Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group what time of the day is worst.. pain wise?

I think Brother Lon best worded it! I feel the same way. I dont understand why your doctor said that. When I visit my rheumy I have to fill out a form asking how I feel and how long my MORNING stiffness lasts...hours/minutes. Along with a bunch of other questions.

I must say morning is worst for me, then I pull myself up by the boot straps...then noon till about 4 I shuffle along...then start spiraling downwards from that point on...

Hope this helps...buggy

HI,
I would have to say morning.. as the morning stiffness is lousy, spend 30-40 min stretching then walking the dog to relieve some of it. Then as the day progresses I start to loosen up some.. night is better, but that is probably because I am laying down with my heating pad. My husband calls it my " new best friend."

I could have written your post!

I can sleep ok as long as I toss and turn a lot, but then I don't sleep heavy. When I wake up I'm stiff and my back hips and shoulders hurt. Stiffness goes away about an hour into work, where everything goes from stiff to full on pain from the drive to work and sitting at my desk. When sitting at my desk I try to move around a bit (drink a lot so I get up to pee a lot,) and stretch a bit. By the end of the day I'm so achy and sore and tired and bi@#&y all I can do is go home and sit on my heating pad. My new life is now in 30 minute cycles. I can't do anything for more then 20-30 minutes without having to do something different. At work I get up and walk when my back and hips hurt, but after a few minutes of walking I hurt in different joints and spots. When I sit back down again it's like I never left.

I like whoever said when does it hurt most, morning afternoon or night and they answered yes. I think that will be my answer for now on!

hi- sickofit, i noticed that you ARE a redhead, so am i. that being so, us redheads are genetically predisposed to having more pain sensitivty than do others. it has something to do with some genetic marker, and CNN had some kind of article regarding dentists and redheads who seem to have more pain.
well this study crosses over to others also, doctors, and anestheologists, etc.

us redheads got it worse than others. but to answer the question what time of day it is most achy, for me is morning and later afternoon. my feet and achelles tendons are swollen and all my tendons for that matter are worse in the AM. then bad again in the pm.

Evenings have always been the worst for me. Since I'm on Remicade, morning stiffness isn't an issue really, but I still get pain in the evenings. Used to toss and turn like a rotisserie chicken at night. A memory foam mattress really helped with that, and Remicade.

And there's always low level pain during the day, but that is also improved since being on Remicade. Some of it is AS, some, I'm not sure what - maybe fibro, maybe I'm going nuts, who knows.

Evenings can be pure hell.

And there's a spot on my left occiputal area that never stops. Morning, evening, nighttime, always there. The Remicade hasn't touched it, celebrex doesn't touch it. There's only one thing that helps it, and even that doesn't always work fully. It comes and goes in intensity from barely noticable to I'm going to rip my freaking skull apart to make it stop, but it's always there.

Hugs,

Your brave sue my doctors wont inject anywhere near my neck or skull my pain specialist told me its too dangerous any were in that area.
Kevin

thanks kevin about the "brave" comment.

i wouldn't get anything injected near the spine, but this was just very topical (just the thin flat muscle over the skull). really it sounds scarier than it was, think that's why i always opted out in the past. it was just a little bit of topical lidocaine.

when you're in a lot of pain, i think you get braver in the things you'll do to stop it. i know you can probably relate to that statement. that's often my own gauge to my pain. and like you, i let my doctors guide me in what we should do.

and i had just had SI cortisone injections (without sedation.....the without sedation part was dumb! on my part, in future "i want to be sedated!"), so the injection to the head was so less painful, probably why it didn't hardly hurt at all. yes, i know the SI cortisone injections are controversial too, but i had really good success with it in 2002, though then the injections were more topical that first time, so that's why i didn't think i needed the sedation this time. from what my doctors have told me, a little cortisone many many years apart should be ok. all i know is inflammation that won't let up is not ok, so finally, i went for it.

brave? or desperate? probably much more of the second.
some might even say foolish though i wouldn't, but i guess we all have to make our choices after being counseled by our doctors.

It's funny, I've had this for years and I'm almost certain that it's related to my optical migraines, as this is where any pressure I feel during them emanates from. However, my chiro suggested last week that it might be related to the spur (or whatever it's called) at C4/5. Referred pain. She might have something there, but this has been going on for so long and it's definitely in the occiputal area, not further down.

It doesn't actually cause headaches that I can tell. It's localized to that one spot. It's just always there, no matter what intensity it is. Sometimes, very rarely, it goes away completely for a few minutes, which is freaky because I think something's wrong when it disappears like that! Very weird.

I never even thought to ask for specific pain relief for it. Hmmm. I do have nights when it doesn't matter how I lie, whatever side, I cannot get comfortable. The pressure on that spot is awful at those times. I just try to breathe and find a way of lying that's less uncomfortable.

I'll ask my rheumy about that when next I see him. Thanks!

Warm hugs,

do ask about it, can't hurt. i know we talked about occipital muscle cortisone injections if it were inflammation. occipital nerve injections if it were more the nerve. and then the trigger point injection. for me it seemed to be the latter, so that's what we did and it worked. (even though i still have the neck problem due to the trap / rhomboid trigger point that is the underlying cause of the problem, working on that now).

anyway, pain docs and physiatrists do these sorts of injections. maybe other doctors too. but these are two disciplines that might look at it for you.

good luck with it. its a pain when your head is in pain.