Autumn

Well, Autumn is definitely here, where I live. Almost unseasonably early, but no complaints from me.

Had my annul physical, and my PCP (Primary Care Provider) congratulated me for being down 42 pounds since last year. I should be more happy about that. At least they weren’t in my face how that wasn’t good enough, and pushing semaglutide. They also agreed a meat only diet should not be required. But . . . they did have a free sample of Ozempic. Not sure if I will take it, though free is free. Like protein bars or shake mixes, is it ok if it’s means to an end? Certainly one free month’s worth won’t get me to my goal, but if it nudges in the right direction, one could argue I might have less pain and more energy to keep at it.

This is my last day of the corticosteroid prescription that has kept my pain at bay. A little bit on my shoulder and knee has crept back in while weaning off the dosage, but I’m trying to remain optimistic. I’m certainly doing much better when my whole upper body doesn’t feel like I’ve been in a wind-tunnel slapped repeatedly with debris going 180 mph for an hour.

Speaking of that, I had heard counseling can help dealing with chronic pain, so I found one that can work with my schedule, and finally had an appointment. I’m not in a lot of pain now, but I’m sure I have plenty of issues to work through. They gave me a nice pep talk that 40 pounds, even slowly, is still 40 pounds and I’m progressing in the right direction. The also noted it’s “not been that long” since my major surgery in May. I must be very lucky because I swear after 3-4 weeks I was ready to get back to normal life. Sure, I’m not an athlete, but I was antsy to start exercising and was hardly in any pain from the actual surgery. Considering my age and lack of superb health, hallelujah.

I was ordering some items online and snuck some compression gloves into my cart. I have not tried them yet, and if I continue feeling great, maybe I won’t have to. But I wanted to be prepared, and they weren’t that expensive. I don’t think that makes me too pessimistic; just realistic. And if the gloves could make a positive difference to keep me feeling great after the rx, even better.

Ha, speaking of that, I was able to get on an old size 4.5 ring yesterday. The 4 ¾ felt more comfortable, but I could get into the 4 ½. The time those fit, when I had them sized down, was when I was 100+ pounds less than I am now. What the. We’ll see how my hands are after the rx ends, though, right?

Now what to do with all this yarn . . . perhaps I should save that for another post.

Pain-Free, What a Concept

Strangely mostly pain-free. Wow, is this what it feels like to be normal? It’s a short-term prescription, but hopefully it will have long-lasting effects. Might as well enjoy it while I can.

It’s funny to see what people are calling HIIT (high intensity interval training) on youtube, especially since I avoided it for so long. See, I get the idea to push yourself for a bit, and then let up. But back when I was in shape I was already hitting BP 140-180 and I thought what, you’re telling me that’s not enough? And if you’re going to push yourself say, 2 minutes (or whatever), I thought you might as well push yourself as long as possible, right? Get that much more out of it? Why “only” do intervals if you can push yourself and haven’t keeled over yet?

Right now I’m looking at the stuff I’ve been dong and seeing it labeled HIIT and I think you’ve got to be kidding – this is easy. Some of them are doing the activity for 50 seconds, resting for 10 (or various combinations). I’m trying to see if I can push through and not use the 10 second break because that would be even better, right? Let alone the ones that are 45 seconds work and 15 second breaks. Geesh, if I had know it was this easy I would have gotten on board long ago. Of course maybe it’s because some of these are old-people exercises, but not all of them.

Then this bizzare idea that a person can exercise for a smaller time-frame and it still counts. 10 minute cardio? Unheard of when I was younger. I thought one had to do at least 25 minutes in order for it to “count.” I came from the background of ok, how long to we want to exercise? Am I ready to commit to 30+ minutes? Is it worth dragging out the treadmill if not? I wish I had contemplated a less serious approach could still be beneficial instead of a more all-or-nothing approach. Now when I work from home I can do a few minutes on each break. I don’t have to wait until lunch or after work to do a “serious” work-out. What a thought.

Silly Girliness

I’ve never been particularly feminine or girly. One of my mother’s chief complaints was that I didn’t like to dress up and she didn’t want to be seen in public with me (thanks, mom). My one weakness is sparkly stuff. As a child, it’s glitter or crystals. If you try to adapt it to being grown-up, it becomes jewelry. I don’t go for expensive jewelry, but since there’s so much variety of cheap and pretty stuff out there . . .

Last year when I had the cancer scare and waiting for yucky tests and results to come in, I got a ring that ended up kind of having that specific meaning associated with it - hope I don't have cancer. Somewhat recently I thought maybe I should wear the “hope I don’t have cancer” ring more often to see if it could motivate or scare me into eating better. You can tell that didn’t work.

I was on this cheap website my spouse told me about (therefore it’s not my fault, right?), and I thought hey, this one could be a sort of “condolences you can’t eat food like that anymore, but you can look at this ring instead.” Ha. I eventually gave in and bought it, cuz, why not. Now the funny thing is that my size 6 rings are so loose I’ve discovered I’m almost a size 5. Good grief. I still need to lose 100+ pounds, how am I already a size 5? The lowest I ever was, when I had 17-point-something body fat, and WW threatened to kick me out, was a ring size 4.5. Even if one loses weight from the extremities first, this seems weird. I’m still in the “morbidly obese” range (not merely obese, morbidly so). But more importantly, my stupid ring hasn’t even arrived yet and it won’t fit. Wah. How much does that serve me right? I have little ring sizers, so it’s not the end of the world, but still. Of course it’s the cheap kind of website where returns and exchanges are not allowed, and I knew this before purchasing. Oh well.

Weight Loss Desperation?

The prescription I’m taking the next few weeks makes me monumentally hungry. It commonly causes weight gain. I’m upping protein and plants, but may not be enough. Think I may need to resort to incorporating drink meal replacements into my life. Is that an indication of failure? Maybe I should use things like this to re-kick my weight loss even after I'm on the short-term rx? Idk. In theory it's at least partially my fault for being in pain since I'm so heavy. And if it hurts so much to move . . . Of course there are also those injectables and weight-loss surgery one could try. People have been pushing keto type diets on me. After researching and discussing with a nutritionist at work, I don't think that would be a balanced and healthy idea for me. Maybe it could work for some people, but I believe it is also my right to pursue other options (I've been kinda scolded for not doing keto lately). Hopefully the rx helps, so maybe I'm getting ahead of things.

I am not going to have bariatric surgery to lose weight, and I am skeptical about the injectables. Guess I wondered if drink meal-replacements were a gateway act of giving up hope.

Work drama has not helped overall well-being, but not going to go into that. Let's just say escalating stressors there.

Score One for the Rheumatologist

Yay, another provider doing a good job. Maybe you have to see specialists to get better results? Is that the secret?

They did a great overall exam even though I was only complaining about my one knee and one shoulder. Unfortunately they said I was inflamed pretty much everywhere (hands wrists, elbows, knees, ankles) even though I felt pretty good today. They are going to have me get more imaging and a 5 week prescription and see how to proceed based on those results.

Let’s tally the positive points. By saying I was inflamed, they validated my suffering. Not only that, but they apologized for not getting me scheduled sooner (what? It was only 3 or 4 months? Everyone is booked out that far). They were interested in what remedies had or had not worked, and asked if I had any questions before leaving. Follow-up appointment scheduled scheduled without issue.

What a refreshingly positive experience. Even better the front desk was nice. Overall score? Pretty decent, even if I had to wait a while since they were running almost 45 minutes late. Still, I'll take it!

Anti-Inflammatory Foods

As I sit here in pretty immense back pain, already having taken an NSAID prescription (for the shoulder,) muscle relaxants, and Tylenol, I’m thinking ok, maybe I really need to get more anti-inflammatory foods. Yes, I know they have whole recommended diets, and books, and so on. I’ve read numerous articles off and on, and since that isn’t sinking in, I switched it up and watched a youtube video. As if that would be more convincing. It was not, but probably because I didn’t choose a great video. Here were some of the highlights they suggested.

Ginger, garlic, and omega 3s I’m more likely to get from pills than actual food. A few years ago I had high cholesterol and got that warning to do something about it. I already love garlic and used large quantities in food (actual garlic, not merely powder). I tried taking a garlic supplement religiously. I dropped 20 points in 3 months. I figured ok, diet is fine, but the supplement probably has more than I could realistically eat. Same with ginger. I used to eat ounces of dried ginger daily, at first because I thought it might be cheaper than pills. But in order to make it palatable, sugar is the usual go-to, and sugar causes inflammation. So again, taking a high dose pill seemed more straight-forward than eating it.

Broccoli. I’ve gotten so broccoli-ed out lately. It’s not evil, but . . . can we put it in a blender with all those other things like kale and somehow transform it into something I don’t mind ingesting? I jest, because I’ve been taught so adamantly that one should never drink their calories if trying to lose or maintain weight loss. Maybe I can do cauliflower sometimes. That’s still in the cruciferous category.

Chia Seeds. See above, but even more so. I know one can mix them into other things, but I haven’t found a desireable mix-in strategy yet. Still, I ate a spoonful today after being reminded that inflammation is one the reasons it's good or me.

Avocado. I can do that. Expensive, but not disgusting.

Leafy greens. Sure, I can do that (already am).

Berries – YES. I could do berries all day long, every day, if I could afford them and not get lightheaded due to lack of protein.

Of the options available today, I took my supplements for ginger, garlic, omegas, had some chia seeds, berries, and cauliflower. I know there are more foods out there; this is just what I looked at today. Still in enough pain that it is difficult to concentrate right now. Probably time for more biofreeze or salonpas or something.

Yay New Knee Sleeve

For starters, miracle of miracle, Amazon.com delivered to the correct address (gasp) and I didn’t have to go to a dozen apartment buildings, up all the stairs in an attempt to track down where they left my package. I put “special instructions” for them to verify the street address, and re-stated it. Gee, maybe it worked (knock on wood).

Even better, it fits how I want it to and feels great on my knee. The first one I got earlier this spring, professionally recommended and fit by a Durable Medical supplier, is too lose on my knee and keeps falling down no matter how I try to fold it over or jimmy-rig it to stay in place. Not sure if it wore out, or the 5 pounds I lost since then were isolated to my knee, but suffice it to say I needed a new one.

After way too much time reading reviews, evaluating total number of reviews and ratio of 4-5 star vs. 1-2 star review . . . measuring every which way and comparing to my exiting, sleeve, I took a stab in the dark while sleep deprived and ordered one. It’s a tad snug and sits a little lower than it should, but my body is not correctly shaped for these in the first place, so in my opinion, it’s perfect. Trust me, the last one was always baggy around the bottom because of this. Anyway it provides the perfect amount of compression and feels great (except a tiny bit itchy from being new). Happy happy joy joy. And it was a SET of two sleeves instead of one. I only need for one knee, so I have the luxury of using one and washing one at the same time (ooooh, aaaaah). I might actually be able to walk without my knee getting swollen and feeling like it’s going to explode. You know, the unwanted pressure, like when you have a sinus infection so horrific you have difficulty concentrating on anything except the fantasy about pounding a nail into your forehead to release the pressure? You don’t know that feeling? Ah, maybe it’s just me.

Fingers crossed this sleeve holds up well and keeps my knee supported for a few more months.

Score One for Sports Medicine

The verdict is in – rotator cuff tendonitis.

That was almost the last thing I thought I was afflicted with. Right above frozen shoulder (since my shoulder isn’t frozen). I thought rotator cuff ailments were only among active, or athletic people. I sit at a desk all day. Why would my rotator cuff tendon be inflamed from that? Yet it seems plausible. They said one thing gets off, and then everything gets off, or in the way, or effected by muscles/body trying to compensate. I can buy into that. Sometimes it’s this part of my arm, sometimes the opposite side of my arm. More importantly they didn’t simply ask me to describe, but they did the poking and prodding, and asked me to press this way or that wa to see what hurt or didn’t. They gave me a short-term anti-inflammatory prescription and some exercises. Some of them are ones I’d come across, some new.

The amusing part was where they asked me to press against their hands in various directions. Seemed almost surprised I had toned muscles. Yes, me fat, but also have muscles. Sure, not a lot, and pressing some directions I definitely gave up more quickly because it hurt so much. But yay, I have muscles. Maybe even a surprising amount to the doc, based on their reaction.

At least I have a name for it now. You know I’m not going to sit here with 6 exercises and only do them three times a week. I'm going to try to do them every single day. I’m going to keep searching for other exercises and stretches. But at least now I know if I’m in the right direction. I know that the freaking painful towel stretch is good for me and I'm not doing more damage.

3 Months Post Op

I was reminded it’s been 3 months since my surgery. Doing pretty well. Honestly hadn't given it much though since I returned to work - thinking how long it's been. They say can take up to a year to fully heal, but I haven’t noticed any difficulties directly related to the incision sites. Scars still turm purple-black with temperature fluctuations. I guess I could hope that the muscle soreness/pain twinges in my arms and legs might be because my surgery site is grabbing extra feel good nutrients and the rest of me is depleted of nutrients and that’s why they’re cranky. Yeah, that’s it. Sure, let’s visualize that as a twisted logic and why one should have hope it’ll eventually feel better.

Want to go on record that I didn’t resume activity too fast after surgery. Although I was a smidge impatient to go back to exercising, I knew I couldn’t start up right where I left off. I did wimpy weenie slow modified movements of everything. The shoulder started aching a couple weeks prior to surgery. I still haven’t done any real weights yet. I pulled out the 1-pound wrist weights a couple of times but everything hurts too much to do much with them. And it’s now been a month and a half since I got the green light. It’s not like I whipped out the 10 or 15 pound weights and was surprised things hurt.

I experimented for two weeks on the shoulder and I give up on what to try next. If I push myself hard and long enough, it’s nasty, and then it eventually gets better late evening. I’m sure the lesson here is that I should exercise first thing in the morning. I cannot find words to stress enough how much I am not a morning person. Caffeine in hand, I head out to work bleary-eyed before breakfast. I might not even trust myself to send out important e-mails in the first hour if I’m still half walking up. To suggest I not only get up earlier, but early enough to hydrate and be conscious enough to not injure myself doing what seems like semi-strenuous activity, take a shower, and then go to work? Uhm, not unless I’m on a swing shift. All for the hopeful reward of possibly feeling better by late afternoon? I think not. 2 minutes of slow Cheater Tai Chi before work? Maybe. But 20+ minutes of regular exercise?

Two more weeks until I can get into see the doc about my shoulder and follow-up on my knee. Fingers crossed they have some ideas for me. If this is simply getting older, all I can say is this really sucks.

Chi – Cheater / Rebel

Something more light-hearted here. Not meant to offend anyone.

A while ago I got (re-)interested in Tai Chi and learned its relationship to QiGong. Cool Asian-ish practices of well-being. Can be applied to well-being for physical health, spirituality, and martial arts/combat. I don’t mean to offend anyone who has this as their religion, especially as I’m a no-nothing Western-er.

I mentioned to a healthcare professional a while back that I’d tried some Tai Chi youtube videos and found them relaxing. They set me straight that I was doing it wrong. Very wrong. They lectured me on what it’s supposed to be like. Long story short, I tried some of their suggestions, but it made me not enjoy it anymore, so I stopped. But who cares? I’m not teaching others and corrupting the practice that way.

The funny thing is, from what I learned on-line the common thread is that even if there are similarities, there are hundreds of different schools and traditions of Tai Chi. There are thousands of different schools of Qigong. A family starts the tradition and passes it down, but a different family elsewhere has their own version and does the same, and that’s fine if they don’t match. Qigong is supposed to be a vast array of movements and practices, one move here, another move here, like exercises, where one doesn’t necessarily have to do them all in a specific order. Tai Chi, on the other hand, is supposed to be where you put those moves into a prescribed order and sequence. These ideas seem pretty common in what I read.

Boy did this person dis-agree. They said there is only ONE way to do Qigong, and it MUST be done in a specific order, and the order is always this, and if you don’t do it this way and you’re exhausted afterwards 5 steps, you’re doing it wrong. Felt like they really put me in my place. I looked into the ideas they had, and attempted some of the tips they told me were absolute, and it made it something I no longer wanted to do. But is there any reason I can’t go back to the possibly very warped and cheating way the internet says I'm allowed to do if if I enjoy and benefit from it? As long as I don’t go about preaching it to others? (shhh, don’t tell on me)

Not everyone builds great architecture. Some make little play forts in the back yard. Some people are world class champion ice skaters. Some of us try to get from one place to another on ice without wiping out and are elated if we can stop on our own without hitting something or someone first.

Week Two Progress

I hate how much pain I am in this week. That’s a strong word. I am acutely frustrated with how much pain I am in this week. Two more weeks until the doctor appointment to ask about the shoulder pain that I’ve been experiencing since April. This week’s tactic has been to try youtube shoulder exercises and do some of the arm exercises I used to. The result has been strenuous pain during and after, eventually subsiding to some pain relief several hours later. It does feel better than the initial starting point pain, but it takes a while to get there. Not really fun even if it does eventually improve for the evening. Today I couldn’t convince myself to hurt enough in the morning, so this afternoon I’m still at the really hurting point despite Tylenol, ibuprofen and bio-freeze. Bio-freeze helped initially, but not long lasting. I can get away with using it while I work from home, but what about when I go into the office? We're not even allowed to use smelly lotions. Pretty sure the intense menthol aroma would be frowned upon.

Even if the intensity of the pain is not horrific, it’s nearly relentlessness. It's thethe constancy that drives me nuts after a while. It wears on a person after a while. Doing even 10-20 minutes of painful exercises for the reward of lesser pain hours later is mildly encouraging, but not really a morale booster. They say keep moving more, and you’ll hurt less, but how much torture is normal to get there? This isn’t casually warming up stiff muscles with a leisurely walk. This is attempting those HIIT work-outs while wining, grimacing, and occasionally holding my breath because it hurts that much. Today with my opposite arm throbbing despite all he otcs, I guess I couldn’t push myself into quite enough pain to achieve delayed relief. Shame on me.

Also trying stretches and massage in addition to otcs.

Week 2 Trial & Error

Started looking for more shoulder/upper arm exercises on youtube. I try to only go with ones that are from doctors or physical therapists. Even then, I’m only going to try what I feel comfortable with.

Which exercises to try? Is it impingement? Rotator cuff? Tendonitis? Capsulitis? I decided to conduct an internet search to see if I could narrow down if anything sounded familiar. Yes, big mistake. Soooooo many nasty sounding things it could be. Bursitis, arthritis, adhesive capsulitis. Muscle pull, tear, or fracture (I didn’t know muscles could fracture?). Calcium deposits, tendon rupture, acromioclavicular separation, Distal Clavicle Osteolysis. Need I go on? I decided to stick with more basic search words (shoulder, biceps and triceps) and go from there. I know biceps are on the front of the arm, triceps on the back. Uhm, what’s on the sides?

Week One Status (what's next?)

Diligently keeping the pain log including what seems to hurt and when. Patterns seem pretty consistent, though intensities vary a bit.

The day starts out great, a tiny bit of soreness as if I used some muscles, which sometimes makes me excited that I’d like to work a few more and build up tolerance. But by noon I’m glad I didn’t do anything because I'm increasingly sore for seeminly no reason. By the evening shower, almost any movement hurts and triggers thoughts of dude, this cannot be normal.

The idea to keep moving slow and gentle was because I read something that if you give yourself too much rest, muscles atrophy and everything will hurt. I thought I'd given it plenty of rest, so I was trying to not be so much of a wimp.

This is getting old really fast. I said I would continue the current status quo for a week. What to try for the next week? Cuz I’ve got to admit, I’m itching to try something differnt. Even if I have no idea what to do.

The general biggie recommendation you hear is "ice and rest." Ok, uhm, I have a desk job. I do most carrying of tiny objects with my other hand. The only activities difficult to avoid are shower and getting dressed. Those don't hurt until I try them, and by that time it's too late, and it's also over, so it's also pointless. Like I put on a shirt, ouch, that hurt. It's not like I need to do that repeatedly therefore I think ok, maybe I should stop and rest. I've even modified those activities to use the opposite hand/arm/shoulder as much as possible.

Icing the shoulder is not very easy. I could hold an ice pack over the unhappy parts, but then I can't do anything else. I've gotten wraps and packs, and the only way to try to hold it in place ends up hurting more and strangling my armpit. So it's not like I can ice it several times a day unless I simply go to the freezer, grab an ice pack, and then stand around for a while waiting to feel better. I don't have that kind of extra time until after work. Then half the time it hurts to put the ice pack on anyway, so I'm not motivated to keep it there.

I suppose the other thing I can do is try those youtube videos. Already watched a couple. Hmm. For consistency, does one try only one video per week? Otherwise if you try out a whole bunch, and pain and soreness is delayed, who knows which one really sucker punched you.

I did google articles on the difference between soreness and pain. It feels like I have both. Had to guffaw over the part where it says "it may be time to seek medical attention. Ha. Seek, yes. Then wait. In my area, anyway. Three months average to get an appointment anywhere besides urgent/care Doc In The Box places. So I'm waiting and trying to think of what to attempt next.