Originally Posted by catra121

Last night I had my first major flare up in my arm since I've gotten the pain relief in that area. I am pretty sure I know exactly what did it too. I went to the grocery store and didn't pay attention when they were bagging things up. The idiot bagger put all TEN of my Vitamin Waters in ONE bag. That has never happened before in the many times I have bought them there. They always use 2 bags (5 in each) and that's never been an issue. He even double bagged the one bag with ten so it's not like he was even saving bags. I do not know what he was thinking. I carried that bag into the house with my left hand and that's the one that had the flare last night. I should have rebagged it before carrying it in...hindisght is always 20/20.

Anyway...it was a really BAD flare. Arm turned cold, pain at level 10 (plus 100), swelling, etc...I was actually crying which doesn't happen often anymore from the pain. But I sucked it up, got myself a Lidoderm patch (the pain was so bad applying it I thought cutting the hand off would have been less painful), wrapped it in the self stick first aid tape (LOVE this stuff...doesn't stick to my skin at all), slapped a heating patch on, and used my flexible wrist brace. I haven't worn this brace in over a year but did not want to wake up with my wrist in a wack position, plus it helped secured the heating patch and stuff. I like the flexible ones though because they still allow me to move the wrist and hand, just limit the movement. I actually was able to sleep a solid 6 hours last night even with the flare. This morning it is better. Still worse than normal but after taking a hot bath and using the ultrasound it's not too bad compared to normal.

I'm keeping my TENS off the ankle today so I have it available for my wrist throughout the day. It's more troublesome to try and use on my wrist because even at twice their normal size my wrists are still tiny...but it's worth going through it when I have a flare like this. And hopefully by the end of the day I will be back to "normal." Right now I have nothing on the wrist though and have been working on some PT exercises with it.

As much as all this sucks though...still some positives. First, prior to tDCS there is no way that overnight my flare would have calmed down so much. Second, no way prior to tDCS treatments that I would have slept 6 straight hours with a flare like this. Third, one really bad flare in ONE of my arms in several months...that really is not bad at all considering how things used to be.

It was a horrible reminder though to be continually grateful for the lower pain levels I've been having now for the past month or two. I'm sure I feel the flares worse now because of that. When you live with the pain always at a high level there is a sort of acceptance that comes with it. Now...it's different when the pain gets that high...especially when it comes on suddenly as opposed to a gradual increasing throughout the day like normally happens with my ankle or my hands when I am doing various activities.

Sorry it's not the best news but wanted to share the experience with you guys. Flares still do happen and it's still important to be careful and be ready to deal with them whenever they come...no matter how agonizing that may be (like was the case with putting that darn lidoderm patch on...hurt like heck but once it was on it did help). I'm glad I bought more heating patches on my last grocery shopping trip...would have been a different situation if I didn't have any on hand...