I am feeling much, much better today.  For the first time in a week, I awoke without back pain.  Either I have finished cycling that area, (which would be such a joyous event, and make my life infinitely more comfortable,) or I am having a brief respite between cycles.

 

Whatever the reason, I am extremely, extremely grateful for it. It is very difficult for me to concentrate when my pain levels are that high, and I have a great deal of work to get done today.  (I know, I shouldn’t be blogging when I have work to get done, but it helps warm up my writing muscles.  It really does.)  

 

It was just so nice to wake up this morning, and be able to life my head off the pillow without pain.  It has been many, many days since I’ve been able to do that.  I’d been literally using two hands to lift my head off the pillow lately, as it was so difficult to move my head in the mornings.  And, then, once I was in an upright position, I only moved as far as my night table drawer.  There I keep two types of muscle relaxants and a bottle of water.  I’d take a full dose of one, and a half dose of the other.  (I tolerate one of the medications better than the other.  If I take a full dose of the other one, it makes me too drowsy during the day.  The medical term for this is “somnolence.”)  So, I take the highest dose I can to relieve the intense muscle spasms, without rendering myself useless, as, of course, I still have a child to get to kindergarten before that first bell rings.  He needs his breakfast.  He needs to take his fibromyalgia medication.  He needs to have his lunch made.  (He can’t even the school food at all due to his Irritable Bowel Syndrome.)  We need to pack up homework.  He needs to get into his school uniform.  We need to scrape the ice off the car.  (Yes, we actually get a frost here in the mornings in California.)  And, we have to do all this before 8 AM, because “first bell” rings at 8:15 AM.  We have never once had to get a tardy note, (although we’ve been very close on several occasions.)  This morning, Alex had an irritable bowel accident, (yeah, the real messy kind), at 7:45 AM.  So, we had to get him into the shower, and get him re-dressed in a fresh uniform.  But, we still made it to school on time.  I switched out his lunch for blander foods today, that would be very easy on his stomach.  He must be in a cycle today.  He said his legs hurt as we were walking to school, and he woke up extra early this morning.  (Fibromyalgics often get insomnia.  Alex woke up at 4 AM today.)

 

But, still none of that is bothering me, because I am not in pain today.

 

And, when I am not in pain, I feel like I can take on the world!

 

I have noticed that I’ve had some cloudy urine for the past two days.

 

Oh, I know exactly what you are thinking...

 

... that goes under the category of “too much sharing” for some of you.  But, for those with fibromyalgia and on the Guai Protocol, it’s actually an important sign.  When we clear out a large number of calcium phosphates crystals, we often a change in our urine.  Usually it comes out as “bubbly pee.”  This time it was definitely cloudy, and not bubbly, but hey, I’ll take it.  Something cleared, and something changed, so I am feeling better.  Why the urine?  Well, according to Dr. St. Amand, those of us with fibromyalgia are born without a gene that allows our kidneys to properly process calcium phosphate, a substance that all of us need to live.  We simply retain too much of it.  Our kidneys don’t properly filter it out, so we keep too much of it in our bodies.  Our bodies look for places to tuck this excess calcium phosphate away.  Initially, the body is clever enough to find little hiding places, and tucks it away into the bones.  But, just like cleaning up your house and running out of room to shove stuff in your closets, those bones run out of room, and can’t take any more calcium phosphate.  So, now where are you going to shove all that extra stuff?  Well, in your house, you have to start shoving stuff into your garage.  Problem is-- now you have to start parking your car outside, because your garage is filled with junk.  Well, in people, it is equally problematic.  Now that your bones are filled to the brim with excess calcium phosphate, your body has no choice but to stick all that excess calcium phosphate into your muscle tissues.  The muscles absorb and absorb and absorb, and eventually get so filled with junk that they go into spasm.  Ever have a “charlie horse” in your leg in the middle of the night?  Muscle spasms are VERY painful.  Over the past week, the muscle spasms in my back have been so strong that they have actually been pulling the vertebrae in my spine out of alignment.  Those are some powerful spasms!

 

Since I do not take any prescription painkillers, (Vicodin, Oxycontin, Ultram, etc.), I had no choice but to just take muscle relaxants and Tylenol and hope for better days.  The muscle relaxants did help, and thankfully, my husband was home, and kind enough to adjust my back every few hours all day long.  Getting these vertebrae back into alignment, and taking the pressure off the spinal nerves, was the only thing that helped relieve the pain.  Oh, and the hot rice packs.  I recommend those to all fibromyalgics, and have written about them often here in my blog.

 

An interesting aside-- I was at church last night, just getting into my choir robes.  Normally, we have choir practice on Wednesday nights, but last night was Ash Wednesday, so we were having actual church services instead.  I saw my friend Kathy and she didn’t look well.  I asked her what was wrong.  She said she had a terrible headache.  I asked her if there was anything she could take, or anything she could to make it better.  I wanted to help, as Kathy is very dear to me.  I had a bottle of Tylenol in the car, and some instant ice packs in the earthquake kit in the trunk.  If any of that would help, I would have gladly run out to get them in the few minutes we had remaining before services started.  If not, perhaps I could brew her a nice cup of herbal tea in the church kitchen.

 

“No, nothing really helps,” said Kathy sadly, rubbing at her head, “except for when John cracks my back.”

 

Whoa...  So, she does the same exact thing that I do when she gets a real bad headache... she has her husband crack her back, and it relieves her pain.  Guess I’m not alone in recruiting my husband to this task.  Somewhere out there, there is a chiropractor reading this and having apoplexy....