is less dependent on pills, an extremely subtle way of calling me a pseudo-addict pussy because I have to gobble massive quantities of orally administered medicine each day.

"My Mom looks at things differently."

Her Mom uses foot baths to help relieve her pain.

My friend equates her Mom feeling better with her Mom's decreased intake of narcotic pills.

She's right to do so. Her Mom can take fewer pills because her Mom is now on a drug hundreds of times more powerful than morphine. And than what I take.

My friend hates pharmaceuticals. Hates pills. Hates her Mom.

My friend ascribes her Mom's recent pain-decrease to her Mom's sunnier disposition. And to foot baths.

Not to the most powerful narcotic known to humanity.

This narcotic -- Fentanyl: so strong it's dosages are in micrograms, not milligrams -- has allowed Mom to have a sunnier disposition by decreasing her pain. Fentanyl has allowed Mom to take foot baths because now she can sit up for long periods without squirming in pain.

...I remain closed-minded and refuse to swap my pills for smiles, foot baths and Fentanyl. I'm doing all right with much weaker stuff (and a smile is a gateway expression) except for a drooling, teeth-grinding, fist-clenching hatred for fuckwad naturopaths who haven't heard of fibro but know I can be cured. And tell me how after I make it clear I'd rather not hear how.

Suggested cures have always involved something a fibromyalgian should never be subjected to, like chiropractic (for this example): someone applying crushing force directly to one's trigger/tender points.

If chiro cures fibro, then I expect to be able to cure broken bones by attacking fractures with sledgehammers.

...Jesus. I need a smile and a foot bath.

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There can only be one.

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I am invincible.

I haven't been sick -- with a cold, the flu, the anything -- throughout the past four-plus years.

It seems no virus or bacteria can affect me. And if I'm keeping these insidious creatures from harming me, it seems probable that I'm taking care of cancer (or will be able to, should I have to) and all other death-dealers too. I also get to brag that I can prevent and/or cure the common cold, while medical science never will be able to.

Currently, no one knows what causes fibro. There are a few theories, and all of them are amazingly stupid. And, therefore, so is the way fibro is treated by all but a few doctors. Dr ML&S has it right, for example.

I think fibro may be an autoimmune disease. Such diseases cause the body to attack normal, healthy body structures in their hyperactive Doberman-eagerness to protect the body. A brutal assault by the body on the body certainly would be capable of causing fibromyalgians' all-encompassing pain, tender points, chronic fatigue (whose cousin narcolepsy is suspected of being autoimmune), etc etc et cetera.

My gene pool is a a rich habitat for autoimmune diseases. Those in my family who have such diseases also cannot get sick. This inability to get sick is the only -- symptom? -- shared by people with diverse (and genetic, not communicable) autoimmune diseases and/or disorders.

Unfortunately, this means I have family who are fellow immortals, and I am destined to attempt to kill them, and they me. There can only be one.

The current state of fibro misdiagnosis, however, ensures that people who can get sick end up being labeled fibromyalgians. People with extremely cruel iterations of Celiac, chronic fatigue (unaccompanied by body-wide pain and esp. tender points), crippling depression, etc etc et cetera get lumped in with true fibros by doctors who haven't run enough tests.

Which keeps fibro from being understood and from being cured. (See various posts at my other blog for more rants dealing with the above paragraph's subject matter.)

Perhaps: If you've been diagnosed with fibro and have had a cold since then, you need a new doctor and a new diagnosis. I hope you find you have something else... It will keep you from having to worry about being hunted by sword-wielding gimps bent on decapitating you.

(I will seem crazy -- well, crazier -- if you don't know about The Highlander.)
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