Mack Truck anyone!   Ummm YEESSSS! That's exactly it... The feeling that I should be in a full body cast and knocked the heck out for a few days!  Now-a-days when I feel like that the second thing I do in the morning is start dinner. Because it's going to take me all day to do it! The funny thing is I get more done around the house on really bad days than I do on hi energy days. I know I have only a few spoons and no choice but to concentrate on the task at hand because the pain won't let me concentrate on anything else. Unlike a lower pain higher energy day where my body and mind are going a hundred and eighty miles an hour in different directions!  I can remember the feeling of being beaten half to death when I wake up as far back as I can remember. There ought to be some monster in the closet with a Louisville slugger and a ball-peen hammer covered in sweat because it was beating the crap out of every joint and muscle I have! AND I would have believed that before I learned about FMF! 
 
 
Emotions do set off normal flares, brain flares, cardio flares... Now when I say this, its FMF flares that are area specific! Not something else or a different type of FMF. It's the way I describe the localization of the flare because sometimes it sets off a pattern or is that is flares in a body pattern…or is it FMF creeps in where you are vulnerable and flares right there? hmm I really don't know how else to describe it. So I will describe the last flare I had.
 
The end of June I broke a molar, on the right, on top.  Now I started an abscess a few days later which if you have ever had one you know it hurts like crazy. I knew it was an infection by feeling and that the tooth itself hurt! Just that tooth, none of the others. (Granted I have more than one abscess but the others don't hurt anymore.) The other way I knew it was an infection is that the antibiotics made a dramatic improvement. THEN on July 2nd I had my dental impressions done for my oral surgery. Scheduled for July 24th ya'll, Yahoooo! So the stuff they use was very cold so I was yelling. Anyway between the cold and them having to do the impressions twice on top and on the bottom and then the doc coming in to do the last one and asking if he can numb my mouth… Ha ha! I asked him, "with needles?" he says yea. I said "um… no that's why I'm here." The office is based on sedation dentistry! ---insert stressed out ranting here---
 
July 3rd my blood pressure started to go up and I started with the aggravated, annoyed feeling, blisters in the corners of my mouth and some confusion. That night the right side of my head exploded in pain and my teeth were actually throbbing as were my fingers and toes. I could hear my heart beat in my ears and feel it in my eyes. Ut-oh! Took my blood pressure and it was 160/107. So I took my blood pressure meds and pain meds because the right side of my face was screaming! I thought the infection was back with a vengeance. So I did this roller coaster with my blood pressure and pain that even arnica (although it helped a lot), percocet, vicoden, and lots of rest could not stop. All day Saturday my mother took care of me and my kids because she thought I was sicker than her that day! By Sunday I was ready to go to the emergency room. My temp was up my blood pressure was still doing the roller coaster thing, highest readings 165/107 and 138/119. That night I was going to head home and go to the emergency room by my house, they know me there, but the car broke down so Josh couldn't come get me (totlay a God thing). So Monday I went with my mom to our primary and got in as a work in with her. We had 3 nurses on their toes. I was in bad shape and mom was flaring too! So the doc comes in and reads my medication journal and looks me over and tells me …. (Wait for it…….. ) "Your flaring!" This pain that has me thinking that the abscess has gone up into my temple and is pushing my eyeball and the pain was so intense in my ear I couldn't touch it or hear out of that ear. I thought I had a massive infection that was threatening my brain! No I was having an FMF flare! That localized into my TMJ. He tells me that's it. I have no sign of infection. None! No swelling, no redness, and the fact that it started 24 hours after the dental appointment confirms that it's my FMF triggering my TMJ!
 
Well holy cow! So then he tells me no gum, no brushing my teeth, no chewy foods, no hard foods, and my mother, bless her heart, starts giggling. Now she's flaring her butt off from her eye surgery she had on the same day as my dental appointment but she's laughing at me in the doctor's office. She asks the doc, bless his heart, "does this mean no talking too?" AND he says yes! So yippee, my mother can tell me "even the doctor says you have to shut up!"  Thank God we have a sense of humor, a morbid one at times but it's fully functional.
BUT you know what the funny thing was. I still didn't believe him. I thought for sure that I had an infection that was going to kill me. But I would give it one more day just to see if he was right. Josh borrowed a friend's car and came to get me and the kids from my mom's house that night. The next morning, guess what, I woke up feeling great. No pain no stiffness no baseball bat to the side of my head….. Just great!
 
FMF the other F word!
 
SO that sums up my feelings for the day!