friends, movies and books

This week in the world of chronic pain with my cerebral shunt:

TMJ issues in my jaw.

Pain and pressure behind both of my eyes.

Dizziness

Pain on the shunt valve and distal catheter in my head and neck.

Fell up the stairs after loosing balance because legs just got confused again. 

Knocking in my head from the left ear to the right ear. 

Chronic pain issues from my injuries and medical device sometimes makes me sad and angry. So as a distraction today, I turned to movies like Iron Man and reading.  I got to enjoy the film with some furry friends:

 

In this photo, the dragon is from Plush in a Rush, he was a souvenir from an escape adventure room like 5 Wits. The sock monkey was made from a sock monkey kit, the flamingo is from Build a Bear Workshop and Iron Man is from Ty Store.

Today, (7/16/22) I have pain behind both eyes, dizziness and walking issues, a headache in the back of my head from the chiari malformation. Pain on the top of my head on both the left and right side. Occasionally today, I've had double vision where my right eye (surgery eye) drifts and then snaps back into place. It's not that I can't take medication for this, I can. I try to me mindful of how much I take as some things like advil can harm the liver. 

I like having a liver.

When my neurologist has prescribed medication for me in the past, I have side effects like numbness in my legs that I didn't like. I've taken natural pain reliever with no weird side effects, there are days when they work and other times when they don't. 

The changes in the weather and barometric pressure effect my shunt and chronic pain from my injuries. I know I am not alone when I talk about this. Many people both children and adults who have cerebral shunts and/or other medical conditions also experience discomfort when the weather changes and anything else that's in the atmosphere. 

I'm convinced that satellites also impact medical devices and chronic pain. 

I just wish there was more to help us. On bad pain days, I get nervous and worry about when my shunt will need another revision. I hope to never have to experience that again. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I wish we had a way to we could predict when our shunts needed revisions. I mean people with diabetes can monitor their glucose levels with dexcom devices. People living with hydrocephalus can't do this with their shunts. Will the madness ever change?