Management

I am up early, at least early for me; the pain did it. It's not even 10:30 AM and I have already eaten breakfast. My usual morning meal these days, most often had sometime around noon, is a hard boiled egg, a slice of cooked ham wrapped up with a slice of Swiss cheese, one of those BabyBel cheeses, and a cup of coffee. This morning it included a little extra, a couple of Ibuprofen. I am hoping these over the counter pain medications will help with the pain from shingles.

I've decided to stay away from the more powerful pain killers within my ample medication collection. The Naproxen is more targeted towards dealing with muscle pain, such as cramping or pulled muscles. It is not terribly effective on the nerve pain. The Percoset is just too scary to contemplate taking for more than a day or two. I try to stay away from the real powerful stuff; it's just too good and I can see no beneficial outcome from using a lot of it, at least not at this time.

Managing medications is a part of ALS you don't hear much about. I have a whole bunch of them, some related to my heart attack, some related to blood pressure, some related to my DVT, some related to my emotional lability and some just for general stuff. Each morning I take about five different medications. My evening medication list is shorter, only two separate medications but the warfarin is a multi-dose, usually two or three pills. For a disease with no known cure and no effective treatments, there's a lot of associated stuff to take. I took a few of these pills before ALS; I take a lot more now.

Then there is the physio-therapy; the stretches that I get every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. These stretches are intended to keep my muscles from shortening up or freezing altogether. They make a difference, so I plan on staying with them for as long as they help. At some point, however, it will become pointless. Then, I will stop.

All in all, there is a lot to manage with ALS, both from a medication and pseudo-treatment point of view. On top of it all, there are the mechanical issues too. I just got a call; the suppliers want to come in and install my lift track tomorrow. More stuff, more changes, more to manage. This being sick is a full time deal.