Posted onOctober 18, 2023|Comments Off on Giving Myself A Long Time To Recover (or I’m Hoping This Isn’t Something Worse)
Over a month ago, I started to have some really odd foot pain. It’s been only on the top of my foot, and I couldn’t figure out what would make the pain worse and make it go away a bit. It would affect me when I was walking, which seemed normal. But what was so weird was that it hurt a lot when I was sleeping or lying on the couch. When it started, I thought maybe it was just a really bad bruise and I would give it time to go away. But after a few weeks, I knew it wasn’t something simple like that.
I started with a video appointment when a general medicine doctor, mainly because I knew I would need a referral to a specialist. But I wasn’t sure what type of specialist I would need to go to, so I just explained all my symptoms to the doctor and let them determine what the next steps would be. I had some x-rays ordered and the initial results were that there was nothing seen on the x-ray, which was a relief since the first doctor thought it could be a hairline fracture. But that didn’t answer what was causing the pain so I went to a podiatrist.
I was randomly assigned a podiatrist, mainly because I wanted the soonest appointment available. And it happened to be someone I had seen before for a different foot issue. As I waited for the appointment, things weren’t getting any better but they weren’t getting any worse. So I was just hoping that I could get some answers and make sure there wasn’t something really wrong with my foot.
I finally had my appointment last week. I knew going into the appointment that there were a few likely reasons I was having this pain. And those were a ligament issue, a tendon issue, or a nerve issue. I didn’t know which of those I was hoping it would be since none of them would necessarily be easy things to correct. But I also knew that getting a diagnosis was the first step in hopefully getting out of pain.
At my appointment, I reviewed all the symptoms for the doctor and he did a few different things to manipulate my foot to try to isolate the pain. And in the end, he thinks that I have a tendon issue in my foot. When he was pressing on the tendon on the top of my foot, it was making the pain more intense. But the one symptom that I said that confused him was that I experienced pain sometimes when I wasn’t wearing shoes, which made him worry that it could be a nerve issue. But that’s a much bigger thing to deal with so it’s easier to start with a simple problem and try to see if I can resolve that pain from those steps.
And the things I need to do aren’t too bad. I have to tie my shoes differently so they don’t lace over the affected tendon. I also am using BioFreeze on my foot a few times a day to help the pain not be as sharp. Eliminating the pain isn’t going to resolve the issue, but it makes it more tolerable to deal with while I wait for it to get better. And I might be waiting a long time because fixing a tendon issue can take months. I was told that if the pain wasn’t better in 6 months, then I need to return so we could look into some other remedies or see if I need to see someone else to figure out if it’s a nerve issue. But it might take those full 6 months before I feel better. So I’m just going to have to wait it out and hope for the best at this point.
I’m used to dealing with so many types of pain on a day-to-day basis, so it’s not too horrible to have another type of pain in my life. It’s not fun and I wish I didn’t have all this extra pain, but I know I can get through it. And hopefully, before 6 months have passed I will be in just a little bit less pain so I can just have this issue as something in my past that won’t be another medical mystery that needs to be solved.
Posted onSeptember 27, 2023|Comments Off on Time For Another Medical Mystery (or Hoping To Figure Out What’s Wrong)
I feel like I’m generally a decently healthy person. I have a few different ongoing medical issues, but most of those are caused by things out of my control. My hip issues are due to a birth defect that was discovered when I was in my 20s. My liver issues are due to a one-in-a-million side effect from birth control. And my autoimmune issues are things that I have no control over, although I’m trying to manage them. But I do seem to get many random health things that happen to me or I find out something is going on when I’m trying to get information about something else. I don’t have a lot of things that randomly happen that I seek medical attention for specifically.
But for the past month, I’ve been dealing with some very intense foot pain. But this seems so odd because I would expect foot pain to be on the bottom or side of my foot, or even in my toes. But this is pain on the top of my foot. The closest thing I can think of is when you tie your shoes too tight and you feel that pressure on the top of your foot. But for me, it’s a sharp and intense pain that comes and goes depending on how I flex my foot. And I have no idea what caused it.
I have been trying to cut back on things that might make the pain worse. I haven’t been picketing because walking has been painful. I have been careful with some specific exercises in my workouts because I noticed that doing things that have me on my toes makes it worse. And I’ve been trying to rest in the hopes that I could make this pain go away on its own. I figured I might have done something to cause a really deep bruise or something, so rest would be the best way to manage it.
I gave it a month, and things haven’t gotten any better. In some ways, I think the pain has actually gotten worse. I’m glad it hasn’t migrated to another part of my foot, but I’m experiencing those sharp jolts more often. And it’s starting to affect my sleep and wake me up if I move and flex my foot the wrong way. So I knew I needed to do something about it.
I finally started the process of getting this pain figured out. I had a video appointment with a doctor last week to get a referral to a specialist. In my video appointment, I put the camera down so they could see my foot and they had me show where the pain was and what seemed to make it flare up. I knew I wouldn’t get a diagnosis over a video appointment, but they said that it was likely a tendon or ligament issue. There’s a small chance there is a fracture in one of the bones on the top of my foot, but very unlikely.
I got my referral to the specialist, but I haven’t heard back from them yet so I don’t know when my next appointment will be happening. But I’m hoping it will be somewhat soon so I can start figuring out how to make this pain go away. However, I did start the diagnostic testing after my first video appointment. All I’ve done so far is a series of x-rays. They did multiple views of my foot so hopefully, if it’s something that can be caught on an x-ray, they will see it and be able to tell me what it is. I don’t know if I’ll need to do more tests, like an MRI, but I guess I’ll find that out when I have my next appointment.
In some weird way, I’m lucky that I deal with pain already on a regular basis. This new pain isn’t affecting my life too much since I already have to do so much to manage pain normally. But it’s still frustrating when something new pops up and I have to work on figuring out what’s happening. And hopefully, this is something super minor and I’m overreacting. But knowing my history, I could also be dealing with another random and rare situation and I’ll be going down another weird medical rabbit hole to figure out what’s happening and how to take care of it.
I knew this past week of workouts might be a tough one for me with pain and nausea, and I was just grateful that it didn’t happen during Mayhem. But even with how prepared I normally am for my bad weeks, I really wasn’t ready for this one. I rarely think about skipping my workouts unless I’m really sick, but there were several times this past week I debated if it was even worth it to try to work out. I know that doing something is better than doing nothing, but I felt like I was close to doing nothing in several of my workouts.
Monday was the best workout for me this past week. I still struggled with pain and nausea, but it wasn’t as bad as it would get later in the week. I also got to sleep in a bit and do a later morning workout since I had the day off work. I think that helped make things a bit better for me. Because I did a different workout time, I was in a 2 group class instead of my usual 3 group class. And I got to have a run/row workout that was themed around choosing your own adventure.
For the first half of class, we had 4 distances for cardio and 4 distances for the rower. We got to pick which distance we wanted to do, but we couldn’t repeat a distance after completing it. I decided to start with the shortest distance for both and work my way up. That seemed to be the best way for me to do it, plus, the longest rowing distance was 1000 meters, and I didn’t want to do that one. I made it through 3 of the 4 cardio distances and was working on my 3rd rowing distance when it was time to switch to the floor.
On the floor, we had 6 blocks. The odd blocks were all the same and the even blocks were all timed blocks with each exercise being 1-minute long. In the odd blocks, we started with 1 rep of a plank jack, a plank pop, and a squat jump. Then we did 2 reps of each exercise and continued working with 1 additional rep each time. I usually got to the 3rd or 4th rep before the block was done. And I did use the bench for my hands which allowed me to do the exercises without getting too nauseous. For the other 3 blocks, they were 4 minutes long and we had 1 minute to do a specific number of reps for each exercise. And there were 2 exercises in each block so we did each one twice. In the 2nd block, we had bridge rows on the straps and side planks. In the 4th block, we had push-ups and lunges and I did chest presses on the straps instead of push-ups which helped me not feel as bad. And in the 6th block, we got to pick which of the previous blocks we wanted to do again and I the chest presses and lunges. It was a lot of work with very little rest, but I was glad I had the day off to rest and recover.
Tuesday’s workout was another signature workout: Everest. The last time I had done Everest was on my birthday and I had gotten a new PR for that workout! But this time, I was feeling really horrible. I almost skipped class that morning because my cramps were so bad I was struggling to sit upright at times. But I wanted to work out with the hopes that it would maybe help me feel a bit better since I know that can sometimes work. But I knew going into the class that I wasn’t going to PR and I wasn’t planning on tracking my distance either.
With Everest, when you have a 3 group class, you increase or decrease the incline on the treadmill by 2% each time. I usually don’t do that on the bike, because the resistance level gets really high even just increasing it by 1 each time. But I normally start the resistance close to my base level to make sure I get it really high for the peak. This time, I started it much lower than my base and the highest the resistance level got was only 2 higher than my normal all-out. Even though the resistance level on the bike was always pretty low compared to what I normally do for Everet, I didn’t get close to even my worst distance in the past. I was pedaling very slowly the entire time and wasn’t trying to do anything too crazy. I knew I wouldn’t have a good attempt, but I was ok with that.
On the rower, we had 2 blocks. In the first block, we started with a 500-meter row and then did lunges before sitting back on the rower and doing a 400-meter row. We continued that pattern by decreasing the rows by 100 meters each time. The second block was similar but we started with a 100-meter row and increased it by 100 meters each time. I did the lunges for the first few times in the first block, but getting on and off the rower was getting painful with my cramps so I spent the rest of the time just rowing and taking breaks when I needed to. It wasn’t exactly what we were supposed to do, but it was something.
And on the floor, we had 1 long block with 2 mini-blocks in it. And as we usually do, we did each mini-block twice before moving on. The first mini-block had plank low rows with weights, tricep extensions, and side plank dips. And the second mini-block had plank single-arm reverse fly, hammer curls, and bicycle crunches. For both of the weighted plank exercises, I did them bent over instead since that wouldn’t make me as nauseous. I was going slowly through the exercises so I didn’t get to the point where you do all the exercises as a single block.
Wednesday was another really horrible day for me with cramps and I debated again about canceling my workout. I spent all day on Tuesday in a lot of pain and it was so much worse than I can remember having in the past. I was staying on top of taking painkillers on a schedule, but that was barely taking the edge off. But I did make it to my workout and just decided that I would do what I could and I told myself I could leave in the middle if things got really horrible. But I know myself and I’m stubborn enough that if I go to class, it’s really unlikely that I will leave.
For cardio, I really tried to do what the workout was supposed to be but I was in a lot of pain when I sat up on the bike. I rarely use the handlebars on the bike and lean over because that makes pedaling much more awkward for me. I like to sit up and bike without holding on. But I couldn’t do that this time and had to lean over and hold on the entire time. The focus of the workout was doing all-outs with recovery after, and I just tried to pedal when I could and took a break when I needed to. I wasn’t exactly following the workout template, but I was trying.
The rowing was timed along with cardio and I did the same thing with just trying to row when I could and resting when I needed to. And on the floor, each block was focused on supersets and doing similar exercises with variations back to back. We had lunges (which I did as the same type of lunges since I couldn’t do the variations), hip bridges, chest presses, and plank taps. I did my best with each exercise and just didn’t go too heavy with my weights which helped me not need as many breaks as I was worried I would need. But for the entire workout, I knew I didn’t do as much as I normally could, even on my bad weeks. I tried to not focus on the negative and just remember that I showed up.
Thursday was still a rough day for me, but it was slightly better than Wednesday so I was happy about that. At least that morning I didn’t debate about canceling my workout so that was nice.
For cardio, we had the same block repeated 3 times. We had a surge cardio challenge, so we were in our push pace for most of the time with a 15-second surge when you were supposed to go just a bit faster twice in each block. I was able to use my normal push pace and was able to pedal a bit faster for those surges. Each block ended with an all-out, and while I didn’t use my normal all-out resistance level, I did use the level between my normal push and all-out.
For rowing and the floor, we had a switch template. When we started the block on the rower, we did rower, floor, rower. And when we started the block on the floor, we did floor, rower, floor. In total, we had 3 segments for each but they were broken up. The rower was the same as cardio with a push row with surges. I tried to make sure my wattage got a bit higher in the surges, but it wasn’t easy with how I was feeling. I did manage to only need very limited breaks in my rowing, so that was something better than earlier in the week. And on the floor, each time we were there we had 2 exercises. We had neutral thrusters and high rows on the straps, single-arm snatches and squats, and hammer curls and skater lunges. The floor went a lot better than expected even though I had to modify a lot of the exercises to make sure I could get them done.
Considering how bad I felt this entire week, I’m honestly just glad I made it to all my workouts and didn’t have to cancel the morning of. It wasn’t an easy week and I know my workouts weren’t that intense or always what we were supposed to do. But showing up is better than nothing and I’m glad that I’m finally starting to feel better. I know this week might still be a bit rough, at least at the beginning of the week. But hopefully, I will be able to challenge myself a bit more and feel like I really am getting in a good workout instead of just showing up and doing something.
Posted onApril 7, 2023|Comments Off on One Busy Week And One Unscheduled Week (or I Guess This Is Balance)
Last week for me was a bit of a busy week. I had some really funthings that I got to do and I was around a lot of people. It felt like a week I would have had before the pandemic. And I was surprised that I wasn’t feeling burnout after being so social since that’s something I’ve experienced before. I was just living my life and loving having things to do and being around others. But I guess my new way of balancing is having one week on and one week off because this week has been the exact opposite.
I knew this week might be a tough one for me because I was expecting to have my pain and nausea kick in. And it did do that right after I got home from Santa Barbara (I was so glad that I wasn’t feeling horrible while I was with my family). And this month, it has been extremely bad. I have been taking all the medications that I have available and it hasn’t been taking the edge off. I’ve been working a lot from my bed because it’s uncomfortable to sit up at my desk for too long. And I’ve been using my heat pad so much that I’ve been turning on my air conditioning even though it’s not hot out, I’m just getting overheated from having the heating pad on me for so many hours in the day.
I’m glad I didn’t have anything really scheduled for this week because I just wouldn’t have been up for doing it. And I’ve also been exhausted so I would probably be tired if I were doing something and not enjoying it the way I should. As much as I’ve been trying to get enough sleep each night, I’m not sleeping well and I can see that in the app I use to track my sleep. I’m tossing and turning all night and I feel like I’m dragging all day. It’s not that I’m going to bed too late, I’m just not sleeping when I should be.
I know that this week is not necessarily normal for me. I also know that every month I can have a week or two like this. It’s always just frustrating and annoying when they are as bad as this week has been so far. I don’t have a lot of motivation to do stuff, so I have to put my focus on doing things that I have to do like working. But anything outside of my required things each day seems like too much effort. I’m trying to not be upset with myself for acting like this because clearly, my body has needed this week to not be a social one. But when I was so happy last week with how being out in the world again made me feel, this can feel a bit depressing.
I don’t have any plans for this weekend yet, but I also don’t want to make any plans until I know how I feel. I might need this weekend to rest and relax or I might be craving being social again and will make plans at that point. It’s so hard to know what I’ll want to do when I don’t know how I’ll be feeling. And I also worry because I could be feeling ok one moment and then I start experiencing really bad nausea again. So it can be better to lay low instead of making plans and having to cancel them. And hopefully, it won’t be that much longer before I feel ok again and I can get back to trying to make some fun plans.
Posted onMarch 21, 2023|Comments Off on Starting To Be Tired Of The Rain (or This Doesn’t Feel Like LA)
It feels like it’s been raining forever this year. I know that isn’t necessarily true, but it has been a lot of rain in a short time. Some of this has been a dangerous amount of rain and I’ve been very lucky that where I live hasn’t been in a flood zone. I’ve seen a lot of issues from the rain, but at least it’s not flooding like other locations have had. But even when it’s not dangerous amounts of rain, it’s been raining on and off for quite a while.
I know we need the rain. There’s no question we’ve had a drought for a long time and that this rain is helping to make that not quite as bad. And we should see more positive results from the rain over the summer when the snow melts and we get that water. But even though we need the rain, it’s still frustrating and I’m starting to get tired of this weather.
I have joked for years that the reason I like living in LA is that I want to be able to choose to be in the snow and cold, not be forced into it because I live somewhere that normally gets that weather. And yes, it has snowed randomly in LA this winter, but at least that’s not normal and I didn’t experience it. But even with it just raining, it was a lot of weather that so many people weren’t prepared for.
I really try to stay home when it’s raining. I don’t like to drive too much since so many people aren’t great drivers in the rain. I’m not as good of a driver in the rain either, so it’s not just other people. But because we don’t get rain like this normally, the roads aren’t designed for situations like this. I mainly just drove to my workouts and to the few things I attended, and I always saw flooding on the roads where storm drains couldn’t handle that much water. I would time my errands so I could do them when it wasn’t raining since most of the parking lots aren’t covered and I didn’t want to risk slipping in a puddle or something else.
And I have issues with my hips when it’s raining and those have been continuous for quite some time now. I don’t want to take pain killers every day, so I’ve just been dealing with the pain unless it’s really extreme and preventing me from things that I normally do. But being in pain for weeks at a time isn’t something that I’m used to dealing with since it hasn’t been like that for me for years. And I try to remind myself that this is likely due to the weather and not that there is something worse happening with my body. But it’s still something in the back of my mind. With the pain, I also have been having issues sleeping since I wake up if I move and I’m in pain. And not sleeping well can affect so much in my life and I worked hard on trying to be better about getting enough sleep.
I know that we are supposed to get some more rain this week, but I’m hoping that we are almost at the end of this. I wouldn’t mind it if it was only raining overnight and during the day it was clear or if it was only once or twice a week. But right now, having rain pretty much every day has just felt like a lot and I’m ready to have some more normal LA weather.
Posted onMarch 10, 2023|Comments Off on Being Social And Out And About When In Pain (or Of Course This Would Happen When I Am A Bit Busier)
I haven’t been busy in quite some time, at least as far as my social life goes. I’ve been busy with work and things like that, but I haven’t been doing a lot after work and usually just lay low most days. I am trying to work on fixing that, but it’s not as easy as just saying I want to be busier. And of course, whenever I want to start planning things, I just lose motivation when I’m done with work for the day because I’m usually pretty exhausted since I get up so early. But I’m trying and sometimes it works for me.
But even though I say I want to be busier, there are plenty of times I’m so grateful that I don’t have much to do outside of work. Whenever I’m dealing with pain and nausea, I really want to just stay in bed and rest when I can. I do still go to my workouts and I still work, but I don’t do much else. I work from my bed or from the floor when I need to. Being able to move and work where I’m most comfortable when I’m not feeling well is just one of the reasons I’m so grateful that I work from home.
And of course, getting busier just happened to line up with when I’m dealing with a significant amount of pain and nausea.
I’ll share in my posts next week about what I’m doing, but in normal times I wouldn’t consider myself that busy. But I have a few things happening that cannot be postponed so if I want to be a part of them I have to do them now. And when I knew that this week was likely going to be a bad week, I was hoping that maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. Sometimes I expect a lot of pain and nausea and it really doesn’t kick in that much. I will always have some that I have to deal with, but when it’s tolerable or manageable with medications, it’s not that bad. I’m uncomfortable and maybe a bit awkward if I’m breathing through a wave of symptoms, but it’s nothing like when it’s really bad.
Fortunately, even though my pain and nausea are pretty bad right now, it’s not the worst I’ve dealt with. I am able to get out of bed and the symptoms are lessened by my medications instead of feeling like they are the same whether or not I take something. But I’m uncomfortable and sometimes the best way to feel better is to be in really weird positions in a chair or on the ground. That’s not going to be possible at the things I’m going to. But I’m going to do everything I can to feel ok when I go out and am around other people. At one thing, I’ll be around just my friends so if I’m really not able to feel ok I can let people know and they will understand. But I still want to feel ok so it’s not a big deal or something that I have to work around.
At least I’m not so busy that it will be overwhelming and it’s only a few events I need to worry about. And they aren’t back-to-back days so I’ll be able to rest in between them and maybe those rest days will help me feel better for the next time I have to be around others. And of course, when all my symptoms should be ending, my calendar is pretty empty outside of my usual obligations. But maybe I’ll be able to add a few more things so I can continue working on doing more outside of my house and I’ll be more up for it when I know I’ll be feeling ok.
I know that I’ve been saying I want to do more things and get out of the house more and I also know that pain and nausea can be 2 weeks a month of my life. So it shouldn’t be so surprising that they happen to overlap. I do wish it wasn’t like this, but I’m going to do my best to make the most of the fun that I have coming up!
Usually when I am sick with a cold, I have a somewhat predictable pattern of how things go. It starts with a weird scratchy throat that feels more like I can’t quench a thirst than a sore throat. Then I have the typical symptoms of a cold for a few days. And finally, I start to get better. And when I’m getting better, I usually don’t have a regression of symptoms other than congestion. It can take longer for me to get over some colds than others, but I normally can tell when I’m starting to get better and am over the hump.
But this cold that I’ve been dealing with for over a week hasn’t been following the pattern that I’m used to. My sore throat was different before I had cold symptoms, so I didn’t think at first that I was getting sick. Most of my cold symptoms were gone on Tuesday, but my sore throat was getting worse every day. I was struggling to swallow anything and even drinking water was extremely painful. And I was starting to not be able to breathe as deeply as normal because my throat was really swollen. I also started to lose my voice, which was really odd. I knew this wasn’t what a normal cold is like for me, so I told myself that if I wasn’t better a week after the symptoms started, I would go to the doctor.
That one-week mark was on Wednesday and I kept calling to try to get in to see a doctor. But there were no appointments until next week, so if I wanted to try to see what was going on sooner, I had to go to urgent care. I know that going to urgent care is for stuff like what I was dealing with, but I would have preferred an appointment. But I didn’t really have an option so I went in after work on Wednesday and prepared to be there for a while.
It was pretty crowded when I got there, but I was seen about 2 hours after I arrived (a sore throat isn’t the most urgent thing in urgent care so I knew there would be a wait). I explained the timeline of my symptoms and how I thought I had a cold over the weekend but that what I was experiencing at that point didn’t feel like a cold. I knew it was very unlikely it could be strep since I don’t have tonsils, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something that needed to be treated.
The doctor I saw was very nice and he understood my concerns. And he agreed that it was the right move for me to come in just to confirm that I was doing all the right stuff to get better. I didn’t get another Covid test since I had taken a few at home and my symptoms weren’t really what you would expect with Covid. He checked my ears to make sure I didn’t have an ear infection and then ran a rapid strep test even though he knew it probably couldn’t be that. But I appreciated he wanted to confirm since some people can still get strep after having their tonsils out. But as expected, it wasn’t strep and it wasn’t anything else that I was checked for.
My diagnosis: I likely had a cold over the weekend (as I assumed) and my sore throat and laryngitis were due to inflammation in my throat and vocal cords. The inflammation could be just from the cold or I could have had another random issue at the same time such as allergies. But all my remaining issues were due to inflammation so I needed to make sure I resolved that. I was prescribed two different anti-inflammatory medications (basically Advil and Tylenol) and was told that it might take 3-5 days before I’m better.
When I went to the pharmacy, I also picked up a few over-the-counter items. I have used the throat numbing spray before when I had a sore throat, and I really should have thought about getting it when things were bad earlier in the week. But at least I got it while I was there so I had something that I knew would take some of the pain away.
I’m still dealing with a pretty sore throat and I still don’t have a voice, but I do feel a lot better than I did when I went to the hospital. I can tell some of the inflammation has gone down but I also know I have a few more days to go before I probably will be better. But to have any relief from the pain I’ve been experiencing over the past week is nice. And hopefully, by the start of next week, I’ll be feeling better and can finally get back to my normal routine again.
Posted onJanuary 16, 2023|Comments Off on Getting Through A Tough Week (or Rain And Pain)
I knew this past week of workouts would be tough on me since it would likely be a week of bad pain and nausea. I didn’t expect the extra pain because of all the rain, so that just added to the difficulty of the week. And as much as I wanted to challenge myself in my workouts, I knew I just had to do what I could and hope for the best.
On Monday, I wasn’t feeling too nauseous but I was having quite a bit of hip pain. So I had to work around that and make sure that I didn’t do anything that was too painful for me.
For cardio, we had a long block that had pretty short intervals. We did a push pace to base pace and the each push/base interval was the same amount of time. So it was a 30-second push pace and 30-second base pace for the first interval. And they went up by 15 seconds each time. At the end of the block, we had a 30-second all-out.
On the rower, we also had a long block. We started with squats to front presses with a medicine ball and then we had a 200-meter row. Then we had the medicine ball exercise plus lunges before a 400-meter row. Then those exercises plus shoulder presses and then a 600-meter row. I actually didn’t get beyond that because my rowing was so slow, but it was a decent amount of work for what I could do.
And on the floor, we had neutral grip rows, sumo squats to upright rows, squats, and high rows on the straps. None of the floor exercises were too hard for me with the hip pain, but I did have to take some time with the squats because those were starting to bother me a bit. I wasn’t in pain, but I can tell when an exercise just isn’t feeling right and I need to make sure I’m not having sloppy form or something else that could cause pain later.
Tuesday I was definitely feeling nauseous plus still had some hip pain, so again I had to go easy and listen to my body. I knew that both of these feelings were temporary and that soon I would feel better, but it doesn’t always make it easier.
We had 2 blocks for cardio and both blocks had some incline work in them. We alternated between a regular push pace and a push pace with an incline with a base pace in between. I did go higher on my resistance levels to do the incline work, but I know I wasn’t pedaling that fast for either of the cardio blocks.
On the rower, we did stroke drills for both blocks. In the first block, we did a 12 stroke drill, rested, and then repeated the drill with the goal to beat our distance from the first one. And after that second row we had squats before repeating the pattern again. In the second block, we did 15 stroke drills and had lunges instead of squats.
And on the floor, we had one long block that had cluster sets. We had 3 exercises to do as cluster sets and we did each one 3 times. We had chest presses, tap squats, and overhead tricep extensions. For the sets, the first time was supposed to be 6-10 reps and then the second time was just to do as many as possible.
Wednesday’s workout was a benchmark and I knew it wasn’t going to be a great one for me. My nausea was pretty bad and I just wasn’t in a good mood because of how I had been feeling all week. This time, the benchmark was the 1 mile challenge, and I knew I had done really well on it the last time. This time, I just wanted to get through it and see what happened.
Our entire cardio block was focused on the benchmark. I knew I would finish in under 10 minutes, but I wanted to see if I could maybe do it in under 9. I didn’t put the resistance level that high since this benchmark is all about speed. I also knew that it would make things a bit easier on me since it wouldn’t take as much effort to pedal. And somehow, I made it just under 9 minutes so I was very happy. It was far from my PR, but I hit the goal I had set for myself.
On the rower, we had different row distances and we were supposed to do jumping jacks between them, but I knew I couldn’t do that. So for the entire row block, I just rowed as long as I could and then rested when I needed to. I wasn’t worried about distances or anything like that, I just kept going to maximize my time on the rower.
And on the floor, we had circuit work. We had 2 rounds of each circuit and then we did them as one long block after that. We had single arm rows and chest flys for the first circuit and step-ups and deadlifts for the second circuit. I was able to lower the bench so I could do the step-ups, but they did take me a while since I had to make sure I stayed balanced.
My hip pain was finally starting to be done by Thursday, but my nausea really kicked in hard. Plus I was dealing with very intense cramps so I don’t think my lack of hip pain helped me too much. But I knew this would be my last workout of the week so I wanted to just try the best I could.
Every section of the room had 3 blocks for this workout. For cardio, the blocks were always a push pace, an all-out, a 1-minute recovery, a push pace, and an all-out. In the first block, the push and all-outs were 1-minute, in the second block they were 45-seconds, and in the last block they were 30-seconds.
On the rower, we were timed the same way as cardio so we had the push and all-out rows. But instead of a recovery, we had the minute to do 10 overhead presses with a medicine ball and then we could rest for any time that was left over. I usually didn’t have much time to rest, so I just got my feet back into the rower and had a few seconds to breathe before doing the next set of push and all-out rows.
And on the floor, we had 2 exercises for each block. In the first block we had goblet squats and then we were supposed to do jumps to shuffles. I did squats to calf raises instead of the jumps. The second block had lateral lunges and skater lunges. And the last block was all core work and I really struggled with it with all my pain so I just did crunches for that last block to make sure I did something close to what we were supposed to do.
Considering how bad this past week could have been, it wasn’t too bad. I’m hoping that this week isn’t bad either and at least the end of the week should hopefully be ok for me. And even though I won’t have another benchmark to do this week, I can still try to keep pushing myself and making sure that I work extra hard when I feel ok to make up for weeks like this past one.
Posted onDecember 13, 2022|Comments Off on Not Starting My Week Off On The Best Note (or When It Rains It Pours)
I knew that yesterday was likely to be a rough day for me. I had been dealing with pain and nausea over the weekend and I knew it would only get worse as this week went on. And I know that my worst day for side effects from my injections has been either Monday or Tuesday since I started them. So I had mentally prepared myself for how I would deal with those things.
Getting prepared usually means making sure I have foods I can tolerate and won’t make me feel worse as well as starting to take medications as soon as I might have any symptoms to stay on top of things. I don’t like to medicate when I don’t need to, but when my nausea gets really bad I usually need to take something before it gets to that point in order for them to help. If I feel horrible and then take them, they usually just take the edge off of things. But if I’m smart and take them early, then I can sometimes make it so I don’t feel things too much. Or maybe I’m just getting used to feeling rotten so I’m getting better and tolerating things. But over the weekend, I wasn’t feeling too horrible so I didn’t think I needed to worry about taking medication just yet. But of course, I should have known better when I had that thought.
When I woke up yesterday, I was pretty nauseous and that was before I had done my injection. But what made things worse was the extra pain that I was in. We’ve had a bit of rain lately and I thought it was done by yesterday. But when I got up, it was pouring outside. I’m not great about checking the weather and I don’t watch the news that often, so I was definitely unprepared. I’m lucky that I don’t have to be outside too much. And yesterday I only had to drive to go to my workout. But the bigger issue for me with the rain is how much pain I’m in during that type of weather.
My hip always does horribly in the rain or when the pressure in the air is different. I know this is something that a lot of people deal with. Typically, I think people who have broken a bone have this issue. For me, my hip surgery shaved off the top of a bone, so the way it healed was very similar to what a broken bone does. I’m guessing that’s why I have this issue. It’s not something that any doctor has been able to confirm with me, but it’s common enough that I feel certain that I’ve figured out why. But just because I figured out why doesn’t mean I know how to make it better. And often when I have this weather-related pain, it’s not helped by painkillers.
So yesterday was a triple-issue day for me. And that just made the day pretty miserable for the entire day. I did whatever I could to try to feel better, but things just weren’t helping. I hate when I feel so uncomfortable in my body and there’s nothing I can really do. I’m just lucky I work from home and can move around while I’m working. So if things feel better if I’m sitting on the ground, I do that. If I feel better laying in bed, I bring my laptop into my room and I can work just fine from bed. Ideally, I’m working at my desk, but that’s not always the best option for me to be productive.
I’m hoping this was just a one-day thing for me. I know the weather is getting better, so I won’t have to deal with the extra hip pain. And having that not affecting me will take the edge off of things a bit. But I know the pain and nausea are likely to get worse during the week and I have no idea what my side effects will do. So I just have to wait and see what happens and try to manage whatever issues come up as I figure it out. But even though the rest of the week could be worse, this really was an annoying way to start my week when I was expecting things to be rough but not this rough.
Posted onOctober 13, 2022|Comments Off on Getting Through A Few More Doctor Appointments (or Hoping For Some Positive Outcomes)
I continued with my numerous doctor appointments this week. I had one in-person appointment and one phone appointment so far this week. And this weekend I think I will have some medical testing done. Like I said in my other post, I have a lot of appointments this month and they just happened to pile up. But I’m working on getting through them one by one. But they are all for good reasons and I’m hoping that through all these appointments I will have some plans for how things are going to move forward for me.
My first appointment this week was my in-person appointment. This was with someone in bariatric medicine, which was through a referral from my therapist. There are a few new medications that can help with weight loss, even though they are used off-label, and I wanted to learn more about them. My therapist couldn’t go over those with me since they weren’t her expertise, but she knew that bariatric medicine would be able to do that.
I was a bit nervous going into that appointment. Maybe it’s just me, but I have always thought of bariatric medicine as weight loss surgery. And I knew that I was not interested in doing that. There are a lot of reasons why I don’t want surgery, and I didn’t want a doctor trying to convince me otherwise. I know that surgery is usually the option with the best results, but it just wasn’t something I was willing to do.
Fortunately, my appointment went a lot better than I expected. I really liked the doctor that I met with and she did discuss the various options with me, including surgical ones. But once I said that I was not interested in surgical options, she didn’t discuss it further. We went over the history of my weight, various diets I’ve attempted, and my eating disorder. She was very clear that nothing she could help me with would help with my eating disorder, and I knew that. I take Vyvanse to help with that, but I think my history of dieting and other weight-related issues has really messed with my metabolism. I can have what should be perfect food days for multiple days in a row and I won’t see any weight loss. There should be at least a little weight loss when I know I’m not overeating. Or when I’m sick and not really able to eat, I don’t lose weight when I know most people do. So I wanted to find a tool that might be able to help my body lose some weight while I do the rest of the work myself.
Going into my appointment, I specifically wanted to discuss a few different medications that all were essentially the same thing but with different dosages or protocols. The one downside to these is that they are all injectable medications and I really hated that idea. But I think my desire to see if this would work was higher than my fear so I was willing to try it. And after going over my medical history and other information, the doctor agreed that one of these injectable options could be something that helps me. It’s not a guarantee, but I at least want to try it.
So I was prescribed the medication and then had to be taught how to use the injectable pen. It’s similar to what an EpiPen looks like, but there are multiple doses in each one so I had to learn how to select the correct dose and change out the needle. This is something I will need to inject once a week, and I started the same day I saw the doctor. I was terrified to do it, but I watched all the instructional videos and did it while laying down on my bed in case I passed out. And I was shocked that I didn’t pass out! I was shaking pretty badly before and after the shot, but I think that was just nerves and nothing else to worry about.
I hope that each injection is as easy as this first one was. I won’t have my next one until next week, so at least I have time between each one. And because of how this medication can affect you when you start it, you start with a dosage that is below the therapeutic dose. So I might not notice results for a little while as I build up to the dose that is supposed to work.
My second appointment this week was my phone appointment with a general medicine doctor. This was to get a referral to orthopedics because of the pain I’ve experienced recently. I’m feeling much better now, but I also know it’s better to get checked out since it’s been several years since I’ve seen anyone in orthopedics. I didn’t know if this phone appointment would be all I needed for the referral, but the doctor I spoke to could see my history of working with different doctors in orthopedics as well as the notes that I will likely need more surgeries. So she put in my referral without asking too much or needing me to come in to see her first. And I’ve already spoken to orthopedics and I’ll be seeing them in about a month. I think just making sure I’m ok and having a new game plan will be smart since I know I will need additional surgeries at some point.
And the other things I have to get done are medical tests related to the appointments I had this week. I need to do some blood work for the doctor I saw in bariatric medicine just to have some baseline information since this new medication has some rare side effects and it’s important to have a bit of monitoring around that. And I also need to do a general x-ray of my hips to prepare for my appointment with orthopedics next month. I know that in the past, my hip issues are not seen on x-rays, but that’s the process when you start with a new doctor. And after my appointment, they might order an MRI since that’s how they can really check how things are. I don’t have to do either of those tests immediately, but I would like to get them out of the way so that’s why I’m trying to get them done this weekend.
Over the next 4 weeks, I have 3 more appointments. I don’t know if I’ll have more than that, especially with how quickly appointments piled up already, but at least I’m getting all this done so I can make sure that I’m doing the things I need to do for myself and I’m as healthy as I can be. And hopefully, this new medication will help me with losing weight, and when I see the new doctor in orthopedics I will have a good plan figured out for my next steps.
Time For Another Medical Mystery (or Hoping To Figure Out What’s Wrong)
