Thursday, November 8, 2007

Pain and setback in progress

It figures that life is not going to let things go smoothly for me. I was making progress with my yoga and other exercises, improving my mobility and my pain, and now it's all out of whack. I think I need to make an appointment with my doctor, see what she thinks about fibromyalgia. I don't know that that's what wrong, but I was doing dishes the other night and DH came in and was rubbing my back and I had to tell him to quit because it hurt. Just a light touch hurt, and later on, when the cat jumped on my lap and put his paws on my chest, I about came unglued (granted, the cat weighs 16 lbs, but his front paws weren't holding his whole weight, so it shouldn't have hurt, and normally doesn't).
I've had this happen before, but it usually went away after a couple of days of dosing with ibuprofen or naproxen. This time, it's hung on for over a week, and it's not just my back that hurts, it's most of my joints (my hands and wrists don't hurt, but I don't have the strength in my hands that I normally do). Off and on, it even feels like my skin hurts, well, maybe hurts isn't the right way to describe it. It's more like my skin is very sensitive, and touching it is irritating. Not all of my skin, just in certain areas on my legs and back. Needless to say, it's disconcerting to have this happen just when I thought I had a handle on making improvements in my health.
I expected there would be days when my muscles hurt because maybe I tried doing too much too soon, but I really did not expect my body to go "You bitch, I'm gonna make your life miserable." It's not like I'm working out all that hard, I know enough to take it easy at first, and gradually increase what I'm doing. I wasn't increasing the number of reps I was doing, but I was doing them twice a day now (after having done them once a day for a couple of weeks, I figured twice a day was a good way to go). So now I have to work a doctor's visit into the budget, and hope to hell it's something that isn't expensive to diagnose or treat (yeah, like that's gonna happen). And it makes me wonder if the change in the way I'm eating has anything to do with it, since I've been cutting down on carbs, and adding more veggies in going with the diabetic WOE for DH. Fuck, I hope that's not it, we can't afford to have two different meal plans.

9 comments:

  1. I hope you figure this out. Good luck. <3

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  2. I used to know a lady with fibromyalgia from a message board I frequented a while back. What you're describing sounds almost exactly what she'd described it as being like. Not that I would actually wish it on you, but I DO hope you can figure out what it is - whether it's fibro or something else. And I hope it's not something that's going to cost an arm and a leg to treat, either. I know what it's like to live on a limited budget (been doing that most of my adult life!), and worrying about money on top of health problems is... well... frankly, it's a bitch.

    I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you.

    {{{hugs}}}

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  3. Yeah, it's the not knowing what it is that bugs me. At least if I know what it is, I can research it and figure out what might work for me. Thanks for the good wishes, I'm keeping my fingers crossed too.

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  4. Something that might be happening is a reaction to increasing your exercises. My daughter and I call this exercise flu and have had it happen when we start exercising after a long break or when their is an increase in intensity. It acts just as you describe and goes away in less than a week. I don't know where I put my copy of "Strong Women Stay Young" but the author describes this. You said you had increased the number of times you do your reps so I thought of this. I recently started back weightlifting and 4 pounds using arms only did'nt bother me but 5 pounds on the arms and adding leg exercises at 5 pounds did.

    Some people who switch to a low carb diet have similar issues during the course of changing to a diet more balanced to protein and fat than carbohydrates. Different enzymes are used in a higher carb diet. When I followed the low carb boards this would come up regularly as people started to low carb or came back to low carb.

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  5. That's one of the things I'll bring up with the doctor when I see her. Luckily, she seems to be one of those that isn't fat-phobic. When I saw her for my physical in February, she never brought up my weight, and she told me all my numbers were good, so I was healthy and just happened to be fat, and not to worry about it (what a refreshing change). I still don't like going to the doctor (it's not her, just doctors in general), I don't know if it's because I'm such a control-freak about a lot of things, and my health is something I don't have a lot of control over.

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  6. Oh, I am sorry to hear that you are having these problems. I hope you and your doctor can figure out what is going on soon and get you feeling better. What I thought of was Lyme disease, when you mentioned that your joints are hurting. I hope it's something easy to figure out.

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  7. I don't think it's Lyme, I haven't had any tick bites since I was a kid. I've had this happen a couple of times a year for the last 6 or 7 years, but it usually goes away after a couple of days of OTC meds. This time, it's not going away, and I don't want to keep taking a couple thousand mg of ibuprofen or naproxen every day. That much of anything just isn't good, in the long run, so if I can find out what's wrong and fix it (or at least alleviate it) without a lot of pills, I'll be happy.

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