You might want to ask your Dr. about Lidoderm patches. I wrap them around the part of my hand that hurts and it does help. I also wrap the heating pad around the patch to make it stick better and to get the med to work quicker.

I have RSD in my hands, triggerfinger syndrome, carpal petal syndrome and carpal tunnel syndrome. I see my hand surgeon tomorrow. He gave me shots in my right hand when I was last in there and I just about past out. They had to let me lay down and then they had Bill to come in to help me out when I left. He gave me 4 shots in the palm of my hand at the end of each finger. He's not doing that again. They hurt. I don't know what tomorrow will bring but he doesn't want to do surgery on me because of the RSD.

About the Lidoderm pathes. They are very helpful. You can put them anywhere that you are hurting and you will see some difference. Please think about asking your Dr. about them. There are several people on here I believe that uses them.

Hope you feel better soon.
Ada

Thank you Ada, I do have the lidoderm patches, and I do use them. They help some of the time. But when the pain is just SO BAD, nothing seems to help at all. They don't seem to want to stay cuz the hands are used so much and "always moving" so being so active, those patches are very hard to keep on. LOL! I wear them to bed most of the time...helps the pain stay away, or at least to a minimum, while sleeping. I wrap an ace bandage around my hands to keep them in place...of course then the lidoderm is ALL over my hands cuz I can't stand the ace bandage to touch my skin. LOL!

Thank you for the suggestion. It's a great one. I've been known to look awful silly cuz I cut them into strips and wrap them around each finger at times. I look like a really screwed up and loosly wound mummy I put them on the palms of my hands, wrap them around the "fatty" part of my thumb on the palm side, then lay a strip also on the fatty part of my hand right under where my fingers start. That's where I get a lot of cramping...which is another thing I worry about. I do a lot of tendon glides to hopefully keep those tendons loose so i dont' get the deformed hands. But the more I do, it seems the tighter those hands feel. I'm relly worried about them shortening. Almost like it's inevitable, ya know?

Lisa -
I know it isn't funny at all but I basically say my hands and arms are "just for show"
They look and seem to be just like other peoples hands and arms but due to bilateral TOS and several bilateral repetitive strain injuries ,and upper extremity RSD they do absolutely nada.
I save them for what is absolutely neccessary ( and a few fun things ).
My morning routine of showering blowdrying and make-up sometimes feels like climbing mount Everest .
But what's a girl to do?
I take an extra long time due to the many breaks( to rest my arms- they're tired) but such is my life now and it is the only one I have .
I will not let it "have" me.

I too am a firm believer in meditation and living in the moment .
I came this way through some very bad years when I began reading Jon Kabat Zinn- a buddhist , father professor, and at the time the head of the stress reduction clinic at UMass at Amherst.

I can recommend some wonderful books .

Wherever You Go There You Are

and

Full Catastrophe Living

Buy them for the titles alone !!!!!!!!

They certainly have excellent begining mediatation tools and common sense principles on how to live in the moment within and not withstanding your current circumstance .
It is easy to read , well written stuff - not some hard core must be a buddhist to understand mumbo jumbo- that comes later


My other favorite buddhist philosopher is Thich Nhat Hahn .He has written over a hundred books and still going.He is very funny too!
He has one beginners manual called the The Miracle of Mindfulness.

So for those that think all that meditating takes up too much time just look to good old Thich ; see how prolific he is while spending many hours a day meditating .The beauty of the practice is that it energizes ,calms and nourishes your spirit and soul to name only a few benefits of a daily habit.

Lisa - I don't envy you - A TOS doc alone would tell you NOT to drive that many hours at one time . Mine tells me 15 minutes at a time and then take a break.Of course this is an impossible rule to follow to the T, but your schedule is at the absolute opposite end of the spectrum.
My body too would be rebelling big time.
Besides the need for some pain managemet adjustments,is there any way you could incorporate some lifestyle adjustments which would be extremely beneficial to your health?

Much peace

GnP

Hey

Can you wear fleece? I have really soft arm sleeves that my mum made me - they are made out of really soft fleecy material and go on under clothes etc... I have a couple of sets - 1 for my splints which cover my fingers and thumb and go up over my elbows up to my shoulder and others which stop half way down my fingers. They took abit of desense but they meant that I could keep stuff like capascin in place - also stops my arms getting too cold. Since my arms completely stopped working I have been wearing the gloves ones as it stops them from freezing (I cant feel hot and cold.. just pain).

hope this helps!!!

Rosie xxxxx

I Iove you G&P! Any chance you could work your arms while I put my legs to best use? Think of it as a Vajrayana imaging exercise, all those arms and legs in some elaborate pattern.

Mike

Why thank you Mike

But to those not in the know that sounds a little pornographic for this website and this thread in particular , so we better stay on topic

Namaste
GnP

Thanks, GnP...I have printed the titles of the books, and will consider them. I'm sure you understand my reluctance, as the times I've done this it's not boded well with me...been nothing but "mumbo jumbo" so that fact has kinda steered me clear of it. I've done my own sort of relaxation to get myself to sleep at night...and perhaps that;s why this structured kind never worked...I always jut FELL ASLEEP! LOL! Or ticked off my grocery list, or hte errands I had to run, or whatever. I'm very scatterbrained as it is, and cannot focus very well, which has always been my problem. Heck, my boss told me yesterday I need to keep a pad of paper at my desk cuz my memory stinks lately. I can't remember anything and my mine wanders SO BAD that I forget something five minutes later. Could be the meds. I'm on so many, I'm sure at least ONE of them affects memory. I have TOS and RSD, two diseases that have to be controlled with medication. So my pill bottles could fill an entire medicine cabinet. But....I've also never been one to COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY give up on something just because it didn't work the first time.

I'm also not one to begrudge soeone something that doesn't work for THEM. So for all of you that meditation DOES work for, I am soooo very happy you hve found something that gives you peace and some relief from yor pain. And who knows...maybe some day I will find that it does work for me, too.

As for driving. I have a few tricks. To keep my arms from getting tired, I have my console that I rest my right arm on....my left, usually cannot rest on the door rest, so I have a heart shaped pillow (my "cough pillow" from the hospital) that I stick between me and the door. I put the top "indented" part of the heart in my ribs, and the bottom "pointed" part of the heart against the door...and my left arm rests on the pillow. Then, I have anothr small baby pillowin the car for my lap....so if my arms get tired, I can rest one at a time on my lap. I also do not grasp the steering wheel....My steering wheel ha the cross bars inside that are large enough for my hands to go THROUGH...so I drive with my wrists. I never realized what a dif. that made until I swappedcars with a friend the other day. Her husband work at the dealership I bought my car from and I needed ome work done, so we traded vehicles. She had a minivan, and the steering wheel didn't havr large enough hole for me to stick my hands thru, so i had to hold the wheel....and driving that long my hands hurt like HECK at the end of the day. I was so glad to ge my car back.

My doc, yesterday, gave me provigil to help keep me awake while driving...as that is one of the huge issues I was having.

I want to thank all of you for your help. You are fantastic people. YOu truly are. And you have such AWESOEM ideas....

Hugs
LisaM

YES! ROSIE THAT'S AN AWESOME IDEA! Than you so much!

Fleece is one of the very first things they desensitized me with in Pt! Next came bath towels. HAD to have those, ya know! LOL!

That's fabulous. Your mom could make a MINT if she would make those to ordr! I'll have to check out the fabric store. I also ran across some really neat winter gloves I think I'll be able to wear. They're really for teenage girls, but they are really very soft. Soft if GOOD for me. it's the rough stuff I can't handle...and ace bandage is probably the first stage of "rough."

Hugs
LisaM

LisaM, I'm so sorry that you are in such a flare. I know how scary it is to think of a spread, and hopefully that isn't what's going on with you. I know when the weather starts getting cold here, it makes my pain skyrocket, and I mean it's like I feel like I have RSD over my entire body. It hurts to sit, stand, lay down, and just about breath.. I hope it is just the weather change for you and not a spread.

As for the showering problem, have you tried wearing one of those bath mitts that you use instead of having to hold a washcloth, sponge or anything like that? They are very helpful and that way you don't have to bend your fingers to hold on to it.

I'm not sure what meds you are on, but the one's I've seen mentioned in your post, I have been on all of them. They seemed to help a little at first but then it's like you get immune to them. I was even on the Actiq lollipops and they didn't do much and were very expensive and then when i divorced and lost my insurance I had to do something different. My Dr sent me to an Internal Meds Dr and he started me on Methadone, which I was afraid of, but let me tell you I have never found pain relief like I do with the Methadone. I just take 10mg 4 times a day and I have been on it for over 3 years now, and I was started out on 10mgs 2 times a day so I haven't had to increase it much at all. After starting the Methadone I was actually able to put a shoe on my RSD foot for the first time in years. It's just a thought, but maybe you should talk to your Dr and see if you would benefit from it rather than several other meds you are taking. I took myself off the neurontin and all the other meds I was (about 8 different meds) and the Methadone has absolutely been great. Other than an injection 3 times a day when I first got RSD this has been the most pain relief I have had.. I wish I could remember the med that I injected 3 times a day because it really worked well.

Well good luck and I really hope you find relief soon.

((((((Hugs))))))
Janet

Lisa ,
Everyone's mind wanders when they begin meditation.
Even advanced practitioners will find themselves thinking about the daily chores .bills, whatever.
Maybe that is why it is called a practice...cause you never really finish

However even in a 10 or 30 minute session when I feel my brain has been all over the place ,I still feel a lighter spirit at the end.

We are all scattered sometimes..
We all have thousands of thoughts going through our heads every minute.
To calm that process is not an overnight deal.
The longer you do it the easier it is to get to that place

Having said that , you will be amazed at how little will give you back so much ,so it really can't hurt to try.
It is one of the least expensive forms of pain management available to us and so many just knock it off the list.
There have been so many studies on it's positive effects on chronic pain.

The beginners way is to try and take 10 minutes out every morning and evening to just do it.
That is not asking too much .
Make it a habit.
You will be amazed at the returns.

Oh yeah and read those non mumbo jumbo books

Good luck and much peace

GnP