My back hurt so much last night.  It was awful.  It still feels really tight, and shitty.  I tried a hot shower, yesterday, and it didn’t help.  I’ve been raking my knuckles, back and forth, across the muscles of my back, as hard as I can, and all I feel are a bunch of tight knots.  This a.m. it’s mostly my stomach.  God, please…  don’t let this get any worse.  There’s a certain threshold of tolerance…  a level of pain, so severe, that reason just goes out the window.  It’s a place I’ve been before, many times, and it’s an awful, arduous, and terrifying experience.  Those of you who have read descriptions of withdrawal (at it’s worst) in previous entries, probably get my meaning.  I am not talking about, "oh, this sucks," kind of pain.  I am talking about pain so bad, you beg God to just kill you, instead of making you feel this.  Ice cold, but pouring sheets of sweat, your joints feel like they’re grinding each other away, your stomach acid feels like it’s something much more caustic – something that’s trying to burn through your abdomen, from the inside out.  Anything that can hurt, generally will.  Muscles contract and spasm (and so do the intestines – which is incredibly painful (like you wouldn’t believe).  I’m sure some of you have been through similar or (hard as it is for me to imaigine) worse pain, than than what I am talking about.  But, when it gets that bad, I’ll do anything to make it stop.  Luckily, it hasn’t been that bad, this time around.  I’ve managed to take enough of the right meds, and that does take the edge off.  Nothing cuts through all of it.  Unfortunately…

More later…