Week Two: Ugh!

Ugh!

Just ugh!

But allow me to likely ramble while I elaborate.

Do you remember the pain I talked about last week?  Wellllllllllll it turns out that pain was something.

Oh make no mistake fibromyalgia pain IS something but last week’s pain wasn’t the fibro pain I’m used to.

Fortunately, three weeks ago I had scheduled a check-in appointment with my doctor.  Then on the day of the appointment something more urgent came up.

Isn’t it always the way?

The next morning I headed straight for the nurse practitioner’s office in another city and part of the group of doctors I see.  He always have open appointments.  I was seen in less than an hour after my phone call.

The diagnosis:

Cervical Ridiculopathy.

RIDICULOUS!!!!!

(Yeah, the irony that those two words contain many of same letters is not lost on me.  Not one effing bit).

Now before I dive off into much more of an explanation of this particular pain I am going to stop myself and say simply I left with orders for an MRI with the potential of surgery looming.

That much pain!

I spent the next day and a half pouting.

I usually only allow myself one day but under the circumstances I needed a little more time to work through it.

What has this done to my efforts to lose weight?

Upset them of course!!!!!!!!

Fibromyalgia and Hashimoto’s have taught me to march through a lot of pain and dysfunction but yet another new issue which may have life-long consequences?

“C’mon body, work with me dammit!”

Sigh.

I was frustrated and not at all totally on plan.

My food was okay.

On my day and a half of pouting, I did “need” a bag of Skittles.

I wanted fruity, sweet.

I wanted to feel better.

The first 8, 10, 12 Skittles were exactly what I was hoping for.  The rest of the bag honestly tasted like shit.  All the flavors blended together.  The waxy, polished shell was annoying and gross.  And, they failed to satisfy.

However, all the parts of my brain which light up in the presence of sugar were awake for the first time in days.

As a drug, Skittles gave me what I was hoping for.

I rarely resort to sugar but….and maybe this is going to be too much TMI for many of you…but when amazing sex isn’t enough of a rush it’s time to bring out sugar.

Yep, sex more than sugar is one of my pain coping mechanisms.

This time it failed.

Ironically even though it was completely a lovely union, when it failed to pull me out of the pain-pit it was a perfect sign something more than just fibro was going on.

When I send fibro pain a rush of intimacy-fueled endorphins, she says, “Thank You Nice Lady,” and calms down at least for a little while.  This time.  Nada.  Okay, not true but only maybe 15-20 minutes of post-coital bliss.

What has pain done to my commitment to move?

Honestly, not much.

Am I doing much with my upper body?  Uhh, that’s a big, fat NO!!!!!!!

But am I still moving?  Yep.  Even on my days when I was “resting” I was still getting up every 60-90 minutes.

How’s the scale look?

Bloated.

Not weight gain, bloated.  Water retention, bloated.

One of the things chronic pain has taught me is just how much our muscles rely on water to process pain and in this case injury.  Any pain event causes the scale to jump not because I’m being ‘bad’ and not doing the things I need to but because my body is in recovery mode.

As much as I know this, it’s soul sucking to see the scale and my body puff-up.

However this experience reinforces my message that when you are trying to lose weight with fibro, thyroid disease, or even your run of the mill ridiculous, ridiculopathy you have to keep you head on straight.  You have to know in advance what you are going to do and more importantly NOT do when pain hits you.

My best advice:  If you can conquer the mental part of the game and only use food as a tool–even a little sugar–to vault you from where you are to where you need to be, when you body is back to behaving you won’t have to battle extra and real weight gain.

My best, BEST advice: DRINK WATER!!!!!!!  If you’re a water-hater like me figure out what you need to do to DRINK WATER anyway.  My new favorite is no sugar, no artificial sugar, lightly flavored seltzer water.  Flavor it!  Infuse it!  Drink mix it!  JUST DRINK IT!

I also love that the name of the store brand is “Super Chill” because I have been needing to do a super lot of chilling this week.

In a weird way my new water find has been a comforting reminder this pain is going to pass.  It might be a speed bump now but it is going to get better.  If I keep my head, it won’t throw me off track too much.

Keep Calm…and move on…even if you need to ugh, ugh, ugh along the way.