It’s 3am and I’m here blogging because I couldn’t sleep with the pain in my right wrist. I can hear Ken snoring from our bedroom. Otherwise, it’s so quiet I can hear the clock ticking on the wall and the soft hum of the air purifier near our kitchen.
I had to call in (email, rather) sick for work tomorrow because I just can’t imagine going about my usual work day with this level of pain. It feels like the bones in my right wrist were partially pulverized and the resulting shards are tearing at my muscles and nerves. I’d been doing okay since Monday—managing the pain with tape and the guards, but I guess today was just not a good day.
I remember this whole week, twisting the cap open on my water and tea bottles made me cringe because the simple act of applying force with my hands and fingers causes pain. I notice that when I’m typing, I have to actually force myself to slow down. I can’t type at my usual speed because I notice that my hands get tired and I get paranoid about making the pain worse somehow.
Anyway, I understand that at some point I will need to take pain medication but I just don’t believe in popping a Tylenol or two when I know it’s going to damage my stomach and liver, especially if I choose not to eat this late at night just so that it’ll go down easier. For that matter, I don’t believe in masking symptoms either. But I will take them if the pain is truly unbearable. For now, I stuck an adhesive pad of Salonpas over my wrist and then wrapped the whole thing with my wristguard. My right middle finger is also acting up so I had to tape it up to help restrict movement. Looking at the photo above, I notice that the fingers are slightly swollen (the skin around the ring is my biggest clue). Yikes.
Random movements/rotations of said wrist sometimes gives me this strange popping sensation. It’s the same feeling of when you pop your wrist joint but only it’s involuntary, feels more sharp and jagged, and it actually hurts instead of offering relief. A part of me has been trying very hard to subdue the slowly rising panic in the back of my mind, so I end up feeling very…detached from all of this. I ate relatively healthy today, no junk or carbs. Yes, I’ve been looking longingly at the pumpkin shaped bowl on my work desk containing Reeses peanut butter cups (for customers during Halloween month), but damned if I resisted that temptation the whole week. I’m proud of myself. My food repertoire for today consisted of sausage, asparagus, and egg for breakfast. One small cup of instant coffee. Chicken garden salad for lunch. Grilled pork and salad for dinner. The only thing I did different since Monday was I didn’t eat my usual packet of dark chocolate (70% cocoa), which I know is a good source of copper.
I can’t help but notice that in the previous flare up I had that I can clearly recall, the pattern was the same: pain in the fingers, not always bilateral, traveling eventually to the wrists with this same exact painful popping sensation. I wonder if the weather has anything to do with it? The season is transitioning from Summer to Fall and there’s a huge typhoon on the way to Japan. Is there some sort of atmospheric pressure fluctuations affecting my body? Last year around this time is when I had a huge flare up that resulted in my going to see the doctor, getting referred to a Japanese rheumatoid specialist, and my blood results, along with my X-rays, all coming back negative for any form of arthritis and auto-immune diseases. Except last time, I remember that I had a lot more stiffness (especially in the mornings) and tingling sensations (more so at night). I did not experience those particular symptoms for this current flare up.
So seriously…what is going on? 🙁