Well. So. Now what?

Finally got some sleep. A little more clear-headed today.

While the drugs didn't put me to sleep, once I got there, I *stayed* asleep for a change. Woke up and got up without much more than the usual "omigod I have to move now" aching. No sign of drug hangover after beginning dose of Neurontin.

So busy being in shock yesterday over the diagnosis that I pretty much forgot to mention everything that did happen.

Nerve damage in my left hand is confirmed now. The good news is that nerves can regenerate, if they have a chance to stop being damaged. Therapy and the new meds might give me a chance to be able to hold a pen again.

My Raynaud's (which fibro can mimic) is actual Raynaud's and relatively severe. It's a problem with capillaries not doing their job right, so blood flow to extremities can be limited. Cold aggravates it something awful -- just holding a cold can of soda can spark it -- so one of the main treatments is to make sure the extremities stay warm. Gloves and socks, man.

I need to find gloves that work with it AND the RSD. So here's what I'm looking for, if you stumble across them. I need a glove without thick seams in the fingers or no fingers at all, rather like the arthritis gloves with no fingers, that don't stop at the wrist. I need ones that go to mid-forearm at least. Just cutting the fingers out of long gloves won't work because the seams will still get in the way of typing and other fine motor skill activities.

My FMS is actually relatively minor. Yes, I do have reaction in almost every trigger point when tested, but it's the RSD that really screws me over on pain. The IBS is really the worst of the fibro effects for me.

Knowing what part of the fog is and isn't fibro is easier to tell now. Now that I KNOW what to look for, I have a good idea of which is currently making me STOOPID, FMS or RSD. Fibro is more of a general ditzy fog with the blank stares and mild forgetfulness.

It's the RSD that makes me completely unable to parse and understand things sometimes -- like being able to file away and recall small details. Not being able to remember the LJ cut-text code, no matter how many times I look it up, is one of them.

RSD is usually linked to some sort of trauma (Reflex Sympathetic -- like post-traumatic stress, this attacks the nervous system). Surgeries can do it as well as injuries. Considering how many surgeries I had in a VERY short span, it's possible that sparked it. We know that I have some weird strain on my neurological system anyway. Between the Cubital Tunnel, the nerve damage in my hand, and the weird injuries linked to nerves and capilliary disfunction in my feet (the little weird bone infection in my foot spawned by them and I can't even remember what it was called anymore), it's not real surprising.

However, RSD usually manifests in the single, main traumatized limb. I have RSD, quite pronounced, in all four limbs, plus my head -- I do the weird swelling blotchy burn on my face and neck as well. RSD can spread in time across the body to other limbs if uncontrolled like mine has been.

But I didn't think about it until we'd left the doctor's office and DG brought it up. About 13 years ago or so, I had a really bad riding accident. A friend of mine and I were out on her horses and had to cross a road to get to the next field. Like dumbasses, we rode across it (two lane asphalt) instead of leading the horses. A car full of frat dicks drove by and honked.

The honk spooked my mount. I was thrown backwards off the horse, my right hand tangled in the reins. I hit the asphalt head-first. Knocked me out for a short time. Broke two ribs, my pinky (from the reins) and had one hell of a concussion. Roo said that she honestly didn't expect me to be alive at all. She said that when I hit, my head made the wet "pumpkin drop" splatting sound.

Direct trauma. Head, neck, spine. It could explain everything, including some of the more extreme memory damage. All my headaches, the migraines just getting worse, the dizziness that I've lived with for years, all of it.

It explains why none of the usual suggestions of causes and treatments haven't worked.

It explains why things like Flexeril and narcotic meds don't work. My brain doesn't process them correctly. It explains why my trembling is SO bad, why the muscles seize an I lose control of them.

Hell, I fell out of the computer chair last night when my leg seized. I hadn't had one that bad in a while. Total loss of control so bad that it literally threw me out of the chair with no chance to stop it before I hit the floor.

We'll never know what brought it on for sure. I do know that the splotchies and burning did NOT show up until after the accident, around the time that DG and I married. I've done it since we got together, which was after the fall. I don't remember it ever happening before.

It has also been manifesting in my face during that time -- which is why they always suspected lupus but I always tested negative. I get the butterfly rash, raised and puffy and red. But it's the RSD.

I am going to ask, once we get the therapy started and insurance is caught up with the program, for an MRI. It's possible that it might tell us more and help us figure out how close I am to the danger zone of stage two to three.

I don't like to lose. Liya and I have that much in common. I didn't give in when the doc told me I WOULD lose the use of my left arm and hand without surgery. I said Let's Do it without even thinking hard. Fix it.

And after the surgery, I fought to get it back. My recovery was so spectacular that I didn't have to endure the months of therapy to bring my hand back to full. I had regained full range of motion in my arm by the second visit after the staples were taken out.

If it means that half of my day is spent in therapy to try to force the RSD into remission, so be it. I'm not fool enough to think that it won't come back. I've got too much else wrong with my body, and the first new trauma can and probably will set it off all over again and then I get to repeat the therapy.

But I will not let it win.

I may be a mouse, but I'm a damned stubborn mouse.