Well as I wrote in a message for Ali, I am up to my ears in committments.I just don't know how I am going to manage, but I take each day one at a time.I am finishing up my Master's degree for teaching in special education and now in my student teaching portion of my class. I have 6 hours of school and than I have to maintain my job at 35 hours a week to keep my insurance. After that I have assignments and requirements to post online to my classes that is an additional 20 hours a week and more.

Of course the RSD does not want to cooperate when I need it to. I have progressivly gotten worse just prior to doing my internship and now during it I am in a major flare up. Also, my back decided to chime in as well. I went for X-rays on that and found degenerative disc disease with osteoarthritis. My chiropracter has been treating me 3 days a week. I ran out of insurance for her care and she is keeping me going anyway free of charge/exchange of services. She used to be one of my art students.. So I can exchange instruction for chiro care.

When I went into the chiro she used one of those wheels on my RSD leg to check reflexes and feeling in the leg. I wasn't paying attention when she did it. A lot of people forget about the RSD. I shot up with the pain and it took three days for the sensation to go away. That wasn't what reaggravated the RSD just not fun to deal with.

I went to the pain dr. yesterday. Did I say I love her..she is so wonderful and understanding. I told her I was learning more about my disease here in the forum and she said it was a good idea to investigate things and be up on what is out there. Cool huh? Well she increased the pain meds. I was on 750 Vicodan and now she is addiing Percocet 2 times/day. I will also get an epidural when the RSD flare goes down a bit. SHe put me on 15 days of high prednizone to see if she can get the flare up quieted down. No salt diet. I took 8 prednizone last night start up and will take 7.5 today and wean down each day by a half tablet.
I will go for an epidural in a couple of weeks. She is letting me stay with the same Dr. who has done them for me before. I liked him a lot so I was glad she would do that. Hate meeting more new Dr. to explain it all over and over again..you all understand that. I should just make a power point..hey maybe that is a good idea for everyone.
After the epidural than the spinal stimulator is an option. I asked her about it as it had been mentioned earlier in my treatment but folks wanted to hold off on doing that one. She said she didn't want me to make any decisions while I was in panic mode over the pain..wasn't that cool. She gets me so much.

Anyway..I also asked for accomodations for work...the first time for me to do that. I told her that in my job working with person's with disabilities. I find people work that they can do and assist in the hiring process. As they get the job I also job coach them.Well if someone gets a job in a warehouse I am unable to lift boxes and do janitorial work. She wrote an accomodation that says I can only stand for 10 mintues at a time. That is so right on. I would say that is pretty accurate. Between the RSD and the back right now that is about all that I can do. There are other things like lifting only 5#, no stairs etc..I am a happy camper.

I am worried a bit about what work will say but I will just have to do it for now. It doesn't mean that those restrictins are permanent..at least for now. We will have to wait and see how "the monster" cooperates.

Cheers to all, Thanks for letting me vent. Others just don't understand this struggle that we all have.

Best of luck. You sound like you might not need it.