I've had some back pains here and there for the past few years, but I've usually chalked it up to stress. After my surgery last year, I really started to notice how bad the pain had become. I kept having to add pillows behind my back for extra support, but I blamed it on our couch that's not really in the best shape (which probably didn't help me). Finally, one day a little over a month ago, I had enough. My lower back pain had gotten SO bad that I couldn't find a single position to sit or lay in that was comfortable. I went to my doctor and she said that what has happened is that over time my lower back muscles have weakened and no longer hold my spine in place like they're supposed to, which is causing the pain as my spine moves to unnatural positions. For a month, I took a heavy dosage of acetaminophen and a muscle relaxer at night. I also had a few exercises to do at home. The medicines helped with the pain, but they didn't fix anything. The exercises kind of helped, but I wasn't sure if they were helping enough or not. So I went back to the doctor last week so she could check my back again. Luckily, the x-rays I had at the hospital after my first appointment didn't show any serious damage. However, my doctor was worried that if my back muscles continued to weaken, that in 5-10 years I would have a very serious problem. So now I'm off of the pain medicine and muscle relaxers and in physical therapy and taking new medicine.
I started physical therapy on Tuesday and so far it's going really well. I like my physical therapist, and she doesn't appear to be much older than me, so we have a lot in common, which is nice since sometime I get bored with some of the exercises. Basically, I need to strengthen my core muscles so that they can hold my spine in place. So I'm doing a lot of laying of my back and tightening my abdominal muscles. Today I also started to do balance exercises while sitting on an exercise ball, which is both fun and challenging. Oddly enough, the first thing I thought of when I sat on the exercise ball today was the clip from "The One Where They All Turn Thirty" where Phoebe goes bouncing down the street on an exercise ball. Anyway, it's going well. I still have exercises to do at home, but they seem to be going better now that I have someone who can at least correct my errors while I'm in physical therapy.
The new medicine I'm taking is designed to help accelerate my weight loss. For anyone who doesn't know, I've been a part of Weight Watchers since April. I love the meetings, and at first it was to simply help me stay on track since I couldn't exercise right away post-surgery. I'm a VERY slow weight loss person. I consider it a fantastic week if I lose a half of a pound. This summer, I managed to lose 8 pounds due to my aunt's intense fear of carbohydrates. However, once I moved back home, I gained it all back, and then some thanks to my renewed love of carbohydrates and an insane amount of birthdays, weddings, and other social events in a very short time period. I wound up weighing more than I did when I started Weight Watchers. Not much more, but enough to really frustrate me. My doctor believes that if I can get within the healthy range for what should be my BMI, I will be able to alleviate the pain. It makes sense, less weight I'm carrying = less weight my spine has to support all day.
I've always been very against diet pills. I'm not really sure if I would consider this to be a diet pill or not. In a way it is, since it helps people lose weight. But in another way, it isn't since people view diet pills as a quick fix, and this medicine is only given to people who have been attempting to lose weight correctly and are not having much success. Every month, I have to visit my doctor so she can monitor my progress and make sure that I'm not suffering from any serious side effects. If she sees that I haven't lost any weight, or that my side effects are severe, I'm off of it immediately. Apparently this medicine is serious stuff. On the streets, it's used to make crack. Not even kidding. Which is why doctors are super picky about who they prescribe it to. As soon as I stop taking it, I'll gain the weight back if I haven't adapted to a new lifestyle of healthy eating and working out. The problem that I've found with my weight struggles is that since it takes forever for me to see any kind of results, I tend to give up before I give my body a chance to form new habits. So with this medicine, I'll see results sooner, and be less likely to give up, which will help me to continue to lose weight once I'm off of the medicine, which will help my back, which will make me even more motivated to exercise, and then I'll be in a positive cycle instead of a negative one!
The good news is that I can already tell that my medicine's working. I started taking it last Saturday. That day was spent at the pumpkin show, but I didn't really feel like snacking as much as I normally would there. Part of my medicine is also an appetite suppressant. When I weighed in at Weight Watchers on Tuesday, I had already lost 3.4 pounds! My doctor said I can expect to lose 10-20 pounds a month, which is faster than what WW recommends, but I told my leader and the weigh-in person about it, so they know to not be worried about lots of big weight losses from me. The best part is that I feel so much more energized! I've been walking at the rec center in preparation of the Disney trip, and I'm actually enjoying exercise more and more every time I go. The only downside is that I started off having some trouble sleeping at night, but that went away after the first couple of days. The more active I am during the day, the less insomnia I have at night, which is true for anyone I guess, but especially with this medicine.
I'm also working much harder at tracking everything I eat. I really hate tracking, mostly because I find it annoying to constantly have to look up points or calculate them out, but I'm working on making it a habit. I also cooked my very first WW recipe with Matt for dinner on Wednesday night. We made the Tex-Mex Chef Salad found in the cookbook that comes in the starter kit (I think that's what it's called... the blue binder thing!) It was delicious! And only 6 points! We altered it a little by not putting in as much onion as it calls for, and neither Matt nor I are big fans of spinach, especially without other lettuces, so we used an iceberg/romaine mix instead. But the ground pork was so good, and I really liked being able to eat tortilla chips, since most restaurant chips are so high in points. It was also incredibly easy, although we had to do some guesstimating since Matt didn't have any measuring cups smaller than a 1/2 cup. If anyone wants the recipe, I can email it to you, just let me know!
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| Tasty tasty! |
I think that's everything. I'm really hoping that everything that I'm doing will pay off in the end. I'm tired of being in pain, and I'm excited that I can take steps to do something about it!
~ Christine
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