Steroid Injection Recovery

Physical and Mental Health / 10 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

On 8th march I had my steroid injections as some of you may know and I posted about the procedure and the first 24 hours and thought perhaps it would be helpful for other’s if I share the following few day’s too.

By the second evening I really felt exhausted after doing very little all day and the injection area was extremely sensitive and sore making it a struggle to get comfortable at all but surprisingly I woke up the following morning feeling slightly less discomfort and managed a short trip around town. I did really feel it having walked for a while and a cheeky stop at the pub probably didn’t help as the chair’s weren’t the comfiest and on top of that Izzy decided to jump and pull me to the floor and Eva managed to knock into me so hard I was almost in tears so again on the third evening I was really uncomfortable and tired. (Moral of the story actually rest for the 2-3 days following and avoid children 😉 haha) I did have a slightly earlier night in the hope I would feel better the following day.

Luckily by Friday morning I really did feel so much better and although I wasn’t completely pain-free the majority of the pain was the injection area again. My burning knees and tingly legs seemed to have stopped for a while. Unfortunately I just can’t stop myself trying to do thing’s I feel I’m supposed to do instead of resting otherwise I think I may have recovered a bit quicker but by Saturday morning I sat straight up in bed without even thinking and got up and dressed before I realised I wasn’t struggling to do so!

I can’t even begin to explain how amazing it felt to suddenly realise I was almost completely pain-free! I still felt a few twinges across the day but nowhere near as bad as usual. The Mr suggested taking the girls to the pub for lunch as the weather was warmer and nice enough for them to play in the garden. Normally I dread it knowing after 15 minutes sat in the pub my back, hips and knees will feel like they are on fire and I wont be able to concentrate or enjoy myself but for a change I felt up for it and we spent an hour or 2 there having some lunch chatting with a few people whilst the girls watched a bit of the rugby before coming home for dinner.

Usually I get back and feel exhausted and just want to die on the sofa but instead I came back feeling just slightly achy but over the moon as we had managed a lovely lunch out where I didn’t spend the whole time trying to ignore my pain and getting stressed. We even received a compliment as we were leaving from the staff as we always tidy up after ourselves and the girls behave well too. Apparently they really notice the difference when we visit, we have visited several times over the last week or 2 with friends to try and stop feeling stuck in the flat and I was worried about taking the girls in there and annoying customers & staff so to be given such a compliment really cheered me up on top of the pain relief!

I expected to wake up Sunday morning and regret going out Saturday yet instead I felt amazing and managed to walk to town as well as tidying when I got back. It was so strange being able to do things without thinking again, I’d do something silly then get overly excited because I managed it so easily!

Again Monday morning I woke up feeling great and had the dishwasher loaded and on by the time the Mr & Eva had left for the school run at 8.20am! I put some music on to motivate me even more and managed to scrub half the kitchen before the Mr was back from the school run. I’m so pleased the injections have done something for me. Bolts of pain that were bringing me to tears feel like little tiny shocks now and are so much easier to ignore. My walk doesnt look as awful and im slightly faster than a snail again. Even if it only lasts a few more days I’d happily go through it all again just for the relief I have had already!

Have you had steroid injections? How did they work for you? If at all? How long did the effects last?

 

First steroid injections

Physical and Mental Health / 10 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

I finally had my first steroid injections yesterday at Orsett Hospital after what felt like an extremely long wait. In the end my consultant decided to give me a Lumbar epidural steroid injection, Left L5, S1 Dorsal root ganglia and Right S1, S2,  S3 lateral branch diagnostic blocks.

image

I was so nervous but somehow managed to keep fairly calm on the surface. I arrived at 9am where I was shown to a bed and given a gown and the most stunning see through granny knickers going (haha!) to change into. I had my blood pressure taken once the nurse finally found a small enough arm wrap for me  & she checked my temperature before I signed some forms and was given my hospital bands and told someone would come and see me soon. I sat and skimmed the book I took along with me whilst trying to stop myself thinking of anything and working myself up. Then the lady next to me was called in after a while and I was told I would be next and someone would collect me in about 20 minutes.

I felt ridiculously nervous and mentioned on the way to the operating theatre that I had a bit of a needle phobia and was trying my best to ignore it. I had to be propped up with 2 pillows under my stomach as I am slim. They cracked a few jokes about but by then I had already began to panic and was trying to focus on not jumping off the table but my consultant Dr. Thompson noticed my heart rate and asked for me to be sedated and  I felt calm almost instantly and although I kind of felt something was happening it didn’t hurt and I wasn’t really aware of what was happening. I remember rolling onto my bed to be taken to recovery and slowly coming round fully a little while later.

Apart from a few tingles I felt very little to begin with, in fact I was amazed I had no pain! After I had been back on the ward a little while I was given tea and toast before attempting to stand. Surprisingly I felt fine standing and walking just a little stiff so the nurse let me change and called our friend Steve to come and collect me.

I felt a little stiff walking to the car and struggled to get comfy but didn’t feel too bad until I was almost home. Luckily Steve stopped and popped into a shop just in time for me to throw up. We managed to get home before I was sick again and I had a rest on the sofa. I tried to make sure I got up regularly and moved about to ease the stiffness although the pain gradually crept back over the afternoon.

first steroid injections

Over the next few hours my hips, back and legs felt like they were stiffening more and more and bolts of pain were taking my breath away and making me feel nauseous. By the evening I was in so much pain I felt so sick with each bolt of pain and struggled to eat. I spent most of the day on the sofa cuddled up with my pillow and wheat bag feeling exhausted and sorry for myself.

Before bed the Mr ran me a nice warm bath so I could de-tango myself and try to ease the pain a little in the hope I could get some sleep. I dosed myself up and although I did wake several times I had a fairly OK night but woke up very stiff again. Unfortunately I was sick a few more times when I got up due to bolts of pain and felt exhausted still but I tried to move around gently across the morning having a few rest periods on the sofa.

I decided to look Dr Thomson up on-line to see if there had been any feedback from his other patients and was surprised and pleased to find out just how successful he is in his field. When  I came across this page I really was impressed reading about Dr Thomson’s work and the 5th paragraph reminded me how it amazed me when he actually listened to me at my first pain management appointment and I had a feeling he really knew what he was talking about.

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http://www.basildonandthurrock.nhs.uk/media-centre/747-pain-consultant-highlights-international-work

 

Having read this I am so glad I am under such a great team and although I am struggling with the pain I am confident that whether the injections work or not I am under a great consultant who will continue to help me. From the very few people who were able to share their experiences with me it seems I have been very lucky so far and hopefully the pain will ease up soon and the injections work even if its just a few day’s of relief! I will be sent another appointment in the next 13-18 weeks so I guess for now its just a case of resting and seeing how things go. I think I’m going to set up the Catch My Pain app to remind me to track my pain levels again now I have the G4 back so I can monitor everything until my next appointment.

10 reasons I missed my LGG4

Rambles / 10 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

I’m sure most of you have heard me moaning like a little girl about the death of my LGG4 followed by the long wait for it to be repaired & returned and some of you may possibly wondering why I keep banging on about the phone. Well yes partly I am a bit of a phone obsessed geek but the phone itself is genuinely the best phone I’ve had the pleasure of owning so far! So much so I decided to share with you 10 reasons I love it so much!

 

  1. Screen size – The LGG4 has a 5.5 inch Quantum 2K IPS (2560 × 1440 resolution 534 PPI) display. Something I never thought would bother me was screen size (considering I once had the Virgin Lobster 485 teeny tiny phone) but after using the G4 for 8 months then reverting back to smaller screen size for a month I seriously appreciate having a larger screen again. The images are so crisp and clear on the G4 anything smaller just doesn’t compare!
  2.  Memory – In this day and age with so many apps and games you need a decent amount of memory on most phones and 2GB really didn’t cut it. I could just about download facebook, twitter, instagram & wordpress but then couldn’t receive emails unless i deleted them constantly at least on the G4 with 32GB I never run out of memory & if I did there is a Micro SD slot to expand the memory further.
  3. Camera quality! – OK I may not be great at taking photo’s but I honestly love taking them and having them to look back on especially with the girls constantly growing and learning. Whilst I’m still learning my way around camera’s it really is noticeable how amazing the G4 camera is all round! Izzy was as pleased as me as she absolutely loves the front camera to take a good selfie!LGG4
  4. Signal quality – The LGG4 picks up my wifi 11 floors down and a good few yards away in the college opposite us yet my old HTC One X and even the Samsung Galaxy Young I have used over the last month I can barely get a wifi signal in my own kitchen! As for calls and texts my signal rarely fails on the G4 which eases a lot of my anxieties whereas the galaxy young rarely had signal.
  5. Phoning the fish! – I turned off my Smart Hub whilst I was without the G4 as I just didn’t have the memory to install it on the galaxy young and since the Mr’s phone is dying a slow death it literally takes hours to download anything even using wifi (his signal is pants!) I genuinely couldn’t be bothered to set it up on his phone. Now the G4 is back I plugged it all back in so we could continue phoning the fish. With the added Power Outlet I won the fish tank light and pump are now both using a power outlet and I even got round to installing the app on the Mr’s phone too.
  6. Google apps – Although the galaxy young also had Google apps and the capability to sync ONE Google account and the lack of memory meant it didn’t sync regularly or receive notifications properly. I have 3 Gmail accounts I like to keep on top of so only being able to sync one account was hell especially as I wasn’t able to sync my blogging Gmail account meaning I was late replying to a few emails! Now I have all my accounts synced up and get notifications again I can keep on top of it all much better. I can also use the calendar again which is extremely important for me to have since I forget EVERYTHING!
  7. Blogging tools – With the G4 I have the space to keep a range of apps including WordPress and Quick memo+ meaning I can write out posts as they come to me and save them to go back and edit them later. I can check all my social accounts regularly and chat to other bloggers again although admittedly I’ve done very little of this so far as I’ve been busy filling the phone up with apps and syncing my accounts when I’m not busy with life.
  8. Gaming – Oh how I missed playing games in moments of boredom! With lack of space, a tiny screen and awful signal I couldn’t play a single game. The graphics are amazing on the G4 and I am loving playing games such as reckless racing 3, crack attack and word dash again!
  9. Music – The G4 sound quality is great and I love listening to music when I’m on public transport or walking somewhere alone and I couldn’t wait to download all my favourite songs again ready for a moment of freedom 😉 haha!
  10. Youtube – I never realised just how much I relied on youtube until it was unusable on the galaxy young. Eva asks a ton of questions and some times the easiest way to explain things to her is by showing her educational videos and I missed being able to quickly show her a video. My crochet has been neglected slightly too as I was using my phone to watch tutorials.

So there are ten reasons why I missed my LGG4 (and hated the Samsung Galaxy Young). If your phone was damaged what would you miss most?

Revival and Return Of The LGG4

Rambles / 10 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

I wrote about the death of the LGG4 previously on the blog. After writing the post I messaged LG to double check if the phone was under warranty. I was over the moon to hear that it was infact still under warranty and a repair was quickly booked in by Ben from LG’s customer service. The phone was collected on the 3rd of February and taken away by DPD

I have had to borrow a phone so I can still contact people and I wont lie, it is absolutely driving me insane! I miss my daily selfies with Izzy, actually recieving notifications, being able to use the internet without waiting 6 months for a single page to load.. oh and it turns itself off and on about 30 times a day. Rather helpful.. not!

I received an email on the 6th titled ‘Repair to ASC’ but the rest of the email didn’t translate to much, I recieved another one of these email’s on the 12th and began to wonder when/if the phone was coming back and messaged LG again and was asked to forward the email’s I had recieved on the 15th as several other customer’s said the same thing. I got an automated response on the 16th to say they had received my forwarded emails and then heard nothing until the 20th when I recieved a text message from LG letting me know DPD will be delivering my parcel by the 23rd!!

Return of the LGG4

I was so damn relieved after having to put up with the tiny Samsung Young I had borrowed for over a month that restarts, doesn’t give notifications, rejects the SD card and is generally slower than me first thing in the morning! I couldn’t wait until the 23rd and was so happy when I got a text giving me an hours window for the delivery.

I spent a while checking out the window for a DPD van and when I finally saw it arrived I may have squeeled and bounced a bit, even Izzy get excited and we bounced down the hall to wait for the buzzer where a bit more bouncing happened. Yes I did end up hurting myself as I forgot my balance is so off lately but I am a bit of a geek and get over excited haha!

As soon as I got my lovely phone back I plugged it straight in to charge and got it booted up, instantly relieved to see it worked and turned on..YAY!!! I read the slip inside which stated the mains board had been faulty and had been replaced. I’m so happy it was under warranty and I was able to get it repaired and cant wait to get back into blogging properly (it’s much easier to do EVERYTHING on the G4) and get chatting with other blogs too!

Second Pain Management Appointment

Physical and Mental Health / 10 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

I had my second Pain Managment appointment today and it went pretty well. I filled him in on how my back has been lately explaining how im struggling to manage because the pain seems to be getting worse and I’m struggling to sleep because the left side of my ribcage feels like its being crushed inwards however I lay. He again confirmed I suffer chronic pain which is hard to treat but we can try and find ways to manage it.

I have to request an X-ray on my ribcage from my GP at my next appointment so he can see what is going on with it as you can visibly see the ribs poking out slightly too. I also let him know I have had my duloxetine upped from 20mg to 60mg because I’ve been feeling so depressed.

He examined my back when we had finished covering everything and got me a Tens machine to use and showed me where to place it and how to use it. He told me didn’t want to refer me to physio yet until we see how things go after the steroid injections and using the Tens machine regulalrly.

second pain management

I now have to monitor my weight and weigh myself at the same time every week making sure it doesnt carry on dropping.. Not something I’m looking forward to as I try not to weigh myself too much due to past problems but I am getting so fed up of being in pain that I’m happy to gain some weight. I just really need to try and remember to eat more and make sure theres a few more snacks around as otherwise I forget and usually just eat dinner each day. Luckily the CatchMyPain app lets me add details and notes for each day so I’m going to make sure I keep track of everything on there so I can show the Dr next time as I totally forget half of what I need to say when I go in there!

I wore the Tens whilst shopping after my appointment and it did seem a little easier although my balance is still awful and I feel silly walking. Hopefully the Tens helps me do more as I’m getting so fed up of not doing simple tasks or doing them then regretting it.

I’ll be having my Steroid injections in just a few weeks and then wont see pain management until June 14th. I really hope by then I’ll be able to start physio again.. That is if I dont keep getting caught up in the wires of the tens haha!

Have you used a Tens before? Did it help?

 

A Lovely Mother’s Day Surprise

Rambles / 10 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

Whilst in town a few weeks back the Mr discovered a ‘Mother’s Day Gallery’ in our local shopping centre and suggested checking incase Eva’s school had taken part.

 

Photo from Shopping centre website

We went inside and found Eva’s school and looked through to see if she had drawn a picture for the gallery, Eva’s picture of me instantly stood out with the purple hair and blue eyes. I  was so proud it had been featured in the gallery and was in the middle of her year groups pictures.

When we got home I checked the shopping centre’s website and facebook page to see if I could find any more information or events surrounding it as they usually run different thing’s across the year for the kids.

 

The gallery was up much earlier than advertised but it turn’s out next week judges will pick out their favorite! I’d love to see Eva win but regardless I am so proud of her and her drawing and it was such a lovely surprise finding it in our local shopping centre.

Have you had any lovely surprise’s lately?

Steroid Injection Countdown

Physical and Mental Health / 10 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

After finally getting a pain management referral late last year I met my consultant who was amazing and completely understood everything I said, after being ignored and doubted so much over the year’s this was a huge relief!

Steroid Injection

Steroid Injections

The consultant decided steroid injections may help so I am booked in for 8th March for 3 steroid injections. I’m beginning to feel extremely nervous the closer the appointment gets if I am honest. I’ve decided to call the night before and request to be put to sleep. I had a huge needle phobia growing up but obviously us mum’s get jabbed quite a bit when we have babies so I quickly learnt not to fear the needle so much. However.. the thought of the size of these needles has put the fear back in me!

I am so afraid I will jump when the needles go in and cause problems by doing so. I would much rather be asleep so they can be done carefully and properly without me being a wimp and jumping all over the place. You’d think I’d be able to deal with the pain of a needle considering I am pretty much in pain 24/7. I guess it is a different type of pain which is why I don’t deal with it so well.

The other thing that worries me is that it isn’t just one injection, I’m booked in for three! I will be having a Lumbar epidural steroid injection and bilateral sacroiliac injections. After this my consultant will see how the injections affect me and go from there.

I’d love to hear from other spoonies/chronic pain sufferer’s about their experiences with steroid injections. If you have had these done please get in touch 🙂 If you have a post about them feel free to send me a link too!

Shoreditch One Review

Product Reviews / 10 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

Shoreditch one

I have a confession.. I am a smoker. I have been smoking regularly from the age of 14 unfortunately and although I tried to quit several times in the past especially when pregnant with both girl’s, I couldn’t cope and my BP went through the roof. It’s something I hope to quit eventually which is why I jumped on the chance to review A Shoreditch Vape! (E-cigarette)

Why vape? Well it’s a lot cheaper than cigarettes for starters! Plus the UK government/NHS say it is less harmful than smoking cigarettes too.

 

I’ve heard a mix of review’s on various designs but hadn’t heard of the Shoreditch Vape before so I was quite interested in finding out more about it. I got in touch with Christian who kindly offered for me to review one of their vapes & was given several options Including which of the 2 vape’s I would like, 3 flavoured E-liquids & the nicotine strength of the E-liquids.

Which Vape?

I was given the choice between a Shoreditch ONE & a Shoreditch TWO. Of course being a regular smoker it made sense for me to go for the Shoreditch ONE as it has a larger tank capacity and longer lasting battery meaning you can have 300 puffs instead of 200 which the Shoreditch TWO offers with it’s lovely slimline design.

Which 3 E-liquids & Strength?

Vape Shoreditch offers 21 flavoured E-liquids & I have to say I had quite a giggle reading the descriptions for each oil which is what made me go ahead with this review, I love a company that has a sense of humour! There is such a variety of flavour’s it took me a while to finally decide on my selection. Eventually I went for the traditional tobacco, Banana cream and Parma violet (duh! had to have a purple based selection in there somewhere & who doesn’t love parm violets!?) and decided out of the 9mg, 12mg and 18mg nicotine strength to go for the 12mg.

My box was posted Monday and as promised arrived the very next day! I was pleased the box was able to go through the letterbox so if I hadn’t been home I wouldn’t have had to go chasing up the post office. Although my 3 bottle’s of E-liquid were sealed there did seem to have been some kind of oil spillage in my box which bugged my photo-taking side no end. Admittedly nothing was ruined though and the Vape itself was sealed nicely in it’s own box. All in all I was quite pleased with my little parcel and could’nt wait to have a play!

 

The Vape happened to arrive just as we were running out of cigarettes so I quickly filled the vape up and put it all together & popped it on charge. I went or the traditional tobacco to begin with to get a feel for the vape itself.

After a short wait the vape was ready to go and I turned it on by pressing the button 5 times quickly then holding the button for each puff. I love the LCD  display showing you the battery life and how many puffs you have had.

DSCF6191

 

The taste was a lot cleaner than a normal cigarette but a bit odd to begin with but I kept going back for the odd puff when I fancied smoking but not a whole cigarette or even half (The Mr and I mostly share to save money). I’m really keen to try the parma violet next followed by the banana cream but I plan to use up the 1ml of Traditional tobacco first.

I’m interested to see if picking up the vape becomes more of a habit than smoking although I am not actively looking to give up right now perhaps having the option of the vape will at least help me cut down? I guess we will see!

Have you tried a vape before? Did you give up on cigarettes? What brand etc did you go for and how have you got on with it? I’d love to have a few reviews thrown my way 🙂

If you vape or would like to then use code GETVAPING99 for 3 bottles of e-liquid for 99p!!

**Please note I received this box and it’s contents in exchange for writing this blog post. All opinions are my own and completely honest.

Surprise delivery

Product Reviews / 10 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

I completely forgot I had won extra SmartThings from TheInsiders and was pleasantly surprised when a surprised delivery arrived for me this morning!

I won 3 items which were a multi sensor, a motion sensor and a power outlet. I’m really pleased with them as I love using them around the flat. Now all I need is my LGG4 to return from being repaired so I can connect them all and continue using them!

Surprise delivery

I have to say I absolutely love being an Insider and having the opportunity to take part in their product campaigns and the last two have really appealed to my geeky side. I can’t wait to see what campaign they run next!!



 




	


	

	





	

		
Overcoming a bad patch
		

			Rambles /  10 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple		

		
			

					

	
	


	

		
I’m pretty sure I am not alone in saying January was mostly awful!

I’ve been trying to overcome a bad patch. The cold weather made it miserable and made my whole body hurt so much I had to keep myself fairly dosed up, something I generally avoid doing as much as possible as I really don’t like taking any kind of medication and dealing with the side effects.


As you may have read my LGG4 died leaving me without a phone and almost camera-less.. I say almost because I do in fact own a real camera, I have a Fujifilm finepix S1500 but I misplaced the rechargeable batteries and hunted through the flat huffing and sulking for a good few days until I eventually found them.


Just as I thought I was winning I managed to take a few shots and went to put them on my laptop only I couldn’t find the USB lead! So of course I spent another few days tearing apart the flat like a madwoman.


The Mr  then suggested asking our tech geek if he had a spare. Turns out we went through all this when I got the camera (second hand) and tech geek had given me a memory card reader to use instead.


Of course this was sat in my kitchen junk draw staring at me for the entire week whilst I searched the draw for the batteries (which were actually in there too!?) and the non-existent USB lead.


Normally it wouldn’t bother me so much but I needed the pictures for our Weekend Box review and the Mr found a local photography group a few weeks back and I was hoping to brave it and try going to hopefully learn to take much better photo’s and to give me a break as well as meeting new people in the area.


I also started on the mission of cleaning my brother’s flat leaving me exhausted and well behind on my own housework. Obviously I don’t mind doing it as it really is needed and I am the only person he trusts to go through his stuff and sort it but I am suffering for it.


Both girl’s have been ill on and off throughout January too which obviously makes it even harder to get thing’s done or catch a moment to myself. Add to that the Issue’s we have been having with Eva’s school it has been a hectic, stressful and lonely month!


Overcoming a bad patch


So all in all January was a bit crap to be honest. I know to most people all these little things seem so silly but for me it just felt like one thing after another was going wrong and this caused my depression and anxiety to spiral out of control a little. Luckily February seems to be going fairly well minus a poorly Eva and issue[s with her school.


Reviewing the Weekend box really perked both Eva and myself up and gave us something to do whilst Izzy slept over the weekend.


I eventually managed to upload my pictures and finish the blog post too. I missed another photography group meet though as I have been overly anxious all week but I’m hoping to pluck up the courage to go on Tuesday.


As it turned out the LGG4 was still under warranty and although the collection was delayed by a day the G4 was collected for repair on Wednesday and should hopefully be back working within a week,

I have everything crossed it is fixable as I really do love that phone!


My brothers flat is so much cleaner and a lot more organised and his asthma has started to ease up slightly where there is less dust & mould. He is doing better in himself and on my last visit we went to ads with an unused gift card I found at his and bought him a decent saucepan, strainer and utensils and enough food to keep him going until my next visit.


Although I’ve been in a lot of pain lately we worked out wearing the Mr’s long johns helps with my leg pain where they stay warmer. Also the Mr has been making sure my wheat bags are warmed every night and he has been using a fan heater to warm the bed up each night to help too. Plus knowing I only have another month to wait until my steroid injections I am hopeful the pain may decrease a little!


To top it all the blog seems to be doing fairly ok even though I’ve struggled with posting and networking lately and I have a few more awesome reviews coming up very soon.


Over the coming month I’ll have more time to chat to other bloggers and read more posts too which I love doing! So if we haven’t spoken before please feel free to come say Hi sometime as I love discovering new blogs and having a chat.


Hopefully this coming Tuesday I will manage to make it to the Photography meet up, I just need to try not to think about it too much in the days leading up to it to keep my anxiety down. Easier said than done but I really need to try and do this for myself, give myself a bit of time out doing something I love & hopefully make some friends around here too!


Eva is booked in at the Dr’s Monday and I’m hoping we can get to the bottom of her headaches and a few other thing’s.


February is definitely looking to be a much better month already! How was your January? Do you have high hopes for February?