My own fire and ice

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This is the time of year I miss the cooler weather. The heat makes me a shut in. It hasn't quite happened yet because I am required by husband's law to get out and go to physical therapy for my back. but this is my last week of physical therapy. I'm not fixed. I'm marginally better. I still have really bad days and I'm not sure if when I stop going I will still have good days. We will just have to see I guess. Maybe when I stop and there isn't a lot of improvement they will figure out another option to try and help. I have had days where I can stand and do things, but then I overdo it and have bad days. It is really hard to not do things when I am here and they need to be done.

The fire part is I'm still having the burning feeling. Once I woke up and it was like a hot flash, if a hot flash feels like your body is literally on fire. With real flames. Not just warm, not just 'whew get me a fan' but a "my skin is burning off please make it stop" kind of hot flash. My feet get it pretty regularly and lately it doesn't just happen at night. The most severe I have had happen was the entire right side of my body. My face and scalp to my arms and tummy down my side and leg to my toes. It was scary. At first it woke me up and I just thought the a/c wasn't working. I uncovered and felt like I had a really bad fever. Then I woke up a little better and realized it felt like it was burning. It hurt for a while and I just had to talk myself through it and get back to sleep. Sleep is an MSer's best friend. If you are in pain you can go to sleep and when you wake up it is usually gone.

The ice part is the tingling. I still get that too. Nothing has really changed there since I started taking my medicine. The ice part would also be how cold I get when I have panic attacks in the middle of the night. In summer, because of the shut in thing, I get really depressed. I think I have been depressed for a while, but when I can go outside I can handle it better. When I am stuck in an air conditioned bubble it is harder to enjoy living so I have a harder time being happy. After talking to JP I think my depression is triggering some pretty bad anxiety attacks at night. At least I hope that is the cause so when I start taking medication those will stop.

My memory is gone guys. If it isn't written down on my calendar or in my app/email I'm not gonna remember it 2 seconds after we talk about it. Even if we are still on the phone I will repeat it (sometimes wrong) trying to remember but when I hang up I get the times or dates mixed up in my head. It is a good thing doctors send reminder calls and texts.

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