Using sex as a treatment method

February 12, 2013

Every week WegoHealth hosts a Twitter chat for health activists, and today’s chat was about sex and sexuality. Then a couple hours after that I actually had sex, a rare occurrence. So with sex on the mind, how could I write about anything else?

I don’t have sex as much as I’d like. I haven’t been dating much, and I only sleep with people with whom I feel a connection, so sexconvothat really limits me. Then a couple months ago, I got a text from D. D and I dated many years ago. Then after we dated, we slept together on an off for a couple of years. Then we lost touch for several years. We’d known from the start we’d never work out as a couple – he didn’t believe in monogamous relationships and I wasn’t interested in anything else. Still, he’s an excellent lover, and he thinks that same of me, so we kept having sex. I’d thought about him often in the years that we’d lost touch, so I was pleased when he texted me. We’ve been together several times since, and it’s been great. I have to be on guard that I don’t get emotionally involved, but aside from that, it’s all good. We get along great, we trust and respect each other, and we each think the other is fantastic in bed. Since I’m not dating anyway right now, this is just about perfect. (It would only be more perfect if we could sleep together more often.)

There’s another thing about D: he’s ok with the health stuff. When I first told him, he didn’t bat an eye. He’s always been Feelin' Satisfiedsupportive, without trying to “rescue” me. A lot of us know how rare that is. I once wrote that three different times I have crapped on a guy during sex. He was one of those guys, and he just shrugged it off and suggested we take a shower. Fantastic, right? Even tonight, in the middle of things, he kept starting to grab my arm, then stopping. Then I realized why – I told him he could grab it and it wouldn’t hurt me, and he immediately did. When we were together years ago, that would have hurt, and he remembered and was trying to be careful.

The point is, I can trust D around the health stuff. And that’s why I didn’t cancel on him tonight, even though the past 24 hours had been lousy. The fatigue hit hard last night, for the first time in a month or two. That was physically horrible and mentally discouraging. Then I woke up during the night to a lot of gas, cramping, constipation, and diarrhea. It was a terrible night. It took me several hours to get back to sleep. I woke up in the morning feeling lousy. I got out of bed late. I had no appetite most of the day. I spent most of the afternoon (I spent the morning in bed) watching tv, which I never do anymore. Usually when I have nothing to do I read, but I didn’t have the energy for that today. And to add insult to injury, the hormone mess meant that my sex drive was almost gone. I hadn’t been having sex fantasies, masturbating, or even feeling an urge for sex lately.

So why didn’t I cancel? Several weeks ago I was having a bad day when D was supposed to come over. I was in a lot of pain, and had been for days. I figured it was worth adding to the pain with sex. I’ve written before that sex can help with pain (this is true for me, but I’m not a doctor and am not giving you medical advice,) and that time a couple weeks ago it really did the trick. I felt much better afterwards, with the pain almost completely gone. I figured it was worth seeing if sex might help again today.

And help it did. It helped on many levels. Physically, I think it gave me needed exercise, and will contribute to better sleep tonight. He also gave me back my sex drive, which felt (and still feels) fantastic. Emotionally, it felt great to be close to someone and to cuddle for a while afterwards, having him hold me. Plus, I always feel wonderful about my body after sex. I feel sexy and desirable. Usually I dislike my body. I’ve always been comfortable with my appearance (except during Prednisone-fueled weight gain) but I don’t like the illness parts. This leads to a lot of negative thoughts about my body (such as I hate that I feel like crap! and Why does my body suck so much?). But it’s hard to have negative thoughts about my body after a half dozen orgasms, and after watching D’s reactions to my touch. Besides, how broken could my body be if I’m still capable of making someone scream like that?

Sex won’t solve all my health problems, even in the short term. And sex with the wrong partner won’t help at all. But when it helps, oh boy does it help! I’m not about to miss out on that.

10 Comments | Decisions, Educating, Expectations, Healthcare, Limitations, Medication, Pain, Raves, Relationships: Family & Friends & Dating & Sex, Symptoms | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

Hormones suck and insurance companies suck more

January 25, 2013

I want to cry.  I am not sad or upset, but I want to cry.   That’s the beauty of having a prescribed hormone yanked away.

When I wrote this post a week ago, I figured the med would be approved eventually, so I’d just have one unpleasant month.  PrescriptionAs it turns out, the insurance company denied it completely.  I’ll need to appeal.  Or try another med.  Never mind that I’ve been on this one for EIGHT YEARS!  Never mind that my DOCTOR prescribed it because he felt it was the best option for me.  Nope, the insurance is deciding this one.

Memory is a funny thing, especially when you have cognitive and memory problems.  I know I’ve been off the med for brief times before, and I remember that it made me emotional, but I didn’t remember it being this particular level of hell.  For the last 24 hours, I’ve been a wreck at times and I’ve felt fine at times.  When I feel fine, I figure the other stuff was a fluke.  Then I’m a wreck again and I know that I need to find another solution.  I can’t just wait to see if my body normalizes over time.  (We tried that once.  It didn’t.)

I’ve been really anxious.  And I’ve been obsessing.  Last week, before the hormone change kicked in, I sent a text to the guy I’m sleeping with.  He didn’t answer right away.  I thought about him occasionally, had some nice sex fantasies, and assumed he was busy and would get back to me later.  Then I moved on and did other things.  Yesterday the hormone stuff started, and it was much earlier than I expected.  I sent him an email yesterday and he didn’t respond right away.  I started wondering if he didn’t like me anymore (even though we sent flirty messages earlier in the day and made a date for next week.)  Then I started thinking he was intentionally ignoring me.  He’s avoiding me.  He’s going to ditch me and that’s why he’s not answering.  He’s sick of dealing with me.

Ok, I know how ridiculous that sounds.  Even while I thought it, I knew it was ridiculous.  And yet, I couldn’t stop thinking it.  And I kept thinking about it.  Even when I tried to do other things, I kept thinking about it.  Every time I had an email or a text message, I wondered if it was him.  That’s not normal.  That’s not me.  I don’t usually obsess like this.  And I’m pretty sure that next week I won’t be obsessing and anxious and weepy.  But right now I am.  Right now I’m crying because I got a call about scheduling an appeal hearing for state medicaid, and I couldn’t thinking clearly enough to make an important decision (because of this mess with the medication,) and I started crying.  Again, that’s not me.

There are a lot of good reasons to stop taking a prescription.  I can think of many.  And they all involve choices being made by the patient and the doctor based on what’s best for the health of the patient.  None of them involve money or insurance companies, and yet that’s how my decision is being made right now.  This is just plain wrong.  I’d like to call the insurance company and tell them that, but when I called before, I started crying.  The irony.

So I’m legitimately angry, pissed off, furious.  That’s my normal response, and I’ll happily embrace it.  As for the rest, I’m hoping it goes away soon, so I can go back to feeling like myself.  I miss me.

4 Comments | Expectations, Frustration, Healthcare, Isolation, Limitations, Medication, Rants, Relationships: Family & Friends & Dating & Sex, Symptoms, Unpredictable | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

Daring to dream

January 8, 2013

I’ve come up with yet another career plan.  I’ve made so many plans in the last few years.  This one seems as plausible as any… if I go back to work someday.  As my health got worse in recent years, it seemed more and more important to have alternative plans because I knew I couldn’t keep working the way I was.  Then when my health got really bad, I felt too lousy to bother trying to figure out a plan.  And now I’m back to planning.

Dreaming

The specific plans don’t matter.  They generally involve consulting in different fields where I have knowledge, part time work in areas that would provide benefits, and jobs in fields that I always found interesting but that won’t take too much extra training.  And they all have something in common: they require me to be in better health before I can attempt any of them.

My naturopath told me yesterday that she thinks it’s a good sign that I’m so antsy to prepare for the future.  I know she’s right.  I’ve been thinking the same thing lately.  When I felt so horrible that reading a chapter in a book was a chore, of course I wasn’t thinking about returning to work.  But now that I’m feeling somewhat better, I’m anxious to feel completely better so I can do more!  It’s a strange in between zone, where my brain is jumping ahead and my body isn’t ready to follow.

Of course, this isn’t just about jobs, but I think that jobs are the easiest thing to focus on.  My friendships are awesome, so there’s no need to work on those.  My family is great, except for the sibling I don’t get along with, so there’s nothing to work on there.  I want a relationship, but that means dating, and more than that, it means being open to being vulnerable.  While my health is stopping me from dating, it’s my past experiences that’s stopping me from being vulnerable.  I’ve been hurt so many times, and I’m not ready to go through that again.  Now that I’m having sex again, I don’t mind waiting to date.  I really want to be able to do more in a day, like get a haircut and see friends and do laundry all in the same day.  I dream about that a bit, but the idea of “more” is so nebulous, and so hard to imagine, that I don’t dwell on it much.  I worked at a job as recently as late 2011, but doing “more” without feeling horrible was a long time ago and it’s harder to remember.  So I think about jobs, careers, possibilities.

And obviously there’s the money part.  I don’t know where I’ll be living in a few months, and it all depends on the insurance appeal decision.  I haven’t been buying new clothes, even new winter socks without holes, because of the money.  I fantasize about being able to buy new slippers without worrying about the money.  So earning an income would be fantastic.

The cognitive aspect is important too.  I miss using my brain.  Of course, I’m still having cognitive problems…. it took me a long time to think of the word “cognitive” as I was starting this paragraph, actually.  But if I can work, then I can use my brain more and give it exercise, and if I’m working then it means that I’m able to use my brain, and how fantastic would that be?

I know that returning to work, to the “normal” world, to the world where I don’t dread the question “what do you do?” is pretty far off.  It could be months, it could be years.  It may never happen.  But right now I’m dreaming.  I’m making plans.  Because if it does happen, I want to be ready.

Leave a Comment » | Expectations, Frustration, Isolation, Job, Limitations, Raves, Relationships: Family & Friends & Dating & Sex, Symptoms, Unpredictable | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

When it’s worth the extra pain

January 3, 2013

“Just what kind of sex are you having?”

Unfortunately, sex is a pretty rare occurrence for me.  But last week an ex texted me, and one thing led to another, and yay!  Later I was telling a friend about how sore I was, and not in the more expected areas.  My arms and legs felt like rubber.  My 1-3-2013 10-59-48 AMabs were a wreck.  Standing up and sitting down hurt every time.  She didn’t understand it, and assumed I was having crazy, kinky sex, but how could I possibly explain it? I haven’t been using those muscles much at all lately, so even trying to support my own body weight, for example, was just too much for my tired, unused body.  Sure, I like to be a bit kinky sometimes, like I said last month, but that’s not what this was.  This was just me pushing myself too hard.

And I knew it would hurt.

That’s the key.  Ok, I didn’t know how or where or for how long it would hurt, but I knew it would hurt.  And I decided in advance that it was worth it.  I was careful not to do anything that would lead to more long-term or high-intensity pain, like leaning on my hand in any way, but I was perfectly willing to accept short term pain, like leaning on my forearm.

I made the same kind of decision recently when I visited with a friend who just had a baby.  There’s something so great about holding a newborn.  They are so peaceful (when they’re not crying, that is.)  They have an inner peace that adults just do not have.  They are simple and content and relaxed.  So that’s why I kept holding her even when I was starting to hurt.  And I continued to hold her even as I hurt more.  It wasn’t until the pain got pretty bad, after about 15 minutes of holding this little 7.5 pound darling, that I finally had to give her back to her parents.  I hated to give her up, but I knew that I was about to cross over from short-term to long-term pain, and I didn’t want to go that far.  Still, one week later, I held her again.  And again, I continued to hold her even as the pain got worse.  And it was worth every second.

Pain is our body’s way of saying DON’T DO THAT!  It’s usually a good idea to respect the pain.  And I think that for the most part we’re all good about listening to our bodies when there’s pain.  But for those of us with chronic pain, who experience pain every single day of our lives, there’s no such thing as avoiding pain completely.  And sure, it sounds like a good idea to minimize pain as much as possible, but that would mean missing out on so much in life.  We have the advantage of knowing our bodies better than most, of knowing what will cause and worsen our pain, so occasionally we’re able to make choices (if we’re lucky) of whether or not to do those things.

For everyone else I know, sex and holding babies are fun things and that’s all.  For me, they’re big choices about how willing I am to be in pain for several days afterwards.  It may not be worth it to me to take a walk in 16 degree weather today, especially with ice on the sidewalks and knees that already sore, but I’m looking forward to having sex again tonight, and I’ll be holding that little baby again the next chance I get.  Those are my choices, and I am very happy with them.

2 Comments | Educating, Expectations, Limitations, Raves, Relationships: Family & Friends & Dating & Sex, Symptoms | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

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