Pain

All is not happy in Dressage Mom Land.

Since Friday night of the show I've been having pain in my right arm and neck. It's not surprising considering I came off of a horse on Wednesday. (A little aside here - the footing in that arena is new and is felt footing on top of rubber mats. I didn't even get a bruise where I landed! Awesome!) But Sunday was pretty bad too, and Monday was worse. So Monday I went to the doctor (a guy I don't like but my regular doc was booked), and he said nothing was broken (not that he did an x-ray or anything), that I was just sore and I needed some anti inflammatories and some muscle relaxers.

Well the anti inflammatories made me sick, and the muscle relaxers (which I took before bed) gave me weird nightmares and had me waking up confused and scared in the middle of the night. So I went to my chiropractor and he gave me an exam. Based on my symptoms, which include pain shooting down my arm when I turn my neck certain ways, he suspects that I may have a bulging or herniated disc in my neck. Lovely.

My chiro is not covered by my insurance, so I have to pay every time I go to see him. He said that I should have decompression therapy on my neck to help get the disc back into place. Since it would be a really good idea to see what's really going on in my neck, I'm going to try and see my family doc and see if he will order me an MRI of my neck. My chiro could order one but then my insurance would not cover it. Like how I'll pay for an MRI for my horse's leg but not for my neck? I know, I'm nuts.

Now, I'm a little freaked out about MRI's. I get a little claustrophobic in there, but last time they gave me valium and I made it through okay. This time (if I can convince him to order me one) I'm going to load up on klonopin and get myself nice and sleepy for the procedure.

I had decompression therapy yesterday, and I'm having one more today and one Friday. It actually felt good while they did it, and the pain went away for about 45 minutes after the treatment. But each treatment is $42, and he thinks I could need 6 to 12 of them. Plus each chiro visit itself is $55. Ugh.

Tomorrow I will see my family doc and hopefully get orders for the MRI. Then we can get to the bottom of what's going on. Until then I'm dealing with shooting pain that starts in my neck and goes all the way down my right arm to my wrist. And I have to be at work, since I just took a week off. And being in pain makes me a little grumpy, so I'm not exactly Mrs. Sunshine right now. Icing it helps, but it's only temporary.

And to top it all off, there will be no riding until I'm better. Suck suck suck. I'll still go out and lunge the boys (with my left arm). And by the boys I mean Kaswyn, Albert, and Fire. Skyy has gone home. And Fire is fat and out of shape so I won't be getting on him anytime soon. He needs conditioning and a diet!

Oh, and my brother asked me if the pain was worth the Top Tens? Don't be silly. Of course it is!