I gasped for breath often and it is much worse when lying down. I experience painful muscle spasms in arms and legs which is preceded and the accompanied by extreme sensitivity to touch. The spasms are much worse, and last longer, when lying down or sitting. I will always get the spasms after I lie down for a while. Sometimes mild, sometimes very aggressive, but they always happen when I lie down.
When the spasms subside I usually have aching, burning pains in my leg, arm and abdomen muscles. General weakness, always feel lethargic, I have a constant ringing in the ears, and am sometimes super-sensitivity sound. My hands fumble, hypersensitivity to touch. I sometimes find my foot will seem lazy? Toe dragging, tripping,, etc.. I experience numbness in hands and feet and sometimes lose grip on items without wanting to. I have fuzzy vision at times. Occasional headaches, brain fog, increasing memory loss, sometimes troubles speaking properly, breathing problems.

I had and accident 13 years ago that lead to 4 surgeries on my spine and back. The last surgery was for failed back surgery due to a collapse of vertebra from a previous surgery. I have some nerve damage in the lower spinal cord area, and from the sandy gritty sound and pain when I turn my neck, I believe I may have arthritis in my neck too.
The back injury, surgeries and spinal nerve damage have left me in a state of chronic pain. For many years it was mostly pain and of course depression from the trauma associated with the accident and the pain and loss that I had to deal with since then. [also diagnosed with PTSD after the accident ] But in the last 4 or 5 years the onset of the symptoms I list above started to show, and are increasingly getting worse.

Any ideas on what might be happening to me?

Welcome to NeuroTalk, Mort.

Have you been to the doctor recently? Checked for diabetes?
Kidney functions?

Sounds like you could have nerve compression in your spine somewhere too.

I invite you to come to our Peripheral Neuropathy forum, and post there. We will need more information about you. Your age, what medications you use, daily habits, etc. Sometimes a simple nutritional change and testing for B12 and Vit D can fix some problems for patients low in them. Sometimes fixing dietary habits, will improve things too.

Here is our link:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum20.html

haven't been to any doctor except my pain management doctor for years. Cant afford to, but I tried to get into a mean based clinic the last couple month and each time I call them all of them in St. Louis area tell me they are not accepting new patients right now.

I see my pain management doctor once every 3 months for script refill, her mandatory drug test for all pain med patients, and a check up. Told her about my symptoms and even though she is a great doctor, she said I really need to see a doctor.

besides vitamins, I can only afford to take generic zoloft for depression and methadone for the pain. I am actually able to cope on just one 10mg methadone pill a day if I keep activities to a minimum and supplement with aspirin or another over the counter pain medication.

as for the nerves, there is some compression, I'm sure of that. My pain doctor did xrays last year in an annual check up and verified that. But also during my first back surgery after I had 3000 pounds of steel fall on me in a work accident, they accidental cut some of the nerves. I dont think they ever grew back properly and are constantly perceiving pain. At least that is what I was told by one of the back surgeons.

I'm 50 years old, and unless I have my daughters with me, I try to keep the activity levels low so I can keep the pain levels low. I take care of myself, clean, laundry, some days with the help of a little extra methadone I can mow the yard ( very small and flat, takes around 10 minutes from start to finish)
I try to ride my exercise bike a few times a week , around 20 to 3o minutes each time is about all I can do without to much pain the following days. When my daughters are with me and we go someplace, I will walk as much as I can to be with them, and during the summer we do go swimming a lot. I can not swim like I use to, and its slow and methodical swimming now, and limited at that. Thats about all the activity I have in my life.


I didnt mention my knee because I didnt think it had anything to do with my current problems, but in 88 I was in an auto accident with a total hyper extension of my left knee, and a few failed surgeries and a long bought with a Staff infection and 6 months with a pik line and daily doses of Vancomycin. Finally the knee was fixed with some gortex ligaments and was doing well until the last 5 or so years. Now it hurts all the time, sometimes I need a cane to walk due to the pain in it.

I see a serious potential drug interaction which you need to be aware of:

Zoloft and methadone:
http://www.drugs.com/interactions-ch...78-0,2057-1348

One has to be VERY careful with methadone!
Here is why:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/post15298-4.html

Methadone is a long acting, drug. When the body cannot clear it well, it can build up. It will remain in the body, after leaving the pain receptors, and patients then take more, and this leads to overdosage, CNS depression, and breathing risk.

It can also affect the heart rhythm and lead to sudden death that way.
http://www.azcert.org/medical-pros/d...-drug-list.cfm
http://www.azcert.org/medical-pros/d...-drug-list.cfm

New warnings:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread172712.html
Methadone overdose can come from patients increasing their own doses, or by taking other drugs, that impair the metabolism of methadone.

At age 50 there can be impaired glucose metabolism. You can help yourself in this area by avoiding sugar and starchy carbs.
Limit them at every meal. Instead choose lean protein, and fruit and veggies. This can stabilize blood sugar swings, and help with the brain fog, tiredness, visual blurring.
But you really need to get evaluated for diabetes, have an A1C level drawn, to be sure. Undiagnosed diabetes will impair kidney functions, and affect drug clearance rates as well.

So I really urge you to see a doctor and get that screened.

I forgot to mention that when I am lying down I eventually get to a point where I cant breath and have to sit up or stand to finally breath again. I get between 11 and 18 minutes of sleep at a time due to this. Yes, I started writing down the time I lay down, and the time I suddenly wake unable to breath. However, I did discover that if I place a semi hard ball about the size of a large grapefruit under a specific part around the middle of my spines length, I can breath just fine. Problem with that is it hurts like heck to do that, and even makes my abdomen hurt after I lay on the ball for a while. When I first started trying the ball under my spine when lying down it was so painful I didn't want to ever do it again, but I could breathe so i kept it up. Now I have been doing this for around 4 months and it works, but hurts. Problem with this is that when I move in my sleep I change the location of the ball and it only has to be off that one spot by an inch or less and it wont work. Then I wake up and I have the pain associated with lying on the ball.

My speculation is nerves that have to do with the lungs or muscles that work the diaphragm are in that area of the spine. Somehow, I suspect because the load bearing and bending axis has been moved from my lower spine due to all the hardware, to the middle of the spine, these nerves have somehow been compressed and laying on the ball releases them from compression.

Now this does work to prevent not being able to breath, but it doesn’t do anything for hard breathing or having to gasp to get deep breaths and not feel light headed. When I am out in public I pretend to yawn when I have to do this as I have to gasp for the air. So I am yawning a lot. Sometimes the yawns are real though as I don’t get a lot of sleep anymore. As you might imagine.

Difficulty breathing while lying down is a classic sign of cardiac problems. Congestive heart failure is one. Your use of methadone may also affect heart rhythm.

I believe you should see a doctor ASAP for both potential blood sugar problems and cardiac issues.

I take methadone because its the cheapest pain relief I can get. Without insurance or a lot of money living in America and you dont have many options. You do what you can, or you just die.
as for seeing a doctor asap, Id love too. do you know any in the St. Louis Missouri area that can accommodate someone who only gets 750 a month on SSDI and no other means of income? I haven't found any yet , at least none with an opening for new patients. Even though Medicare has a predetermined amount they pay, most doctors still charge the patient for a lot more than what Medicare says its worth. Thats why I had to stop going to doctors in the past. Medicare say I'm responsible for $100 of the bill, but the doctors office says I'm responsible for $3oo of it and says they are under no obligation to abide by Medicare charge scale.

cant get work so I cant get insurance. And I have worked since the age of 9. Working on farms then, and I worked hard and did well up until this accident happened, Now no one will hire he for even the lowest wage jobs. Now Im seen as a leach on the system and lazy, dont want to work, useless, and many more things that I am now classified as. No one cares you worked all your life, sometimes 3 jobs at a time, and barely missed a day of work in your life.

I am well aware of methadone. More than you will ever know.
Using it comes with risks, and being informed of those, can make the treatment safer. While methadone is less expensive it is also trickier to use, and people vary genetically in how they metabolize it. It can build up in the body, as the pain relief wears off. In that state it is still there, affecting other systems because the pain receptors remove it first. So when doses increase, those other effects increase as well. Combined with other drugs, or with low kidney functions, it may build up until a sudden cardiac event or respiratory depression occurs.

Please visit the links I gave you. There are some things you can do on your own, but then others you cannot. Have you told your symptoms to your pain management doctor? I hope you have.