Aftermath: check your chock blocks.

Rambling thoughts about the aftermath of the accident.  Don’t try this at home.

Three weeks after the accident.  I’ve seen a pain specialist that injected steroids and numbing agent into the trap muscle at the base of my skull, that was nearly two weeks after the accident.  Up to that time, I was having severe headaches, afterwards, my headaches have been less severe and less often.  The force of rolling my head into my chest, while not breaking bones, did strain my muscles and sprain my ligaments, basically, the same injury as whiplash.

During week three, I started physical therapy and have to go twice a week for the next four weeks, including this week.  The first visit wasn’t bad, I managed to get a wider angle of movement from the session, although, looking to my right is still painful enough I can’t drive much.  I can drive short distances alright, but can’t drive in too much traffic that requires a lot of looking around.

The pain is a cross like shape across my shoulders and from the mid-back of my head down to the bottom of my shoulder blades.  In the first two weeks, the doctor prescribed hydrocodone and Flexeril, which didn’t seem to take away much pain, but did put me to sleep.  At least while asleep on these meds, I didn’t feel the pain.

A while back I went to the doctor for bursitis in my shoulder and was prescribed Tramadol, an opiate (synthetic, I believe).  It requires a pill every 4-6 hours as needed.  I was looking for some Tylenol in the medicine cabinet when I ran across this prescription (not outdated, just not used).  I did some Google searching and found it was for medium to severe pain, so I decided to take some for my neck.  After 3 pills in about 14 hours, I felt very motion sick, but the pain was 80% gone.  Less pain was nice, the motion sickness was not.  So, I didn’t take any more for a few days.  I decided to take some before bed, maybe it would help me sleep, and I wouldn’t be sick from motion while I’m sleeping.

The Tramadol helped mostly with sleeping, I did sleep a bit longer and woke up with less pain.  But after a while of being up, the pain is returning…but at least I slept a bit better.

I don’t sleep many hours in a row.  I can’t sleep laying down, I have to be in a reclined position, which means creating some form of support on the couch end so I can sleep there.  I sleep about 2-3 hours before I need to re-position myself.

Each day doesn’t seem to be better than the last, but looking back, I have gotten better each week.

If someone sprains an ankle, they can use crutches to get around. If someone sprains a wrist, they can use a sling.  Both of these keep that person off those muscles as they heal.  Neck muscles don’t get that luxury, so after brief periods of time, I have to go rest my head and neck.  Like writing in this blog, I write some, I rest some, rinse and repeat.

I’ve injured myself before, twice I’ve nearly taken off fingers, the same two fingers.  That took time to heal, but I could do a lot of work without those two fingers.  I can’t say the same about an injured neck muscle.

Well, more pain means I’ve lost my train of thought, so until next time, check your chock blocks.