The Midnight Polar Bear Plunge

Two.  Count ‘em … one … two!!  That’s how many total hours of sleep I was able to put together last night.  After three beautiful, albeit painful to an RSDer at this time of year, days of 65+ temps, there is now freezing drizzle and impending snow.  I went to bed last night at 10:30.  By 12:30, I was wide awake, shivering (almost to the point of convulsing) and lying in a body length puddle of night sweats.  Oh yeah, good times!!  (meh)

<Enter Coach Crankypants> They make pills for pain, inflammation, relaxing muscles, infections, allergies, colds, high blood pressure, acid reflux, headaches/migraines, menopause, erectile dysfunction, hair growth, vomiting, lowering cholesterol, (Kiva just added ‘heart worm,’)  pms/cramps/bloating, gas/farts/toots, quitting smoking, diarrhea, depression, and the list goes on and on and on.  But there is no pill, no cork for the pores, no body sized Sham-Wow for a chronic pain patient with night sweats.  Why is that???  Why must we have to endure the pain and loss and frustration AND uncontrollable sweating??

As a former jock who has retained her jock-like mentality, I know that there are good sweats and bad sweats.  Exercise, good sweats.  Spicy foods, good sweats.  Sex, very good sweats.  Stress, bad sweats.  Pain, bad sweats.  Fever, bad sweats.  So why does this happen to RSDers (and other chronic pain sufferers) in the middle of the night, while sound-ish asleep??  This is my question for the day and I will not rest until I have an acceptable answer.  You can make “doctor-talk” all you want, but until someone is able to explain this to me in terms to which I can relate, I’m bitchin’!!

I use bio-feedback to control my heart rate and blood pressure, even during a flare (70’s-80’s and 100/60).  Since birth, maybe before, you’d have to ask Mom, I have run a low-grade fever (97.8, to be exact).  So how in the sam-hill-heck can I be sweating when my body is as much at rest as it can be??  Ah, the mysteries of a mysterious illness … Shut The Front Door, RSD!!  I want my life back, dammit!!!

I have faith that I will use this negative side effect to increase my own awareness of RSD as I do my due diligence today to find ways to combat my midnight polar bear plunges.  It’s true, I fight like a girl, but this girl does not give up!!  Yes, I am overly tired and frustrated today, but I still have faith that I can rise from my soggy ashes with a non-narcotic remedy!!  Today I will be a Mermonix … Mermaid/Phoenix … I’ll just leave you with that visual for now!!