Stiffness

Dear Bloggers,

As you could read in my last blog, pain is becoming more and more into my life. Also my fingers are affected by it and I really have to take my time to write a story, my blogs might become a little less frequent but as long as I can I will keep you posted. I was just wondering if you have any clue what is hitting me at the moment. I will try to write down what is making my live extremely difficult at the moment.



Do you wake up in the morning feeling like you are just unable to get out of bed?
Do you have joint aches and muscle stiffness?
If you can answer yes to these questions then you may be suffering from morning stiffness.
As I am suffering, but I do not complain that I am a victim of morning stiffness. This stiffness is often long lasting and recurrent, and sometimes becomes a permanent symptom.

What is Morning Stiffness?
(Yeah, right a dirty mind is joy forever, but it is not what I mean today.)
Morning stiffness is pretty self-explanatory – it’s stiffness that you feel when you first wake up in the morning.
But what does this stiffness actually feel like?
Well, let me describe morning stiffness as a tightness in the muscles and joints throughout the body.
This muscle joint stiffness usually lasts for at least 30 minutes, though it can last for hours.

It also doesn’t exclusively occur in the morning – it can continue well into the afternoon and evening. This stiffness can impede movement and range of motion as well as cause aches and pains throughout the body.



This morning stiffness can have a huge impact on a person’s daily activities, making it difficult to sit, stand, or rest for extended periods of time.

Where Does Morning Stiffness Occur?
Morning stiffness occurs in the muscles, joints, tendons, and ligaments throughout the body.
Stiffness can be felt in pretty much any connective tissue, but the extremities are particularly at risk for stiffness.
This means that most of the time I feel morning stiffness in my hands, feet, arms, or legs.
The back is also particularly prone to stiffness, especially thoracic, and cervical spine areas.



Symptoms of Morning Stiffness
There are numerous symptoms that often occur with morning stiffness.
If you notice any of these symptoms, report them to your doctor so that you can get appropriate treatment and relief.

1. tightness in the muscles after you wake up in the morning
2. stiffness in hands, fingers, feet, toes
3. gelling, or tightness in the muscles after periods of rest (for eample: long car rides, sitting at the office, afternoon naps)
4. aching or throbbing pain, especially in the hands, arms, legs, and feet
5. inability to fully extend certain joints, limited range of motion
stiffness in the head, back, and neck
6. stiffness reoccurring at night

Aggravating Factors
Certain factors seem to aggravate morning stiffness especially I would note that cold and humid weather make their morning stiffness worse.
Also sleep disorders contribute to the severity of morning stiffness symptoms. Anxiety and stress are also known contributors to morning stiffness.

How does Morning Stiffness Impact You?
Morning stiffness can take its toll on you, especially if you suffer from severe symptoms.



Muscle stiffness and joint stiffness can make it difficult to go to work, drive a car, or even get out of bed in the morning.
However, with movement, morning stiffness does get better and it is usually possible to keep up with your daily tasks.
If you are suffering from morning stiffness for a longer period of time it is a good idea to consult with your doctor.

But take my advise:"Just look up, maybe you just miss the sun..."

The Old Sailor,

If pain is taking over your life.

Dear Bloggers,

What if pain is taking over your life.
At the moment I am living life with a lot of pain, my doctor got finally realistic and sends me to specialist of internal diseases.
I am just over 40 and my body is fully working against me. In the blood tests that were done, once again there was nothing found and I am so not amused.
All my joints are hurting, my neck, my elbows, my knees, my wrists (off and on in various finger joints) and one of my ankles.
The year has just started and it is a painful beginning.

About 12 months back they discovered that I have Tietze's syndrome.(Costochondritis)
I walked around for almost 2 years with a nagging pain in my left side at my 4th rib from the top counted.
First they thought that it was pain of the recovery of my lung after the pneumonia that I've had.
Because I was still fairly unfamiliar to the intense pain it caused, in the beginning I was a few times rapidly rushed to the hospital with an expected heart attack.
The symptoms seemed to be very similar and the pain at the left is so stinging that it just feels like you are going to die.
The hospital found out, after a number of examinations that there was nothing wrong with the heart.
But what it was, they were not entirely sure.



To my great surprise I had a number of things that I no longer used as such as my garden tools.
This kind of things I have to suffer with an intense pain that will bring me one or two days completely down.
When the diagnosis was made that I had Tietze, I started searching the Internet and came to the discovery that I was not the only one suffering from this.
I ended up on the site of A. G. Hol: www.tietze.nl
I discovered only now that it is something that has been there for years and I finally figured what was going on with me.

In winter I have trouble getting up on my feet and I'm stiff from head to toe.
All my moving parts are hurting like hell.
I am like a very old man when I am at the beginning of my day.
To give you an example of how my day is:
“You feel like having a heavy flu than you can also sense the pain from the muscles, also the heavy feeling and being extremely tired is part of it.” (I fall asleep in the middle of the day, I get sleepy out of nothing.)
I am simply falling asleep from one moment being fully awake until the next moment I am falling into a deep sleep.



However, the severe pain is getting sharper and tears my soul in two.
My fingers do not work with me and they are so stiff and painful, and my daughters, I can not help them, for example, a biscuit packaging I can not open it.
But whatever is coming on my path, I also have to learn to accept and that fibromyalgia is going to be part of my near future, and again I just have to get used to it.

Life is a path that is crossed by pain and love.
Only a pity is that I see more pain than love.
Happiness comes in small pills, who are also called painkillers.

The Old Sailor

How to kill the pain

Dear Bloggers,

Painkiller…
I need you so badly.

After the extraction of my moulder, on september 5 this happened - read also love gives wings, I was pretty happy when I left the dentists office.- the pain got actaully worse, after a couple of days I went back to dentist and he found out that the imflammation I had, had done it’s work already in my jaw.
It was a pretty hungry bunch of bacterias who ate a hole in my lower jaw. (as big as a golfball.)
I ended up at the the dental surgeons office in the hospital and he fixed the problem.
Only side effect is that the pain will disappear in the coming week.
Hmmm, let’s hope so.
More than two weeks of toothpain is more than enough, you get so tired of it.
I have checked on the internet what the explanation is of this so called perionditis.
Read and weap I would say.
"I wish nobody to have the same experience in pain."



Periodontitis (peri = around, odont = tooth, -itis = inflammation) refers to a number of inflammatory diseases affecting the tissues that surround and support the teeth.
Periodontitis involves progressive loss of the alveolar bone around the teeth and may eventually lead to the loosening and subsequent loss of teeth if left untreated. Periodontitis is caused by a convergence of bacteria that adhere to and grow on the tooth's surfaces, along with an overly aggressive immune system response against these bacteria.



Treatment of Periodontitis
In the earlier stages of the disease, most of the treatment involves root planing and curettage (cleaning) under the gum margins.
It involves the removal of plaque and inflamed soft tissue in the pockets around the tooth with an instrument called a curette.
Its purpose is to remove the bacterial colonies and the mechanical and chemical irritants that cause inflammation in hopes that the disease can be eradicated.
The goal is that the gum will reattach itself to the tooth or will shrink enough to eliminate the pocket.
In most early cases, root planing, curettage, and proper daily plaque removal are all that are required for a satisfactory result.

In more advanced cases, the treatment may become more complex.
If after removal of the deposits, fairly deep pockets remain, they can be eliminated by a minor surgical procedure called gingivectomy.
This is done under local anesthesia, and a medicinal dressing is placed to cover the wound area for a week or so while it heals.



In my case it was more advanced as my bone was heavily attacked but most of them were killed already by the antibiotics, so the curretage was not that hard anymore and the hole was filled up with somekind of atrificial bone, which goes in as a cement and hardens out when it is placed.
At least I am happy it could be done with local anesthesia and I could leave the hospital after an hour, there was no problem to fill the gap through the hole that the moulder left after it was extracted.
The pain I will keep in line with some heavy weight painkillers.



Although I walk around like “Stoned For ever” I feel a lot better, and soon I will return to work again.

I will be smiles all over again.


The Old Sailor,