Teetering on the brink

EatingBeans

Thanks. Yeah the ‘stop drinking’ advice really annoys me. I’ve barely drunk anything for years (literally can’t recall the last time I had any kind of alcohol), and yet they take one look at my poorly liver and repeatedly talk to me like I am an alcoholic. In my mind surely they should be investigating further since I am telling them I don’t drink and yet clearly there is something going on, but no, instead they look at me as if I am lying and do nothing! Honestly, I’ve given up with them. I’m still struggling to sleep, still having odd twitching in my shoulders, and still having the unusual pain/numbness across my abdomen (the topical ibuprofen did absolutely nothing for that so I am still convinced it has nothing to do with my back).

Yesterday I decided to give the GP the benefit of the doubt and try her suggestion to ‘just do a bit of exercise for 15minutes’ - I always feel like I should at least give their suggestions a go to be 100% sure they are wrong, rather than just dismiss things outright. I decided to time 15minutes of active, but not super strenuous housework, and just pay attention to how I felt. I opted for sweeping the laminate floor as a bit of a warm up, cleaning the downstairs toilet (requiring a bit of bending/stretching) and then stacking the dirty dishes in the dishwasher (a bit of walking back and forward but nothing strenuous to cool down), then go to pick dd2 up from work (a 5 minute drive). Normal people would not normally even class this as exercise but I know this is now all a real challenge for me. Well, I did it… then massively regretted it. dd2 wanted to pop into Tescos on the way home from work and didn’t want to carry stuff (hence getting a lift despite it being walking distance from home), but by that point I had begun to feel really awful so we opted for just grabbing chicken rather than any kind of real shop. My heart rate (just standing still in the queue), was by this point over 150bpm and I began to get heart palpitations and feel faint. It was so bad I had to abandon dd2 and just go to and find a seat. Then came the nausea, pain in the abdomen, pouring with sweat, and by the time I got home (thankfully only a 300yard drive), the nausea turned into full on vomiting and diarrhoea! No, I hadn’t eaten anything funny, nor have I picked up a bug, this is just how my body reacts when I try and ‘do’ anything remotely active. The only thing that fixes it is rest. So that was it for me and my dd’s both had to look after me for the rest of the day. 😞 Anyone would think I had suddenly got up and tried to run a marathon, not sweep up and clean a sink and toilet! 🤦‍♀️ The GP really doesn’t seem to grasp that I am not depressed and needing advice on how to make movement a habit so I get fitter and can do more, my body just reacts really badly to me actually trying to move to do even simple things!

So yeah, I am back to the plan of working it out for myself. I have stopped the antidepressant that they started me on a few months ago for pain but doesn’t appear to do anything, and I have reduced my ‘new’ Trigeminal Neuralgia medication too. My plan is to just come off everything for a while and give my body a chance to just start from scratch. Fresh air, the best food I can manage, lots of heat packs for the TN, rest, and limiting stress is what I am going for. That’s what actually seems to make me feel better and really equates to ‘finishing my van’ in baby steps, taking the dogs to run free in private dog walking fields while I sit and watch, then parking up somewhere to just microwave something to eat and rest. All other energy is being focused on staying in work to afford to live.

As expected, I have spent all morning still exhausted from yesterday but I have booked a field to take the dogs out at 3pm. Actually walking with them is not going to be possible but I am sure it wont take too much persuasion to encourage them to go and play together on their own. dd2 is going to keep me company in case I need help. 🤞this approach works and the TN is at least bearable!

Baldybear

I am sorry to read this and actually disgustrd at how your gp has treates you, i would be asking for a 2nd opinion and an official complaint, if you have the energy. 😓

I hate a&e sometimes been there too much with dd but is that another option of getting someone to take you seriously.

I hope you have an enjoyable day with the dogs.

Would it be worth printing a snippet of these pqges out to show dr to remind yourself what basic life is about to help?

ellenvan

Sounds like you have a good plan.

Rest, no stress, fresh air in a field with the dogs sounds good.

Take care and update us when you feel able.

Good luck with work.

EatingBeans

Well that was a very well spent £9.50! The field was only a 15 minute drive and had lots of benches so I didn’t need to walk around much, but even that was about my limit today. The dogs however took the opportunity to blast around at full speed for a good 20 minutes before slowing to a more pottering pace. Bless their little souls, they kept coming back to check in with me, get a brief head scratch and off they went again! 😁 It was so nice to see them having so much fun without having to worry about other dogs and people. Then, in true Little Dog fashion, she managed to locate the only bit of mud in the whole field and proceeded to dig it! 🤦‍♀️ Literally just a one foot by one foot patch near the watering station and in the three seconds it took me to stop her, my lovely clean Labrador managed to plaster it all up her belly and down all four legs, swiftly followed by running off with a massive grin and immediately jumping in the open van! 😬🤣 Thankfully I have already laid the lino so it is easy enough to clean but it did make me chuckle. That girl will literally find mud anywhere! The best bit is the field was actually really sheltered so not at all windy and didn’t hurt my face. I will definitely do it again.

Back home now, and time for a good snooze all round. 😴

Cherryfudge

That sounds like a great activity for the dogs, and good for you thinking of it and getting out of the house.

I'm with @Baldybear - could you print out something - probably most of your post number 815 - to show the doctor?

satchmo1

Sweeping floors is quite a strain on ones back, sides, arms.

I am missing being a (fanatical) park-runner (over 300 events), and at the moment can't even consider park-walking.

A local park has a securely fenced area for dogs to be off lead. Regulars are very respectful and don't enter if there's another dog already in there. The only grumble is there's no bench, although there's a tree stump that's just about ok to perch on for a short while.

EatingBeans

Ah bless you @satchmo1 I do hope you get back to your running soon. I used to love running but it gave me achilles tendinopathy and had to give it up before I even knew about Parkrun. I used to volunteer to be a barcode scanner though. Always a great bunch of people doing it too so I can understand missing it. Hope you manage to get back to it soon!

I’d love to agree that I probably worked harder than I thought during the sweeping but I know I would be lying. We only have a short galley kitchen and a two metre square patches of bare laminate that actually need sweeping, and with the broom I have I can literally sweep it just holding the brush between thumb and forefinger and pushing! 🤣 Mopping would be different because it requires actual pressure to do it properly but sweeping on our little patch is really just a matter of walking back and forward a bit. 😬

The off lead dog patch at your local park sounds wonderful! Absolutely no chance of something like that around here. Despite living in a town that was surrounded by countryside when I first moved here 20years ago, they have now built on so many of the local green spaces they even had to cancel the annual bonfire last year because they couldn’t find a single field left to have it on! Lack of local dog walking areas is my single biggest reason for wanting to move. It never used to be the case but now it is awful. Even the field I rented today is outside of the borough that I live in. Absolute madness. 🙁