An epiphany?

Posted this elsewhere but those I’d park it here for future reference.

My shoulder has been a mess. Two visits to physio so far and another this Friday… normally it should have gotten better after the first go, but nope.

Anyway a friend of mine was dealing with shoulder issues last year which she initially thought was a rotator cuff injury, but turned out to be “frozen shoulder” related to perimenopause. I wondered if my current shoulder issue is perimenopause-related as well, and that’s why it’s not improving.

And then it occurred to me… what if it was perimenopause the first time and people just didn’t know about the connection yet?

I’ve also been getting wicked headaches, another symptom I experienced before going on BCP.

Maybe later I will dig through my old posts  and see if there are any correlations between me going on BCP/HRT and the shoulder getting better. I do not like this, whatever the cause. 

Readjusting

 So after 2 weeks of IF, I'm taking a little break. I don't know if it was the extreme heat and humidity today, or residual exhaustion from swimming the other day, but I had a spell of dizziness this morning while out for a walk that required sitting down immediately to keep from falling down. I recovered ok, and was able to keep going, but it was a scary moment! According to my schedule, tomorrow would be a fast day, but I think I need some more nourishing and nurturing right now. 

Back to normal I guess?

I think a few days of lying in the dark with an eye mask on fixed me up? Or allowed me to recover? Tinnitus is back to usual levels; headaches not so bad now (although as I type that, I’m realizing it’s over a week since I hit my head...)

Anyway I saw my physiotherapist today which usually helps with the vertigo, and he said I was looking fit and must be getting regular exercise, so that is a good sign!

I got some extra air in my tires this morning and am going on a group bike ride this evening, so that should be nice. A social group as opposed to cycling club ride (although I’ve signed up for one of those for Tuesday) so should be light and easy I think. 

Just putting tags on this post... have I never moaned about my vertigo here before? Surprised that wasn’t a tag already...

A bit woogy today

Started off yesterday morning with a 20 minute run. My phone was refusing to acknowledge the headset (aftermath of the bath I guess?) so I ran without music, but it was fine. I had been grumbling to myself about needing to invest in cold-weather gear (it was about 5 C yesterday morning), but got over it and just wore regular tights under my shorts and a long-sleeved t-shirt over my top, and it was fine. No excuses!

Then I went to see my physiotherapist, who was happy to report that my back is a lot better, but did some IMS on my pecs which hurt like crazy! I don’t even know if “hurt” is the right word, it’s just this intense spasm reaction that isn’t really “pain” per se, but boy did it make me yell.

This morning, I woke up to a bit of vertigo, which I do not like. My shoulders are even though (in August when I had vertigo, my left shoulder was up 2” higher than my right). So I don’t know what’s going on. I even got a good night’s sleep last night, even if I was out late!

Still managed to get some exercise in this morning: 30 sit-ups, plus this routine for glutes, which I am doing for the month of November. And then a giant breakfast.

Look at all the B12! I am guessing that’s from the kippers.

The other thing I’m trying out is Intermittent Energy Restriction. I was going to try this before, thinking it would be easiest to fast on the days when my kid is at his dad’s house, but as it turns out those were the days I enjoyed eating the most, because I could eat out, or eat things the kid doesn’t like, like eggplant with lots of garlic! So this time, I’ve worked out that Monday and Thursday are good days for me to fast (not really fast, but keep calories under 600), and then I can enjoy grownup meals when my kid is away. IER has been correlated with better heart health and blood sugar levels, but most interesting to me is the research showing cognitive benefits.

Not fasting and running on the same days though! That would be nuts.

So for now, my schedule looks like this:

Monday	Fast
Tuesday	Run + Glutes
Wednesday	Glutes
Thursday	Fast
Friday	Run
Saturday	Glutes
Sunday	Run + Glutes

Back to the ol' drawing board

Got back from my trip on Friday. 13 days/12 nights on the road, and I didn’t miss a run! I kept up with the C25K every second morning, and Thursday ran week 6 day 1.

But then.

It started about halfway through the trip actually, with vertigo at night in my sleeping bag. But it went away.

And then it came back.

On Friday morning—in a wilderness park about 4 hours’ drive from home—I was dizzy and nauseated and running a low fever (exacerbated by trying to pack up sleeping bags in a tent that was equivalent to a sauna). I spent a fair amount of time lying around thinking, how will we get home? Who could I call who would be able and willing to come all the way out here and drive us back? I'm not sure how one would even get near where we were without a car.

Eventually I felt stable enough to try driving (driving is great! You are basically sitting motionless!) and after building up my confidence on the backroads I headed to the highway and got us home. And lay down.

On Saturday after dropping the kid off at his dad’s house, I saw the doctor. First I saw a resident who seemed to be ruling out a stroke based on the various tests she did (“Tell me what side I'm touching” “Frown” “Raise your eyebrows”) and then my regular doc came in and said, “Boy, when you get sick, you really get sick.” Yep.

And then, “It’s probably a virus,” which is right up there with “It’s probably stress,” in the doctor's thesaurus of synonyms for “I don’t know.”

I went home and lay down some more.

In the morning I thought, I wonder where my shoulders are at?

Sure enough, my left shoulder is 2” higher than the right. So I googled “Thoracic Outlet System + Vertigo” and yes, they can be connected. Then I looked up my saviour, Angus the physiotherapist, to see how early I could call Monday morning for an appointment.

Earliest I can get to see him is Thursday morning at 8:30 (he was booked till mid-September, but they had a cancellation), but I will bet a million dollars that he fixes me up perfectly, and this “virus” theory was utter bunk!

Updates

So I saw the pain doc last week! He asked some very interesting questions and did some very interesting tests, and really seemed to take my concerns seriously. He is also a big fan of my physiotherapist (Angus) which was good to hear. He is sending me to a naturopath and to have a whack of bloodwork done, and also ultrasounds on my shoulder and arm, and testing for something called “Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.” Of course I googled it and thought “whoa, this is so me!” All of my symptoms, even the vertigo and tinnitus and chest pain can be associated with it. and some of the work I did with Angus—“nerve flossing” is what he called it, but now I’ve seen it called “nerve gliding” as well—is specifically recommended as a treatment for TOS. So, you can bet I am going to be doing more of that on my own!

I’m really feeling positive that I can get “fixed.” Finally someone who listens instead of saying “maybe it’s just stress” or “maybe you’re just like this.”

Oh but one thing I forgot to mention to him, which comes and goes but was particularly awful yesterday, is pinna pain—specifically stabbing pains in the anti-helix. The pinna is the outer cartilage-y shell of the ear. It is very difficult to get people to understand when I say “my ear hurts” that looking inside is not going to help!

Terrible day

Well, I had my first adjustment today. Had another bracket added (to the second molar on the lower left) to help pull the second premolar back into position; there is a wire with a sort of kink in it and comfort tubing over half of it which bridges the gap over my missing tooth now. And on the right, where the first premolar is so far out of line that it isn’t even bracketed yet, the comfort tubing has been replaced with a sort of spring to help make more space for it.

So the appointment, like the first time, was uncomfortable with a few ouchie moments, but I felt ok walking out the door. Knowing it would hurt more later, I took a couple of Tylenol3 (Tylenol/caffeine/Codeine) as a pre-emptive measure and went to work.

After I’d been at work for barely an hour, I had a crazy vertigo moment and was trembling all over—like all my muscles were contracting at once—and of course was feeling nauseated and had a terrible headache. I lay down for a bit and did not feel any better, so came home, where I’ve been on the sofa all day taking regular Tylenol.

Tried to eat a sandwich (egg, avocado, tomato) which did not go so well (the tomato was the problem this time).

I did check my blood pressure on the way home—I tend to have low blood pressure but it was lower than normal today for some reason—maybe that was the problem?

For the record, it was 97/57, pulse 61.