A quiet relaxing day at home. While I had trouble sleeping again last night I was able to at least get 4 hours in before I found myself wide awake and heading downstairs for the recliner. I think I have figured it out though and the problem is that I am just not comfortable in the bed any longer.

Lying flat on my back or on the side turns out to be painful rather quickly and I end up having to toss and turn to adjust myself. Sometimes the adjusting can take some time to find the exact spot where there is as little pain as possible or at least as little as I can tolerate and still sleep. However when I am in the recliner I can sleep somewhat comfortably for longer then in the bed. No I figure this means I need to buy a Craftmatic bed for a few thousand dollars or perhaps spend another $300 on a second recliner and move it to the bedroom. Let's see what happens with the disability determination. Hopefully sometime in the next week or so we will have that answer.

The pain level today is bearable, if that is possible. Some numbness and tingling but no real burning sensation in about a day which is always nice. I have been feeling somewhat bloated though and that is most likely caused by the Senokot I have had to start taking again. One of the side effects of long term opioid use is constipation and the meds I am on it seems to be the biggest side effect. I drink plenty of water but it is little help with this stuff and if you do not take something like senokot you can end up with a case of hemorrhoids.

I know, it is not something you would typically think would happen but it is a very real problem. I learned the hard way last time and did not take anything when I thought I might be on the road to constipation and once you get to a certain point it takes some time to reverse the effects and that waiting period can be very painful. So if you are on long term pain meds and have not had this problem, then you are very fortunate. If you are like me and eating plenty of fiber or taking a fiber supplement and still having some problems I would suggest taking to your pain management doctor about taking something over the counter. Whatever you do though do not just start taking something OTC if you are on other medications, some of them may interfere with each other and in the case of some of the medications, especially heart medications, it can lead to heart attacks or strokes.