False Hopes

Regular readers may have noted my problems with exhaustion and a corresponding lack of refreshing sleep. Much of the time it has not been quite as simple as lack of refreshing sleep, more a lack of sleep (full stop). Out of my current average twelve hours bed rest requirement, a good night’s sleep could be as little as three and a half hours. It’s commonly said that as one gets older they require less sleep but, in my case, when it comes to the amount of bed rest required, this has most markedly increased.

In my youthful heyday the nights when I spent as much as eight hours abed (during the working week) were very much the exception; any hours in excess of this on non-working days were most definitely a pampering luxury, rarely a necessity as they are now.

I have been finding relief from some of the daily aches, pains and spasms, through a combination of tramadol, ibuprofen sundry orthopaedic supports; unfortunately, this still doesn’t prevent intensely discomforting pains interfering with my desire, from a state of shatteredness, to get some sleep. On such occasions, even lightweight pyjama jackets and / or trousers feel like intensely constrictive pain dispensers in their own right.

A couple of months ago the GP put me on a small dose of (the anti-depressant) mirtazapine in the hope that its sedative effect would help me get some shuteye. For a week or two it certainly seemed to be helping, even though it could still take a good couple of hours of excruciating tiredness before mind and body yielded to the land of nod. Some of the more intense pains in the region of the armpit and upper inner arm persistently nagged me back into a fully wakeful state. The doctor has now added an additional anti-depressant, amitriptylene, to my evening medications primarily for its supposed analgesic effect.

Having benefitted from a couple of pain-free, almost completely restful, nights my hopes really began to build up. Yesterday, having taken a couple of tramadol late morning, I felt no need to take further painkillers for the rest of the day, simply taking the mirtazapine and amitripylene in the evening. What followed was the most agonizingly painful sleepless night; admittedly it wasn’t helped by the highly amplified sound pulses emanating (until 2.30am) from a private party a couple of blocks away. A fair bit of time was spent stomping and cussing around the bedroom and landing, experimenting with wrist, shoulder and elbow supports, as well as consuming a couple more tramadol. The pain eventually began to ease by around 4.30am but, my mind was (by then) far too active to permit me any slumbers. Thankfully, by mid-morning I attained some brief, dream-filled, spasmodic patches of slumber.

I am attempting to retain a degree of hope that the recently prescribed medications will eventually fulfil their prescribed function but, it feels rather like a hope against hope!  

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since my previous post I have added a few more snapshots, 'the fuschia is present', to 'Mal's Picturebox'.

Of (Arm)Pits and Pendulum

A private resolve, to refrain from further postings until I felt more upbeat (on the health / well-being front), has now dissolved; I’m afraid that you’ll just have to take me as I am! I have no particular desire to be / become a moaner but, nor do I see any point of omitting mention of the sundry aches and, occasionally searing, pains ones flesh is heir to. For good or not so good, I am the result of all my life experiences whether chosen by or imposed upon me.


You may have previously gathered that this has not been one of my better years, any kind of relapse is unwelcome but, I still remain grateful that I have not had to plumb the most excruciating depths this wretched illness (M.E.) can deal out. I am most fortunate in only being a moderate sufferer but, even that moderation has at times proved quite intensely disabling.


And now, for the fifth or sixth time in as many days, I return to this same page in ‘Word’ in the hope that a sufficiency of stamina and a release from having to clasp my upper arms tightly to my torso (to alleviate the intense discomfort emanating from my armpits in normal free flow positions) may coincide to enable the completion of this posting.


The sharp nauseating ache and throb in the armpit is a tactile equivalent to chalk “squealing” across a blackboard. At other times an unexpected sound, not even necessarily of sufficient decibels to call a noise, can seem to sear through my flesh and crush the ribs. It’s almost as if my nerve-ends, in attempting to tread carefully on eggshells, all too startlingly draw ones attention to their own discretionary priorities.


I must admit to some uncomfortable guilt feelings in, once again, being / feeling unable to contemplate a few days away whilst my beloved has a break from work; to be honest, I even have to steel myself to cope with trips out to locations within ten or twenty minutes drive from home.


On the plus side I did manage a visit, with ma belle, to a local garden centre on Thursday and, we really enjoyed a visit to ‘Brio’ for a delicious meal yesterday afternoon. In the evening we immersed ourselves in Almadovar’s movie ‘All about My Mother’ which we’d recorded from Film 4. At lunch time today, accompanied by Cathy, we popped around to Café Culture for a little light lunch before returning home to wallow in the emotional riches of ‘Toy Story 3’.

The Pond Refreshed

Just a little celebration of our freshly cleared and cleaned goldfish pond!

Let It Bee

just a few busy bees in a corner of our garden

snapshots on Mal's Picturebox

I've just posted a few macro snapshots of bees on a globe thistle, Close Encounters - (Bees on a Globe Thistle) on Mal's Picturebox.

where to begin

Just another typical morning; cup of cold coffee on the bedside table, clock radio spewing out a familiar mix of entertainment and banality and, I’m still abed, even though the ante-meridian hour has passed eleven!

Today’s the day I’m to visit my GP to check whether the medication, which she prescribed three weeks ago, is assisting me with sleep. Problem is, after the first couple of nights the familiar routine of restlessness, coupled with fitful brief snatches of slumber, still prevails. Most of the time, after a predominantly restless night, I’m drowsily awake around the time my beloved leaves for work (around 7.30am) before drifting off into the land of dreams. The period of drowsy wakefulness is, generally, when my beloved places a (hot) cup of coffee on the bedside cabinet [see opening paragraph].

For all the intermittently fluctuating pattern of sleep, my vividly Technicolor dreams frequently veer towards a nightmare scenario, one where the goal always slips from one’s grasp as one runs, walks, or crawls desperately towards it; walkways erode and crumble beneath ones feet, a doorway inevitably narrows just as you attempt to squeeze through, a bus departs just before you reach the stop. Normality and fantasy indelibly intertwined.

Sundry muscular and abdominal aches and pains, doubtlessly, contribute towards my fitful sleep, as well as the frustration of my daytime hours. I shortly go and see the doctor but, where do I begin? Suddenly I realize the appointed hour has arrived and, walking stick enabled / encouraged, I make my way to the Surgery.

On being called in to the consulting room, Dr D makes me feel immediately at ease. She notes the spinal related nerve pain in my left arm but, is more intent on finding out about my sleeping habits; meantime, a regime of occasional ibuprofen alongside the tramadol should be maintained to alleviate the sundry aches and pains.

The GP has suggested that I should try taking the mirtazapine at around 6.00 – 6.30 in the evening. The thinking goes that, as I’m really drowsy in the mornings, the mirtazapine is probably contributing to the drowsiness and, if taken earlier (than is normally suggested) it may well help induce sleep during the appropriate nocturnal hours. The doctor suspects that the dreams may well have been heightened by the medication but, that should settle down in due course; she also said that she would be contacting Julie at the Chronic Fatigue Unit, with a view to my having a refresher course to help me with my “pacing”.

the process of aging?

So, it's come to this; old age has got me firmly in its grasp and, I lack the stamina to even attempt to wriggle free!Recent weeks have borne witness to a severe deterioration in my sense of dutiful pride. My old familiar shattering aches, pains and nauseating sense of exhaustion has driven me to .... ! 

Pride still has a hold, on me, as I struggle to prevent the awful truth being broadcast far and wide but, it's no point trying to live a double life, the strain is just too great.

The honest truth is that I've been driven to watching daytime TV and, all I plead for is a little sympathetic understanding! 'Bargain Hunt', 'Doctors', and re-runs of 'Only Fools and Horses' have managed to fill the aching void of inactivity with a modicum of determined purpose. If I can't work up the enthusiasm, or find the necessary energy reserves to purposefully surf the net, tend the garden etc.; at least the vacuum can be filled by my determination to switch on the television over the lunchtime period, starting from a period frequently less than one hour after my emergence from the duvet realm.

The truly worrying factor is that, not infrequently, I'm actually enjoying the viewing experience.

Since last Christmas, I seemed to have had some of my appetite for reading restored, politics, biography, theology, as well as a modicum of fiction once more became a part my daily experience but, for the past few weeks, my stamina reserves have only allowed (primarily superficial) casual browsing. I tend to place some of the blame on the warmer weather, which has a knack of depleting my already limited reserves of stamina but, I can't help wondering if in fact the real culprit is Father Time.

Watching My Back

I'm still waiting, albeit impatiently, to find a more regular pattern of sleep; needless to say, such a pattern has not yet emerged. After Monday night's peculiarly refreshing sleep, Tuesday night reverted to the more familiar restlessness; emerging before 10.00am to take a shower on Wednesday, both morning and afternoon necessitated intermittent little naps. By the evening I started to feel a little more awake; not a good sign. Come Thursday morning I was still in the throes of sleep when ma belle ventured off to work (around 7.30am), finally emerging into the new day a few minutes before noon.

And then the cycle repeats, Thursday's late emergence led on to a further night of intermittent sleep, although I did manage to remove myself from the duvet lair around 11.15am on Friday morning and, I then seemed to spend most of the day in an half alert state of being.

Retired to bed at about 10.20pm on Friday evening and then gradually stumbled into a waking state some time after 10.00am Saturday morning. Early in the afternoon I went out into the garden to take a few macro shots, of bees on globe thistles etc., but started feeling a sense of giddyness which persuaded me to go back in the house. Some twenty minutes later I started to have throbbing shooting pains, down my left arm, exceeding the all too familiar aching discomfort of the wrist which is my regular companion!

So, it's panic stations (for me and ma belle) as we head off to the District Hospital when the throbbing pain shows little sign of abating. The good sign is that I'm becoming rather flushed rather than going pale but, we're totally puzzled / worried about this temporarily excruciating addition to my catalogue of ailments. The first nurse who sees me, after about 40 minutes, makes a few notes and checks my temperature and blood pressure, the latter unusually high by my standards, before I return to the waiting area.

After a further 90minutes, or so, I'm called into an examination room where an ECG is administered; at least my heart seems to be OK and, by this time the pain had subsided considerably. A further 40 - 50 minutes later a Romanian doctor comes in and, having sounded my chest and back, and a little chat about Romanian wines, she carries out a few tests on the reactions of my arms and hands to touch. She duly notes an abnormal contraction response in my left bicep before examining the top part a of my spine. Once again as she touches a certain point relatively high on the spine, a quite painful shooting throb goes through my left arm. She notes a degree of misalignment of the spine and thinks that, together with the herniated disc in the lumbar region, could account for much of the pain and discomfort I've been experiencing. As she puts it, I'm sorry to tell you it's a back problem.

An evening in which I took anti-inflammatories alongside a couple of tramadol, and a preparatory mirtazapine, still managed to lead to a night of restless intermittent discomfort rather than a good nights sleep. Today has seen me swaddled in both shoulder and wrist supports as I tackled both dinner preparation and subsequent light gardening chores. Both wrists are currently screaming abuse at me, so once more I resort to ibuprofen, tramadol and, hoping against hope that the mirtazapine will have the necessary sedative effect.

a small blessing

Today, I managed to remove myself from the duvet lair before 11.00am and, to my great relief, experienced a most unfamiliar sensation, that of refreshment. I honestly can't remember the last time that I felt refreshed after a night's sleep. Fortunately the nigglingly painful spasms in my lower limbs, as well as a dull numb ache in my forearm and hand, were there to assure me that this wasn't just a dream!

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I've also posted this on Mal's Murmurings with the title "light refreshment"

and suddenly ... SLEEP

Had an appointment with a GP yesterday afternoon. The doctor was quite firmly of the opinion that I was experiencing a reactive depression, an understandable response / reaction to the debilitating neurologically rooted myalgia, and the accompanying lack of refreshing sleep, which has been my companion for such a prolonged period; she prescribed 15mg Mirtazapine to be taken at bed time.

If the first night's anything to go by they have a wonderful sedative effect and should, hopefully, help bring about a resolution of my sleep deprivation problems. Last night was one of those very rare experiences where I remember very little between putting my head down on the pillow (lateish Friday evening) and slowly, but somewhat groggily, emerging into mid to late morning (Saturday). 

I must admit that, at first, I felt somewhat as if I'd been sledgehammered; it took until mid-afternoon before I started to feel properly awake.