Another infiltration

After making it through all of April without any real setbacks, I had another infiltration today. As usual, my arm puffed up, hurt, bruised, etc. We were able to get another needle going and limp along at a low blood flow rate, so I kinda sorta got dialysis today. We had been trying to do buttonholes again, though just with the arterial needle for now. That wasn’t related to infiltration.

In other news, I’ve been the doctor a few times in the last week with leg pain related to Piriformis Syndrome. A muscle is having spasms that push the sciatic nerve in my leg against bone, causing lots of pain throughout my left leg. Normally you’d just take some anti-inflammatory medicine (like ibuprofen or naproxen), but since those are processed by the kidneys, I can’t use them. Instead, I get pain killers (tylenol didn’t make a dent) and a muscle relaxant to take before bed. I also get to start physical therapy on Monday. I’ve also been doing some stretches and saw a chiropractor. There hasn’t been much improvement so far. The muscle problem could be related to sitting at dialysis for long periods of time without good back support (the chairs are too deep). I’ve been using pillows to help, but I need to find a better solution.