I haven’t written shit this week because I was in the middle of a fucking arthritic flare.

It’s been pretty bad honestly.

My body was attacking itself all month really.

On and off and then on full force again.

It morphs my usually mildly inflamed joints into over double their sizes.

And normally, it doesn’t hurt too bad.

My joints will just get sore – bruised feeling.

But this time (and many times in the past) I hurt.

Bad.

Really bad.

My skin was so tight it felt like my joints were going to explode.

Like my skin was going to pop off my body in certain spots because it was stretched so thin.

My knees and shoulders were inflamed too.

And I could feel it in my back also.

But my ankles and feet are the most intense looking.

That’s why I used it as the cover photo here.

It’s a drastic difference between a flare and non flared.

I bitched about it during my entire therapy session last Monday.

I’m getting slowly transferred over to a new therapist, Jessi.

Sean is leaving very soon and it makes me so sad.

But Jessi seems cool, so that’s good.

We’ll see.

She is religious, which is kinda daunting.

But Hannah, my therapist of two years (whom I looooved), was religious too and it never caused any issues.

So I’m hopeful.

It’s been nice because we’ve still been meeting in Sean’s office the last few weeks, but with both Sean and Jessi.

So she can basically kinda listen in on our sessions.

And I summed up my psychotic issues the first time we all met.

But I’ve had therapy on Thursdays for the last three years and now it’s moved to a Monday at noon.

Which is the same time frame I’ve had for the last three years, but a totally different day.

It’s throwing me off already and we’ve only had one session moved to Monday so far.

I have it again tomorrow and this will be the first time it’ll be just Jessi and me.

Sean is out of town for the holiday week.

So we’ll see.

I’m sure it’ll be fine.

I can’t believe I didn’t write all week.

I’m throwing this together over the weekend and trying to plug out something.

I’ve been so so so tired this week.

My Dad looked up all the side effects for my medications and almost all of them cause drowsiness.

He said no wonder why you look so tired sometimes when you come out (to their house).

I was really tired this week.

And I got good solid sleep too.

Eight to ten hours a night.

The only thing I can think of is the Gabapentin I was recently put on is making me tired too.

Oh, and I was also put on Celecoxib too for my inflammation.

But I looked up the side effects and drowsiness isn’t one of them.

So yeah.

Maybe it’s just from the flare I’m getting over.

It was super, super intense this time around.

I haven’t had a flare that bad in about a year or so.

That was brutal.

And I think my body is just still healing from it and it takes a lot of energy to bounce back from.

And that’s why I’m overly tired this week.

I don’t really know though.

I’m just guessing.

It could be a combination of everything too.

And probably is honestly.

I had a pain clinic appointment on Tuesday this last week.

They were the ones who put me on the Celecoxib.

Well, technically my PCP put me on it but only did 20 tablets at 50mg.

I asked my pain PA if she thought anti inflammatories were dangerous to be on.

My PCP had said they were bandaids and not meant to be on long term.

I told him I had been on Meloxicam for ten to fifteen years now.

He seemed bewildered by this and told me that they’re not meant to be on long term.

I told this to my pain PA this last week and she was floored by what he said.

She said that the benefits outweigh the costs and the side effects are minimal with both Meloxicam and Celecoxib, and that they were just fine to be on long term.

And she then asked me if he had put me on 100mg or 200mg.

I told her 50mg.

Then I said that won’t do shit, will it?

She shook her head and said he was being very conservative with his prescribing.

I’m glad to have another doctor to bounce my issues off of.

My pain doctor and PA are really, really good and have my best interest in mind.

They’re both fairly aggressive with their prescribing snd I appreciate that.

She told me now I have room to go up on the Celecoxib as well as the Gabapentin.

And she wants me to do one more month on this dose of Gabapentin and if I feel as though I should go up, we can do that at that time.

I’m just so grateful to find some medications that actually work for me.

Ones that cut my pain levels to a tolerable amount finally.

Luckily my mental illness has been at bay these past few weeks with very few breakthrough symptoms.

If it’s not my mental shit, it’s my physical.

It’s one or the other all the time.

They just fight for the forefront every week seemingly.

This last week it’s been my physical health that’s been terrible.

– Keren