Word to the wise...

DH and I finally took down the Christmas tree. It was sad but considering it was dangerously close to becoming a fire hazard, it was time. Unfortunately, all of the ornament wrapping and needle sweeping worked the Pain Gremmie into a nasty frenzy. On top of that, I got it in my beady head to paint my toe-nails. Do I ever learn? (don't answer that). Apparently, my toes decided it was vitally important to sport a fresh coat of polish before seeing my acupuncturist the following morning (in fairness to my toes, it was pretty important...).

Anyway, I had my stimulator turned up high to address said nasty pain (for me "high" is an amplitude of about 5.7-6.0 but, of course, what's considered "high" is patient-dependent). However, I made a total rookie mistake when forgetting to power down the amplitude before turning off the pulse generator. This meant that when I turned it back on, I almost peed my pants from the strength of the stimulation I experienced. Lucky for me, this all happened when I was in a waiting room full of patients at the acupuncturist's office (would you expect anything less?). I let out a yelp the likes of which earned me a number of inquiring glances but I was too busy furiously punching in a more comfortable setting to really care (that's actually not true..I was embarrassed to the point that I high-tailed it out of there).

For those of you who may not know, the body experiences sensory adaptation with neurostimulation. What a patient can handle when first turning on the stimulator is usually much less than what he or she can handle after hours of stimulation.

So, the purpose of this post is to counsel those of you who are about to have a stimulator implanted or who have recently had one implanted. Do yourself a HUGE favor and remember to power down the system before turning it off (particularly when set to a high amplitude). Believe me, you'll thank me for it.

And that's my advice for the day. Now here's a picture of some kick-ass blue eggs I recently discovered at the grocery store. I've decided that, when I grow up, I want a pet chicken that can lay blue eggs....