Warning: woozy, rambling post

I'm going back up to recommended 3 times a day dose of the Gabapentin.  The nerve pain from my stenosis and the this new shade of pain from the Scleroderma/RSD/Who The Hell Knows has been getting worse, so I figured what the heck--I'll go up to the full dose.  That's what this medicine is supposed to help anyway and I was at the point that I would rather some twitching to the nerve pain. 

So here I am day 3 into the full dose and no twitching but damn am I woozy.  It is working though.  The edge has really been taken off of my spinal stenosis pain and the pain/burning/tingling/stinging in my hands has really gone down.  My fingers are still really stiff in the morning, but the --Wow hold on, spinning.  Okay.  Better now.  Why do I always spin to the left when I'm dizzy?  Anyway, the decrease in pain lets me really work my fingers into bending earlier in the day.  Which is good.

Only problem is I feel too drugged up to do shit. Half the time I'm too dizzy to read.  Sometimes I just lay in bed and hold on for dear life.  Before I went on this stuff I was super clumsy with my hands.  They didn't bend, they didn't grip, they didn't do what I wanted them to.  If I used one hand to pick up a glass, I'd bash it into my face.  Fine motor skills?  None for me, thanks. 

Now I can get them to bend, but not really grip all that well.  And my coordination is so much worse.  Whenever I do anything with my hands I feel like a heavily inebriated newborn trying to pick up ice cubes with salad tongs.  Everything is a goddamn challenge.  

And not always in the obviously ways like when I need to write something down and I can't open the stupid pen, or grasp it hard enough to make marks on the paper without dropping it.  Sometimes it's just this weird paralysis.  Like I can be all drugged up in bed trying to read, but my eyes won't focus and I'll say, "Hey, why don't I go outside.  I like outside.  It's not raining.  Let's do that."  And then I sit there in bed, with the book I've dropped and I don't move.  And I say, "Hey, idiot.  Move.  Get on up.  Let's go outside." And nothing happens.  I stare off into space, blinking slowly like it's a chore. I try to start slower, "Let's find shoes!" Still nothing.

I've never done recreational drugs.  Not my thing.  Feeling this messed up is not something I'm into.  And the weird thing is that I go through cycles of feeling incredibly sedated and then all of a a sudden I start feeling like, "Shit, I got things to do.  Lots of things!  I need to clean, and take a shower, and water the plants, and post about it, and fuck! let's bake some cookies!"  And I need to gogogo like I'm on speed or something.  And what's dumb is that when I get like that I start doing things that I know I shouldn't do joint-wise because it doesn't hurt right now and I used to be able to do this just fine 6 years ago so why not?  Because it's going to REALLY hurt later, dude.  That's why.  But I almost never listen to that little voice of reason and end up in bed later with a hip that is gentle breeze away from dislocating from overworking it. 

So that's my life right now.  Super exciting, I know.  9_9   Also, I've been waking up with that nasty new pain sensation spreading to my elbows and pretty bad in my right foot.  I don't know what it means and I'm too doped up to care.  Also I called Radiology again to check in since I hadn't heard anything.  She seemed annoyed to hear from me, but I just told her I wanted to make sure that I would be all set on Monday since when I last heard my doctor hadn't sent down orders for my test.  I got an exasperated sounding, "Yes!" so I'm done calling anyone for a while.  I feel too clumsy talking anyway.  I wonder if any of this made any sense.