Friday the Thirteenth Fuckoff!!

Wednesday afternoon, a constant ache in my arm reappeared. This is the same ache that was associated with my carpal tunnel... or maybe something to do with my RLS... or it could be my B12 deficiency (all of which are probably because I smoke!)!!

Due to the sporatic occurance of this pain, I was very hopeful that it had been a part of one of these problems and when it had only occured on a couple of random evenings in the past 3 months, I was thrilled.

However, when I lay down Wednesday night, I noticed the muscle in my arm was spasming/twitching. Imagine the split second ripple of a horse's shoulder as he tries to remove a fly. Now imagine about three of those in a row every five minutes.

I thought to myself... "that's odd!" But odd things happen to me all the time and since it was totally painless (except for the ache that had started long before) I shrugged it off.

However, Thursday morning I was quickly made aware that the pain and spasms had not gone away overnight. Well, shit! I put on my wrist brace and went to work. In the course of the next eight hours I attempted to relieve the discomfort with the brace, heat, movement, stretching, ibubrofen, and plain old general distraction. No luck. After work, I called and scheduled a doctor's appointment for Monday afternoon to discuss a possible cause/treatment.

Hello FRIDAY!! Glad to see my arm is still having a freak-out spaz-attack!!

Needless to say, I caved today and called the Doc back to see if there might be an opening and there was. So at 2:30 I saw the nurse practitioner who did a thorough examination (I know she was testing nerve function and reflexes which came back awesomely). So what was her semi-final conclusion (she ran some test to cover all her bases)?

It is possible that the spasms are being caused by the MIRAPEX!

WTF?!?!?!?!

Don't know what MIRAPEX is? It's a medication used to treat the twitches and spasms of Restless Leg Syndrome! Who in the name of basic sanity creates a drug to treat muscle TWITCHES knowing that a side effect is MUSCLE TWITCHES!! Yeah, that makes a whole hell of a lot of sense!!

So the nurse is weaning me off of the Mirapex to see if that helps. She's checking my electrolytes and making sure there isn't any muscle damage.

As if that isn't great enough... wait for it...

Doc believes that many of my problems could be greatly alleviated by quitting smoking. I am completely okay with quitting (while I admit to enjoying my cigarettes, I am not niave to the consequences)... however, having failed to quit cold turkey and having heard good things, I was more than willing to try Chantex (yes, I know there are some real bad things about it... but I'm willing to accept that).

Unfortunately, my insurance has never covered that drug (though the Ogre Child's insurance will!... lol)

No biggie... I get that they don't cover certain things.

What I DO NOT GET... (wait for it)

Is why they will cover the MIRAPEX that has caused my excessive pain...

BUT...

They won't cover the Celebrex the nurse prescribed to ease the pain until I get weaned off the other drug!!

Oh no... I need PRIOR APPROVAL for that drug!! Right... so I have a 'semi-emergency' appointment that my Doctor's bumped due to excessive pain and I'm supposed to PREDICT that the solution will be a prescription anti-inflamitory to treat the pain until the problem is solved. And... by the time I get the Rx, the doctor's office is closed so asking for something else would mean waiting (in pain) all weekend!!

To top it off, I waited 2 hours for the Rx, and the 10 pill prescription cost me $60!!

WTF!!

They gave me NARCOTIC PAIN KILLERS after giving birth and they didn't cost that much!!!

So the next time the doctor wants to prescribe Celebrex for my pain... I'm going to say... "FUCK THAT... HEROINE IS CHEAPER!!"

(Icing on the cake... I called the insurance company when I got home to see why it had been denied... "Thank you for calling our customer service department, unfortunately, your thousands of dollars in insurance premiums do not allow us to hire 24-hour customer service representatives, so if you could please call us back at a time when it is more convienent for us to deal with you, we'd be more than happy to tell you that we fucked you up the ass and didn't even give you a kiss. In the mean time, if you'd like to schedule a driveby shooting of our headquarters please press one now... *click*" That's right... the automated system hung up on me!! -- FUCKERS!!)