Spent all of yesterday evening and all night working on updates — first yesterday’s and then today’s. I posted twenty updates for yesterday and twenty for today — and today it was all new cases.
What I really like is when I can add cases that aren’t on NCMEC or NamUs. Like, sometimes I’ll randomly browse through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement database (which, though quite comprehensive for the state of Florida, is little known and has almost no pictures), and as I find cases I could potentially add I will keep plugging their names into Google and other online databases and archives, cross-referencing wherever I can so I can get photos of these MPs and put them on Charley.
It’s a really satisfying feeling for me to be able to add these previously overlooked cases. And I can hope that by adding them to Charley I can prompt other people to start entering them into NamUs, trying to make matches with UIDs, etc. And even in cases that are already in NamUs, I can often find additional information, photos, etc., that is worth putting out there.
But now my back is killing me and I don’t have any lidocaine patches for it. (En route home from the Cormier funeral in Massachusetts, a bottle of makeup remover came open in the trunk of my car and emptied its contents over everything, including my lidocaine patches, which were ruined. And they cost $8 each!) I think I’m going to gulp down a few Tylenol and maybe rub some Tiger Baum on the stiff muscles and try to go to bed.
The Charley Project Blog 
Lidocaine is now available OTC in a topical form. Aspercreme has a version as do a few others. I think it’s $6-$8 a bottle. I used to use prescription lidoderm patches which were ridiculously expensive, now I use the cream and it works well. Maybe try that, I hope it helps!
Lidocaine cream, and prescription lidocaine ointment, doesn’t work for me for some reason. The ointment ought to, since the active ingredient is the same amount as the patches, but it doesn’t do doodly squat. Only the patches do the job.
Wow, that seems unusual. Maybe there is another ingredient in the patches that aids in the delivery of the drug into your system that the ointments are lacking? I do know that there are OTC patches as well, have you tried them? I don’t know the difference in strength between those and the prescription version.
Forgot to add, I usually mix the lotion with some regular aspercreme and use them together. If your issue is inflammatory, this might help, maybe give it a try?
Fortunately my doctor convinced my insurance company to pay for the lidocaine patches this time, and I was able to get them replaced yesterday at no cost to me. Here’s to hoping they keep paying for them.