I went to bed last night feeling truly awful, it was one of those times that if I had laid down and died, I actually wouldn’t have been too surprised. I know to some that will sound like a shocking thing to have even thought and many will say why didn’t you call for help, well that is easy to answer, it happens frequently and thanks to a previous post, I know I am not alone. Last night thought I had more than just a feeling to go on, or the fact that I was feeling ill, all day I had put up with a pain that kept stopping my mid everything, it was sharp and located precisely in my head, always the same place and always the same exact pain. If there had been anything else I would have asked for help as I couldn’t help worrying that I was, in fact, having a stroke or something similar. I spent the whole day checking my coordination, my ability to pass all the tests that would have confirmed my fears, but nothing, nothing at all happened until I was on my way to bed. It was like heartburn, without the burn just the pain, both in my chest and up below my jaw, if I hadn’t had the headache and I hadn’t felt so ill, I would have ignored it, but all of them together actually had me worried for a short while. There is something you learn once you have been ill for as long as I have, that not everything you feel is usually of any importance at all, those conditions you think you can imagine, are usually nothing like what your imagination can come up with at all. Pains and sensations come and go and a million different things trigger them, not always the headliners, more often or not they are just nothing of any note at all.

I have a two or three times in my life thought that I was having a heart attack, only once did I go to the hospital and they went as far as to put me on a ward, only to say an hour later that I was fine and could go home. I suspect that many people with most of the major chronic illnesses will at some point think they are having either a heart attack or a stroke, simply because we listen to our bodies far more than the fit and healthy do. We are the people who will notice a pain that doesn’t fit exactly with those we already know all to well, or those tiny things that others might miss, which when grouped together worry us and make us wonder what new horrendous thing is happening to us now. We are not hypochondriacs, just people who have learned that you have to listen to every tiny little thing and keep note of it, as they are the details that finally proved to some doctor we were truly ill and then they looked further and found the truth. 20 years of training doesn’t just go away because you eventually get the answer, your brain continues to search to listen and to wonder if it has found something new and something important. Luckily most of us also have learned to apply logic before running off on the emotional, logic usually puts your feet back on the ground and allows you to see the truth, it’s nothing more than another set of pains, coincidentally happening at the same time.

I know that not everything that might ever happen to me, is going to be caused by the conditions that I have at the moment, but there is a strong likely hood that they will be behind most of them. Oddly that is a fact that has become harder to accept since I was diagnosed with COPD, as half the damage being done to my lungs is begin done by my MS, the two of them are locked together doing whatever they can whenever they fancy trying to stop me breathing. If my lungs were only being attached by the emphysema, well I think then it would be different, but whatever they have found since my MS diagnosis, it has always played a part. The pain in my chest last night, just as the pain I had last week, both will be my COPD, but which part of it? The problems with my digestion and bowels, all put down to my MS and so it goes on, in fact out of all my recent problems the only one that has nothing to do with my MS are my gallstones, but due to my MS, they are still there. They don’t want to operate due to the huge amount of drugs I am on, the fact I am overweight, thanks to my MS and my poor mobility, an operation wouldn’t only carry more risks, but my recovery would be slow with many possible pitfalls, like pneumonia as I wouldn’t be able to be up and moving around.

Medically, MS is a monster that looms over your health forever, not just because of what it does directly, but for all the indirect problems that are attached. The majority of death certificates never even mention MS, but the heart attack after years of being overweight and inactive wouldn’t have happened if MS hadn’t done the real damage first. Most MS patient died of pneumonia, being bed bound it is normally the route out and the reason so many doctors say MS doesn’t kill. A half truth for those with relapse remitting, but a lie for those of us with progressive MS. For years my MS has been playing with my Vagus nerve, hence the bowel and digestion problems, plus the reason it is affecting my lungs, but the Vagus nerve also controls your heat and I have more than once collapsed due to it slowing my heart down so badly that blood doesn’t get to my brain. I don’t need to paint the picture, but whatever eventually does get me, it is MS that will be at the route of it unless I develop cancer, so far that is the only condition I can think of that it simply couldn’t play a hand in. Sorry I am not trying to be negative, but I am trying to write the truth, the facts are clear and simple to see.

I was 21 when I first noticed the pains and symptoms it took nearly another 20 for a doctor to see it, but I learned all the way through to try and not self-diagnose, but to listen, to note and to keep an open mind to the truth. Pain is caused by a many different things, don’t ignore it, but don’t fear it or jump to conclusions, put all the facts together and always look at it logically not emotionally.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago – 02/06/12 – Progression progresses 

I have now been on the raised dose of my Oxycontin for several days and apart from when I woke this morning, I think there has been a marked improvement. This morning I found it really hard to get out of bed, waking up stiff in the morning I know is sort of normal as we age and as MS tightens it hold of my entire body. My entire right leg was in agony which is why I couldn’t get up, my left leg is always painful and stiff but my right one joining in at the same time just wasn’t funny. There was in…….