I was up all night the night before prepping for the colonoscopy, and my sleep is not back to normal. Good news is that there were no polyps and I won't have to do another one of those! Between having a terrible cold for a couple of weeks and my back going out at the same time, and then having to practically starve myself for a week... I don't know how long it will take to get back to some kind of normal! I'm thinking maybe I need to get a new mattress. Hb was complaining that his mattress (we have a split king adjustable bed) was not firm enough and causing him some back problems, so we ordered a new one for his side of the bed, and he loves it.
I can't begin to describe how messed up ...
Posted by Sia on November 9, 2025, 9:57 am, in reply to "Looks like..." ADMIN
my sleep actually is. I rarely sleep more than a few hours at a time nowadays. The pain from my lower back, left arm, and left leg is excruciating and either keeps me from falling asleep or wakes me up when I finally crash.
I cannot lie flat on my back or sleep on either side so have a wedge that keeps me partially upright on my upper back. That allows my lower back to be comfortable on my temperapedic bed.
I have a specialty neck pillow so I don't accidentally turn my head at all in my sleep which triggers my left arm to flood with pain and right to go numb from a complication after neck surgery. I am resisting opening it back up until there's no choice... for obvious reasons. The first recovery from surgery took more than a year just to get 20% side movement back. I'll never get more than that back and worry that any revision will take that away too.
I sleep and wake up at totally crazy times. So, let's leave it there. I don't wanna get too whiny about it. I'm lucky to be able to move at all.
I do hope your sleep gets better soon! I'm sorry you are struggling with sleep too.
That has to be so difficult… impossible for someone like me to fully understand or relate to. While we all have our own battles and experiences, most of us cling to hope and cherish the good where we can find it. We have to take the good with the not so good… that is life. I can only partially relate in that I went through a long spell of pain when I fell on a boulder on a ski hill (long time ago) and injured my shoulder. They called it a frozen shoulder. I went through a lot of therapy and had the shooting pain traveling down my arm at night if I moved even a little. It took a long recovery time, but couldn’t even compare to what you are going through. You have my sympathies.
I think you do understand! A frozen shoulder is awful and the pain it generates is quite severe from
Posted by Sia on November 9, 2025, 12:27 pm, in reply to "Ugh" ADMIN
what I've heard and you just related.
It's not a difficult leap to where I'm at. Just imagine multiple body parts that trigger that same excruciating pain and you're there.
Severe pain is the same, whatever causes it. It's only harder for me because it's harder to stabilize multiple areas to avoid triggering it. What sucks for me is that all it takes is one wrong move or simple twitch to trigger several hours long pain that isn't helped by any known pain reliever. I just have to wait it out and try to distract myself from focusing on it. So I doomscroll, post, swear profusely, or listen to happy music to try to entertain or occupy my mind to get through it. When it's over, I crash and hopefully fall asleep.
I tried pot pain relief and all it did was make it worse because pot intensifies my (lesser recognized**) ADHD ability to hyperfocus and it goes directly to the pain. In other applications, it intensifies "other responses", but when it comes to pain, it SUCKS.
**Note: ADHD isn't only an inability to focus- scattered attention- it is also an ability to hyperfocus on any given thing. Add my OCD and it's a real challenge! Only Adderall tames it, but I can't take that at night because it also revs me up so sleep is impossible. A classic "catch 22".
That said, this too shall pass. Once the lumbar back revision surgery & additional fusion is done, it will be so much easier to deal with!
I'm sorry to read that you ever had to get through it. I wish it upon no one, well, now excepting the likes of trump, skuM, Steve Bannon, and Stephen Miller, to name a few.
on November 9, 2025, 12:26 am
