Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Its all connected

Just like the song says:

The foot bone connected to the leg bone,
The leg bone connected to the knee bone,
The knee bone connected to the thigh bone,
The thigh bone connected to the back bone,
The back bone connected to the neck bone,
The neck bone connected to the head bone...

Basically I have tingling from my left foot and lower leg with pains all up through my hip, back and shoulders into my neck and around into the right side of my face and jaw. Its all connected. Some times I have lots of pain, sometimes I am just uncomfortable and there are rare moments when nothing hurts.

The funny thing is that two years ago I went on a snowshoeing trip and came home in amazing amounts of pain and basically couldn't walk. After suffering (in silence as I do so well) for a couple of days, I went to the doctor and was told I had bursitis in my hip. Ice and advil were the prescription. A couple of months later, I went to my primary care for a follow out and mentioned this little adventure to her. She referred me to a neurologist because I complained about tingling in my foot and lower leg. At the time the EMG came back clean but then I was diagnosed and we said 'let's just put this on the back burner for a while'. Now voila, its all related to my stupid back. Should have paid attention to the stupid song a two years ago. Who needs medical school when we have music to tell it like it is?

Call me cynical this morning but yesterday my back was cooperative most of the day and through going out with friends. Then driving home, my back started to hurt a lot - good thing it was a ten minute drive. Last night I woke up at 230 am, took another pill, iced my back for a bit, and then got back to sleep approximately 30 minutes before the alarm went off. This means a total of about 5 hours of sleep.

Now all this lack of sleep causes weight gain. I found proof of this while at the gym yesterday and reading a highly intellectual magazine - either Glamour or Cosmopolitan, I can't remember which, they just sort of blurred together - both highly reputable journals. There was an article about how you can lose weight simply by sleeping at least 7.5 hours a night. I am not getting my 7.5 or 8 hours and my scale is going in the wrong direction. Now I know there is a correlation.

Yesterday I also managed to get to work, do some work, and then do my part to help the economy by shopping, and then met friends for dinner. Today I have to build the shelves I bought for storage in my closet. I could wait for the weekend for assistance and if my back hurts I will but now I want to get organized. Actually I have to motivate and get moving again this morning... All this running late business is a little stressful.

1 comment:

Debby said...

Seriously Caroline, when I worked night shift, I was always tired. I noticed that I was eating a lot of 'fast energy' type foods, heavy on sugar. Which lead to heavy on me. There definately is a link between sleep and weight. When you are exhausted, your body is clamoring for energy (junk) foods.

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