Yesterday was the first time that I saw my rheumatologist since my surgery. His first remark was about my weight loss which I’ve come to accept as a bonus. When I wasn’t able to eat at all, I would have rather had my twenty pounds back and been able to hold down something more than jello but at this point, now that I’m able to eat at least a little bit more, I’m quite content maintaining that twenty pound loss. The next topic, of course, was my surgery and the nice string of hospitalizations. It was if he looked me in the eye and knew what I was feeling perfectly. He asked if I had just been in one major flare mode since then and I could have kissed him. Its nice when you get to a point with a doctor where they just know. I explained the joint and muscle pain as well as the crazy hypersensitivity and as I explained, he nodded.
We then went over my history of what worked and didn’t work and together we worked out a plan of action. After nine years of chronic illness, a doctor that invites you to be a participant in your care is one of the good ones. One of the treatments that I had the most success on was Savella. I had really good results for about two years (I was even running again!) before it started to become less effective. I went off this treatment almost 18 months ago so we decided to give it another whirl and keep our fingers crossed that it would once again be effective. The only thing I dread is the initial three or four days as the nausea is absolutely dreadful. We are hoping that by easing in over a period of a week instead of starting at a full dose with help. Either way I am waiting until Friday to start in case I still have those side effects which makes work almost impossible.
This morning I met with my pain specialist and requested changing from pain pills to a patch to see if it will lessen the effects on my GI tract. I am not sure he was upset at my request or if it was just his usual less-than-sunny personality. Either way, he agreed and handed me a new prescription and an appointment to follow up in a month to see how things are progressing.
I know I’ve been on the path to recovery for awhile know but now having a plan to attack my illnesses outside of the surgery/adhesion issues feels really invigorating. Now if I can get some sleep I’ll be golden!