Ever since I went off the birth control and started the Lupron (can't really separate the two) I have been having these awful spasms in my lower back. It's not tremors; it's a single spasm, a strong jerk of the spine from somewhere in the upper pelvis area.

And it's getting fucking annoying.

I used to have spasms all the time; back in middle school, I was having them daily. Back then, though, it was at the base of the skull. A couple years after I started on the trazodone (Desyrel, an antidepressant, though I used it as a sleep aid) (twelve years of age), my doctor put me on cyclobenzaprine (Flexeril) to reduce muscle tension, and the spasms mostly disappeared.

It's both startling and outright painful. In the former case, it feels like a sharp bony hand reaching in through your skin and gripping your brain, like someone sticking a sharp needle filled with poison right in through the base of your skull. The whole body goes stiff and it takes a moment for me to crack my neck back into normalcy and free my head of the demonic interference. In the recent case, it feels much the same, except that it actually physically moves my body around, and jolts my very, very tense shoulders -- the same shoulders I go to great lengths not to strain, because pain in the shoulders inevitably travels upward, and if there isn't sufficient intervention (in whatever way -- painkillers, heating pads, lying down to take the weight of gravity off my head and neck, etc.) ends in a disabling migraine.*

And I've had to explain this as best I could to my husband, who gets a kick out of sneaking up on me, that surprising me is ok, but when you marry a physical sensation to that startling, what I get is, for lack of a better word, an intense shock, and it isn't painful in the immediate sense of the word (like getting a cut or a bruise) but it just does this thing to my nervous system, and it's just as bad as outright "pain." On the level, perhaps, of a sucker punch to the gut, or cracking your head off a wall or floor (when it's not serious enough to concuss or make unconscious).

Maybe the problem is just that we don't have a concept for that kind of "pain," as a society, because most people have never really experienced it.

Whatever it is, I'm tired of it. It happens in bed, it happens at work, it happens when I'm doing the dishes or sitting here at the computer. Maybe it's a reaction to the Lupron, maybe it's an interaction with any of my numerous other medications. I'll bring it up next visit to my wonderful gynecologist, but for now, I'm just sick of it.

*I use the word disabling quite literally here. When shoulder/neck pain and/or a headache become a full-fledged migraine, for me, I'm down for the count. I have to have a soft place to rest my head (and body), free of light or sound, so I can curl up and just wish for death instead of actually acting it out. I can't scream, can't cry, can't groan, because the movement inflames the pain. You can tell when I'm headed that way, because I speak very softly, attempting to control my speech such that my mouth moves as little as possible. My shoulders, neck and head stay stiff, because any movement causes pain, and pain building up such that it becomes unbearable is the whole problem. There's a point where there's no turning back, and I have to just suffer it out, taking the painkillers not because they're going to make me feel any fucking better, but because if I don't, it's never going to go away. I can be stuck in this situation for a day -- it never goes away in mere hours -- or for weeks on end, depending on how bad it is, how much I did, whether I can take the adequate time and have an adequate space in which and adequate resources with which to recover.

There was one time, during my first attempt at college, that I was in one of the art rooms for my 2-D Design class (with my favorite prof in the world), working quietly on whichever project it was at the time, surrounded by fellow students working quietly on theirs. And the simple scratching of pencil on bristol, rustling of paper, adjusting of seats, the hum of the lights overhead -- I was ready to throw up, and I knew I had hit that turning point, and I knew that I had to get my ass in my car and drive home right then, because five minutes from now I might not be able to drive safely, or at all. So I gathered my shit, quietly, stiffly and robotically -- moving my body, and especially my shoulders, as little as possible -- and left. Fortunately the prof had gone out on errand, because I would not have had the time or strength to stop and stand and tell him why I was leaving, and have him ask was I ok, and would I be ok and is there anything he can do and make sure you get this done or whatever -- I doubt I would have been able to conduct myself safely in a moving vehicle if I had waited through that, and forced myself to speak, against every inclination of my aching body. I left, without saying a word even to my class partner, and walked as quickly as I could while exerting as little force as possible (do you folks know how fucking hard that is? when you're in that state?) to my car, and threw my shit on the passenger seat and lowered myself down into my seat, and squinted my tired eyes the whole way home, and every step I took up to the second-floor apartment jarred up through my body from heel to skull, and I closed and locked the door to my room and fell down in bed, and I don't remember anything after that. To tell the truth, I don't remember anything after walking out the art room door, but I can tell you what I did because I know exactly how it goes, I've done it so many times.

And you know, I find it interesting that I cannot come up with an adjective that describes the intense sharp pain I felt in my entire body. I know aching, tired, sore, etc. but none of those describe that awful feeling, the tense and stabbing feeling over every inch of skin and miles deep below it. Granted, I've never been good at vocabulary.