Head and shoulders, knees and toes : Fampyra diaries 3

Well, I'm a shower of sh** today, as my charming ex-father in law would put it.

On Fampyra now for several months, and I am walking better. Is it the Fampyra? Who knows.

I'm also having a lot more spasticity in my muscles. Fampyra? Who knows.

Last several days, my legs and feet and bum have been very unhappy with one thing or another. Twitching, spasming, my toes curling up or just painful and very touchy. Shoulder was damaged in another incident, so I'm hobbling along, a mass of unpleasant sensations with no where to put them.

I've taken to using my rollator if I have any distance to walk. Sigh. Sexiness quotient = 0.
Of course, staggering like a drunk leads to entirely the wrong sort of attention. Tough call...

So, slurping bafclofen and my medMJ and hoping the pain goes away soon.
Frustratingly, sometimes it does, completely, for, like, ten minutes, and I can walk like a normal person and my hips and knees stop complaining. Then the mask drops back down again and I am writhing.

I suspect a new lesion in my spine...maybe some compression there? As we all know, it's foolish to diagnose yourself, but so much of chronic disease management is just that.

Keeping on with Baclofen, Fampyra, and now back on Cymbalta to deal with the depression caused by the holes in my head. Maybe it will help with pain, too - it did before. Polypharmacy, here I come, yet again.

Am paying for my Fampyra now after getting two free sample months. Don't know if the benefit is worth the cost. will have to consider when this batch is done. It DOES seem to be disturbing my sleep pattern.

Why going to the gym is so entertaining, or not...

Okay.
I've been going to the gym seriously for months now. Three times a week, give or take, an hour at a time, weights and machines and stretching and all that stuff. I usually come home and collapse, body in spasm and totally wiped out. The thing with MS is I don't get to progress upwards like "normal" people - as I exercise, I feel like I should be getting better, stronger, quicker ("We can remake her, better, stronger...").
But it just ain't so. One day I cheerily work through a 30 minute elliptical session without dying. The next day I can barely do 10 minutes. I'm trying to increase my walking capability so I can go on this boat cruise in Newfoundland - which involves a 3 km walk through moose and bug infested territory. I can deal with the bugs, but outrunning a moose might be challenging, and I really don't know how they'll react to my walker...but the views look fantastic and I really really wanna go. So I struggle on, pushing my unwilling cramping muscles through yet another session.
Today I got extra exercise plotting the demise of an exerciser on one of those bouncy machines. She was doing extra knee lifts and swinging her arms around in circles and punching up in the air and lacked only the leg warmers to pass for Olivia Newton-John getting physical. She was working on the machine at level 15 and increasing the level every few minutes.
I wanted to push her over.
Just a little bit.
She was so damn perky.
She even had perky HAIR, for gawd's sake. I instantly hated her with a vile passion matched only by the vileness of my sweat as it flattened my non-perky hair to my skull.
What made it even worse is that my favourite gym guy, the one with the sexy accent, was flirting with her. The flirting was bad enough, but what I really envied was that she could do her high fast stepping while swinging her arms and listening to music and flirting back, without falling over! How the heck?
I was falling over walking on the treadmill. Slowly.
Totally annoying. I much prefer the overweight older men who sweat honestly and suffer along with me. We at least have the honour of our suffering.
Couldn't kill her lest I lose the fondness of the sexy gym guy. So I pretended to find her funny while I turned a delicate shade of green. Why the hell didn't I use my body more when it worked properly?
Ah well, too late, she cried, and waved her wooden leg (as my parents-in-law would say). I'm obviously going to have to find another reason to keep going to the gym. Hmm. Maybe this would work...
http://youtu.be/NOMOwyHCHmQ

Oh if my neuro could see me now!

The guy thinks I am fine, barely attacked by this disease.
It's true, I am one of the luckier ones, but after two and a half days of twitching, I don't feel that way. My hip joints are spasming, all of my muscles are doing a gentle rhumba (but they haven't got their act together so it just looks like those scenes from Alien where I have ripples under my skin), I can't see to read or drive (though I have done both) and I'm so tired I am sitting with my jaw hanging open...

It's pretty attractive, lemme tell you! I am avoiding carrying hot or heavy things, and am heading to bed again shortly after spending yesterday lolling about there.
I hate lying about. Hate it. So tonight, a muscle relaxant to perhaps stop the spasms and give me a good rest, and hope for a better tomorrow.
I just wish my doc could see me now....
Oh, and the hip flexor action made for interesting driving!!!!! Good thing I could use cruise most of the time. I think I should perhaps be more careful about driving when I twitch and can't see...but most of the drivers drive as if they too are impaired, so at least I don't stand out. ;-)