Oops...

 So, uhm, recently I made a FB post about the analgesics I've been using to help me through the mother of all arthritis flares, and I have to admit--the CBD liniment has been a blessing. I'm not sure if it's the magic pot infusion or just the icy-hot coolness but it does have a certain immediate soothing quality--a quality of doing something for which I'm very grateful, particularly after I've been knitting in front of the television and then sit down to write. I mean there has been no "magic pill" so far-- Instaflex, Ibuprofen, analgesic cream, aqua aerobics, and sometimes, honestly, sitting an activity out or shortening my walk in lieu of the aqua have all gone into helping me to manage a situation that escalated more quickly than I anticipated.

But yeah. The cream helped.

Until today, when I learned a valuable esson.

I scooped out a bit much and was rubbing it into my hands, particularly around the knuckles, and I remembered my elbow joints were getting inflamed so I decided to put some there. Where the pain was. But first I did that thing women do when we're using moisturizer. You know, that thing where we rub the moisturizer into every bit of skin between point A and point B?

Forgetting, of course, that the skin on the backs of my arms is not in pain, and it's not inflamed and it is, in fact, quite tender...

And within a minute it was awash in the icy-hot flames of liniment vengeance as I tried to decide which sensation I hated most--the pain that was hindering my afternoon writing or the mentholyptic inferno that my skin had become.

I finally decided to just go nap. I could cover my arms with blankets to stop the icy-hot from enveloping my dermis and I could tuck my hands under my chin so the heat could ease up on the hand pain.

And I could resolve, ever so heartily, never to do that again.

When I awoke, the skin on my arms was back to normal--but so were my swollen joints. 

*sigh* I'm really learning to count my blessings.