Chemically Speaking

I learned something interesting in my journey just this last week.  Bipolar doesn't only affect your mental health but it affects your physical health, as well.  What kind of bullshit is that?  It's not enough that I have to feel like I am literally losing my mind sometimes but I can't feel pain in the same way as my"normal" friends can?  That kind of blows but it clears things up a bit for me. 

Let me try and explain.....the chemicals in a bipolar's brain ebb and flow, this we know.  But what I learned was that this ebb and flow causes us to sometimes  feel pain more intensely than it really  is and sometimes less than it really is.  As many of you know, I had my knee replaced on July 1st.  Two weeks after surgery, I was asking if we could talk about me going back to work on light duty ( it was anticipated that I would be out until December) and how soon I could go on the rides at Six Flags with my kids.  No, I could never walk the park but a wheelchair could be rented.

Fast forward two weeks later and I was begging him to just cut my leg off.  They said they had never seen anyone at a two week appointment with such little pain, such great flexibility and such great mobility.  I was saying that I really could be close to discontinuing pain medicine and I had cut back quite a bit. (3 months on regular pain medicine is routine for a knee replacement.)  Then at the four week appointment, they said they had never seen anyone slide back so far.  Had my flexibility and mobility changed tons, well, no, not really but the pain. O-M-G THE PAIN!  They referred me to a pain management specialist.

She has become my hero, she seems to think that I have problems with absorption of oral medications so that is why IV, shot, a patch, etc seems to work better then using the exact same medicine orally.  This was like a light bulb moment.  I am deficient in a lot of vitamins and even though I take them I am still often low.  I take my lithium but my lithium level is low.  I never got to a therapeutic level on coumadin.  You get the point.  While this absorption problem doesn't have to do with my bipolar only, it can help because they have once a month lithium shots that may be a better choice for me.  I may get quicker and better pain control if the problem can be isolated.  I am off to another specialist but since this makes so much sense, I am excited to hear what the new doctor has to say.

Going back to the ebb and flow of the pain bipolar's feel, this could explain why I have always said that labor wasn't all that painful for me.   That must have been a good chemical time for me. (We all get lucky from time to time, LOL.)  The headache I had when I had my stroke was not the worst headache of my life, I had one the week after that was the worst ever.  So theoretically, the stroke pain was worse than the next week headache but my body was on a chemical high.  This is just a shocking and amazing revelation to me.  So it isn't that I imagine pain that isn't there, my body just makes me feel some more intensely then other pain.

I have been diagnosed bipolar for over thirteen years and I am learning right along side you.  What looks like unnecessary panic and hypochondria is a chemical low while a high pain threshold is a chemical high.  Wow, just wow.  This is interesting stuff right here, folks.  Back to this knee at six weeks, it is a little better but not as good as I think it was at two weeks.  So, let's just say a little wish for a chemical high and let me push through one more bump.  Well, probably a few more bumps.  It is okay, though, bumps build character and get me one step closer to running my 5k someday.