Friends/Followers/Stalkers I need help. Ask me ANYTHING about my disability/life

[yasonablack]

http://lindseyelarson.tumblr.com/ Lindsey is making an RSD Diaries vid and I agreed (and want) to be a part of it. Since I lost my voice yesterday, I thought I could use this time wisely and ask you guys, what you would want to know about my disability and life

Comments

[lara_everlong]

Hm. Ok. What does it feel like? I understand what nerve pain is, but there are many different kinds of pain. Constant or intermittent? Burning? Stabbing? Grating, slicing, red-hot poker, on your skin, in your muscles, in your bones?

Does it affect your movement? Muscle control? Strength? Circulation? Balance? Or is it purely a pain issue?

Can it spread? Can it intensify? Can it go into remission? What happens if you take a nerve blocking drug?

How did you develop this? What did you hurt to cause it, your leg, the nerves in your leg, your brain, something mysterious? Or was it always in you and the car accident triggered it?

[lara_everlong]

Also, fairs fair and all, you can ask me anything you want as well

[yasonablack]

Okay. I've always wondered, where exactly do you feel pain related to your paraplegia? And what kind of pain is yours?

[lara_everlong]

that is kind of a complex question. I feel pain at my injury level - my injury is T4-7, so this kind of corresponds to where my bra closes. It feels like I'm constantly being squeezed, by something hot and hard and sharp, and it's constant - it does't throb or come and go. It's a burning, grating feeling, and I feel it on the surface of my skin. This is nerve pain - it's my nerves registering pain on surfaces where there IS NOTHING WRONG because the nerves are damaged and cannot heal. I've always felt that, from day #1 of my injury. This is not pain that responds to narcotics - so taking a painkiller does nothing. The only thing that works on this type of pain is to take a nerve-blocking drug, which, since the drug slows neural activity, also slows my reaction times and makes me, well, come across as kind of stupid if you were to meet me in person

Part #2

[lara_everlong]

I also feel a lot of pain because I'm lopsided and my spine is fused unnaturally, so since some of my muscles are stronger/more functional than others, over time it has put a lot of strain on my spine and sort of twisted the bones out of their natural shape and caused the muscles to develop unnaturally, which causes a deep, dull ache down in what feels like the base of my muscles in my shoulders and upper back. There is a lot of tension that can't really be relieved by anything other than a muscle relaxer (which again, makes me sort of stupid) or an anesthetic injection to make the muscle release (which doesn't make me stupid but knocks out some of my sensation) and I still have terrible muscle knots under my shoulder blades and at the base of the back of my neck. This kind of pain does respond a little to narcotics, but it's also a sign that SOMETHING'S WRONG, so taking painkillers can actually make me hurt myself worse, because I'm just ignoring stuff that I shouldn't be ignoring (but then, it can't be fixed, so I'm not sure what

[yasonablack]

I'm going to answer yours here for practice (hope that's okay, plus I don't believe I've talked much about these to anyone

[sammason]

This a clear piece of writing and I've learned a lot from it, so thank you. Thank you too for not playing the poor-crip card.

[yasonablack]

I don't enjoy being a poor-crip, I love being an awesome crip! ;)

This may be a weird question, but can I ask you what you learned from it? I just want to make sure I'm coming across decently.

[sammason]

Just about everything you said here was new information to me. None of it was confusing. I've told you before that you're a good writer, haven't I? Well here's another example of that. Yes indeed, you're awesome!