Tag Archives ⇒ health

Looking my age?

· Lauren

On Thursday I turned 41, but it wasn’t exactly an exciting day. I went back to work on January 2nd after more than five months on medical leave. It was a Thursday, and the office was incredibly quiet since most folks made the smart decision to stay home on the first two workdays of 2020. I’m only working part-time for a while in order to ease myself back into employment, so I spent roughly 4 hours on both Thursday and Friday sorting through thousands of unread emails that had accumulated in my inbox while I was gone. It was pretty draining, but I’m glad to be back in the office and using my brain for something other than arguing with jerks on the internet. (That’s a story for another time!) Unfortunately over the weekend I caught a terrible cold. I felt so terrible that I had to take the first three days of the next week off to recover. Not exactly the way I expected my return to work was going to go! I also missed my boot camp classes those three days due to the illness. Thursday January 9th was my birthday and I was finally able to drag myself not only to work, but also to the gym. (I originally planned to celebrate at Disneyland, but I missed way too much work to be out yet another day that week.) Traditionally all of the gym goers have to do as many burpees as the age of the birthday boy or girl, but I was absolutely not going to force the folks who came for a regular workout to do 41 burpees on top of the cardio class they had already completed. Fortunately the trainer was merciful and we only did 21 burpees instead. Still tough at the end of class, but we all did it. When the ladies at the gym found out that I’m 41 they were shocked. I’ve always looked young for my age, but bow that I’m no longer as slim as I used to be I figured that effect had diminished. It was flattering when the ladies asked me what I do to stay youthful. Besides my obsession with sunscreen and an embarrassingly extensive skincare routine, I have no idea. Moisturizers and serums can’t be the full explanation. Obviously there is an element of luck (i.e., good genes) at play. Still, it’s nice to know that I don’t look my age just yet.

This reminds me of a funny story. Back in March I went to see a hematologist because I’m a carrier of a blood disorder called beta thalassemia, and I wanted to make sure this wasn’t contributing to my fatigue. For reference, the Mayo Clinic website states, “Thalassemia is caused by mutations in the DNA of cells that make hemoglobin — the substance in red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout your body.” Additionally, “In thalassemia, the production of either the alpha or beta chains are reduced, resulting in either alpha-thalassemia or beta-thalassemia.” Boring, I know, but better than any explanation I could formulate on my own. Fortunately for me I only have the trait, or minor, version of this disorder so it doesn’t affect my daily life. When the hematologist walked into the examination room for my appointment she was visibly surprised. She said something to the tune of, “You don’t look anything like what I imagined! I was expecting dark hair and olive skin!” This made me laugh because my appearance is decidedly northern European in nature. To let you in on the joke, according to the Mayo Clinic, “Thalassemia occurs most often in African Americans and in people of Mediterranean and Southeast Asian descent.” So this is obviously something that a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Irish girl needs to worry about, right? It was funny to surprise a doctor for a change! I inherited beta thalassemia came from my mother’s side of the family, but besides that we have absolutely no idea where the it came from. Even her 23andMe results don’t shed much light on the origin. We were fully expecting Italian, Greek, or Spanish ancestry somewhere in her report, but that’s not what showed up. It’s a mystery! Fortunately the hematologist assured me that because I’m only a carrier that this blood disorder isn’t causing my fatigue. That was one diagnostic avenue that lead to a dead end, but not an unexpected one. It allowed me to focus on other options instead. I’ll get to the bottom of this eventually.

Catching up on my health

· Lauren

“I know that in the grand scheme of things my medical problems are not nearly as devastating as other have to deal with, and for that I am grateful. That doesn’t mean I’m not worried about the future, though. What if this is a symptom of a more serious affliction? This is another bridge to cross later, if needed.”
08/04/18 webpage post

Written in August 2019
Last August I was a lot more optimistic about my medical problems than I am now. Honestly, I’m glad I didn’t know back then that I’d be having just as much, if not more, difficulties a year later. So far I’ve been out of work for almost three weeks and trying to make the most of this time. The upside is that my stress level is significantly lower than when I was working, but I am still just as tired as I was before. That makes getting anything done quite difficult, especially when I’m trying to make progress on my long list of “must do” activities during this leave of absence. I really hate that my body isn’t allowing be to be more productive with this free time. My best friend recommended finding three things that I can accomplish each day to keep my spirits up. Apparently this is something that folks who are suffering from chronic illnesses are counseled to do so that the days don’t bleed into one another with nothing getting done. So I’ve been maintaining my daily to-do lists and trying to cross off at least three items each day, no mater how small. It certainly makes me feel like less of a useless sack of skin.

January 2020 addition
My leave of absence from work turned out to be five months long. During that time I had good days where I was able to function more or less like a normal human being, but those were greatly outnumbered by the bad days where I was lucky to change out of my pajamas. Sometimes being upright for any period of time is just too much for my body. And forget leaving the house! Fortunately I did make some progress on my diagnosis during that timeframe. After exhausting the usefulness of my original neurologist, I found a good rheumatologist back in November. The first round of blood work that he ordered returned a positive result on the Antinuclear Antibody (ANA) Test, which means that something is amiss. This prompted a second round of blood work right after Thanksgiving. (Slight digression, but I had a miserable experience that time around. Two different phlebotomists had to stick me five times, and tap both arms in order to get enough blood or the order. The insides of my elbows looked like they had gotten repeatedly punched.) When I went back to the doctor in mid-December to review the new numbers there was more data, but no clear conclusion. As well as the ANA, I have a positive rheumatoid factor, which is another indication of an autoimmune disease. The kicker is that none of this is enough to assign a specific name to my health problems. It’s pretty obvious that I don’t have rheumatoid arthritis (RA), at least not at this point in my life, and I also don’t have full-blown lupus. A truly positive discovery on both counts, but it leaves me in a sort of limbo. The rheumatologist used the phrase undifferentiated connective tissue disease (UCTD) – in my case, an affliction with markers for both lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, but falling somewhere in between the two. It’s frustrating to still have so many unanswered questions, but it’s also a relief to feel like my medical team is making progress. As a first measure, I started taking a lupus medication that may or may not alleviate my symptoms. I won’t know for sure for about six months, though. Still, it’s something.

The bottom line is that I am battling at least two different chronic conditions simultaneously (PLMD and UCTD), and I probably will be for the rest of my life. Nothing is ever going to be the same again. I know that pretty grim, but I don’t see it that way. It just means that I have to adjust my expectations going forward. When my energy is low I have to budget it for important things like work and exercise. Little things are going to fall by the wayside, and I have to be ok with that. I’ll survive, and I might even start having fun again.

First challenge (NaBloPoMo day 3)

· Lauren

It’s only the 3rd day of November I’ve already hit my first hurdle of this blogging challenge. It’s only 5:30 PM so I theoretically have plenty of time to write and publish a post before I go to bed, but I’m completely exhausted. And I’m not just talking about a little sleepiness. I feel like I have a weight inside my head that’s pressing down on my brain. That’s the best way I can describe my fatigue. This weight makes my eyelids heavy and my thoughts sluggish. If not for my stupid restless legs I could very easily lie down and pass out at a moment’s notice. (Trust me, I tried to nap this afternoon since I had been awake since 5 AM, but my legs were not having it. I’m running on many, many ounces of Coke Zero right now.) None of this is exactly conducive to producing blog posts that I’m inclined to publish. In fact, it’s taken me multiple hours to finalize even this single paragraph. I’m just so weary. But for now I will attempt to soldier on. Maybe tomorrow will provide more suitable circumstances for writing something of substance!

Health recap

· Lauren

“I know this is a temporary state and I that I am strong enough to get through it. Life isn’t always easy, but I’m hoping that it won’t be long before I see the light at the end of this particular tunnel.”
06/08/18 webpage post

I’m on medical leave from work now, which is both a blessing and a curse. For one thing, it has given me way too much time to argue with people on the internet, as you can tell by my previous post. Responding to jerks on Facebook was not the topic I intended to cover upon my return to blogging after a long hiatus! Instead, I wanted to start writing about the reason for said hiatus in more detail. It’s been a long road so far, and I still have quite a ways to go.

I started documenting my health issues in May 2018 after my first sleep study, but the first onset of symptoms was about two years before that. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been suffering in one form or another for over three years now. It’s exhausting in more ways than one. At first I thought I simply had mildly irritating Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) brought on by a sharp increase in the number of miles I ran every week, but it escalated from there. The “twinges” and “shivering” I felt in my legs when I went to bed at night became full-blown cyclic muscle spasms and involuntary leg movements that completely prevented me from falling asleep. It took me hours to get to sleep every night so I was either late to work the next day or severely sleep deprived. When I finally sought medical help the first GP I went to ran some blood work and told me I was anemic and needed to take iron supplements. Even after I told her that I am a carrier for a blood disorder that contradicted her diagnosis she offered no additional options. Fortunately the next GP I consulted was much more helpful. She initially gave me Xanax (which made me feel sick) and then Ambien as a sleep aid. The Ambien put me to sleep very quickly, but I still woke up exhausted the next morning. That’s when the first sleep study was conducted and my case of Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (PLMD) was verified. What a relief that was. After ramping up on a medication for RLS/Parkinson’s Disease I got a much-needed reprieve from my limbs flailing about all night long.

However, my daytime fatigue persisted. As I wrote back in August 2018, “I can sleep all day, and it doesn’t feel like a choice I’m making. I just wake up in the afternoon/evening and feel depressed that I’ve lost yet another day to my poor health.” This wacky schedule was not at all conducive to being a functional member of society. I started seeing a neurologist shortly after establishing my PLMD to determine the right cocktail of medications to help me live a normal life again. Adding a couple of other nighttime anti-seizure drugs to my treatment (Gabapentin and Klonopin) didn’t seem to make much of a difference, but I faithfully took them anyway. Eventually I broke down and took a 3-month leave of absence from work in order to rest and hopefully recuperate. My third and current GP, who is seriously amazing, ordered more blood work during this timeframe to check for autoimmune markers, but none of the numbers were glaringly out of range. So I went back to the neurologist, but after another (Maybe my 3rd? I’ve lost count.) sleep study in January 2019 ruled out narcolepsy he was stumped. Not a good sign. His last ditch effort to restore my energy was to give me a prescription for a stimulant to help me stay awake during the day. And for a while I thought it worked! Every morning I would pop one of these “pep pills,” as I called them, and I felt like a normal human being again. I was elated! Just before the end of my leave of absence I was confident that although I didn’t have a definitive diagnosis, I was ready to go back to work full-time. I was wrong.

Even with daytime and nighttime medications that were supposed to alleviate my symptoms, adding 40-hour work weeks back to my routine practically put me back where I started. My body just couldn’t sustain 8 or 9 hours of work per day, plus regular exercise, and all of the other stressors of daily life. Even increasing the dosage of my stimulant by 50% wasn’t enough. I was struggling to do the things I absolutely had to do, and I was missing out on just about all enjoyable activities due to my extreme fatigue. Basically, I was miserable. It was hard to explain to my friends and co-workers without sounding seriously depressed, but I felt like a useless human being. I love my job, but I wasn’t pulling my weight there and it killed me. Then outside of work I wasn’t adequately taking care of myself or my home environment due to lack of energy. All I wanted to do was sleep for days, and even then I didn’t feel any better! It was so hard not to beat myself up for these failings, even though I knew it wasn’t my fault. If I had a choice I would certainly not choose to feel this way! Eventually I reached my breaking point again and took another leave of absence from work, and that brings us up to the present.

The bottom line is that something is wrong with me and I have to figure out what it is. I am suffering from some sort of difficult to diagnose chronic illness (or illnesses) and someone, somewhere will be able to help me treat it. I just need to find that particular doctor or facility. So far I’ve been out of work for two weeks. While it’s been such a relief to be able to sleep when I need to and as many hours as I need to, I am starting to feel disconnected with the world. I am lacking a purpose. I’ve been working on finding some comprehensive medical care while I’m on leave from work, but I don’t have anything definitive set up yet. It’s hard to get much done when fatigue is your constant companion. It’s a struggle, but I know I’ll find answers eventually. Being positive isn’t easy, especially on the days where I can barely drag myself out of bed, but imagining a future where I feel normal again and can be the engineer, runner, and friend that I used to be is what keeps me going.

Health update

· Lauren

Life has been getting harder lately with my not yet fully explained medical problems. I sleep an unbelievable number of hours, which means that I miss a lot of work, and I hate it. My boss and my co-workers have been very understanding, but that doesn’t make me feel any better for not living up to my own professional expectations. It makes me feel lazy and helpless, but trying to force my body to do things it doesn’t want to do hasn’t been at all successful. It’s so frustrating. I feel like I should be able to snap out of it and make myself feel normal again, but of course that’s ridiculous. Something is physically wrong with me (maybe several somethings) and I have to find the solutions before there will be any improvement. In addition to missing work, I haven’t been able to take part in too many enjoyable things in my free time either. In a previous post I mentioned cancelling my recent Disney World trip, but that’s not the extent of the losses I’ve suffered. I also decided that I wasn’t anywhere near healthy enough to go to Las Vegas this weekend with my girlfriends for the Rock N Roll half marathon. On top of all that, I cancelled a business trip to Florida next week that I was really looking forward to. As I’ve said before, I know this situation is temporary, but that doesn’t make it any less miserable.

As far as my search for answers goes, there have been a few developments since I last wrote about my health. On Wednesday I decided I needed to see my GP about the possibility that my antidepressant is at least partially responsible for my overwhelming exhaustion. There is an outside chance since one of the potential side effects of Lexapro is drowsiness. I was fortunate to get an appointment to see a nurse practitioner that same day, but the outcome wasn’t at all what I expected. The nurse decided not to change my medication, at least not yet, but he ordered some additional blood work to test for autoimmune diseases instead. Even if progress is slow, I was very grateful to see a medical professional who was concerned enough about my well being to go down a completely different path of investigation and not just throw more drugs at my symptoms. I had to have four vials of blood drawn, though, and it was more of an ordeal than usual. The technician had to tap both of my arms to get enough blood for the tests. I very nearly passed out when he was done! That’s not all I did this week either. I also completed my second sleep study last night. Overall it was much more pleasant experience than the first one (better facility, better room, slightly better night’s sleep), but still not an activity I’d like to repeat. (Although I’m sure I’ll have to before this is all over.) Hopefully this one night’s discomfort will provide my neurologist with enough information to take the next step in my journey to a diagnosis. I have an appointment with him after Thanksgiving to go over the results. Maybe the blood work by my GP will provide some insight as well. I should find out this week. I’ll let you know the outcome of this waiting game when they are available.

Just say no to NaBloPoMo 2018

· Lauren

How is it November already? It really snuck up on me this year. October was pretty much a blur, and then Halloween was over in the blink of an eye. Needless to say, I will not even be attempting NaBloPoMo in 2018. I completely forgot about my annual 30-day webpage update challenge until yesterday, honestly, and by then it was already the second day of November. Far too late to post anything legitimate for the 1st. So the pressure to flood the internet with any and all of my innermost thoughts for a month is off the table this year. That’s a relief! There are far too many other, more significant things to worry about. 2018 has been quite a mess so far and I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. Mostly my health because my body is trying to drive me insane. Luckily it doesn’t seem to be killing me with cancer or some other degenerative disease (at least not that I’m aware of), but I’m still having a rough time. I’m simply not sleeping properly and it’s negatively affecting every facet of my life. In an effort to fix that, I have a second sleep study scheduled for next week so hopefully at least some answers will be forthcoming. At an appointment last week my neurologist said that he didn’t want to just throw more medications at the problem until he has more data. He wants the sleep study to check for “everything,” whatever that means. I’m sure that the bottom line is that I will have another thoroughly miserable experience, but I’ll happily endure it if that means getting one step closer to normality. Not only have I not gotten a good night’s sleep in maybe years, but there have been more tangible losses as well. I’ve missed out on more things than I can count. For example, on Tuesday when I woke up in the early hours of the afternoon I panicked. I had missed yet another day of work due to my unknown medical issues and, in addition, I was literally sleeping away the precious hours before a couple of rapidly approaching events. First of all, Halloween was less than 24 hours away and I had done very little to prepare for the annual chili cook-off at work. It’s one of my favorite days of the year and I hadn’t even made my own chili yet. But that was minor in comparison to what was coming next. I was supposed to fly to Orlando on Thursday for the Wine & Dine half marathon weekend, but how could I possibly justify that? I’ve missed way too much work already, my sleep pattern has been erratic at best, and my life in general has just been too chaotic recently. I couldn’t perceive any scenario where going on vacation, even to Walt Disney World, was a good idea right now. So I made the hard decision to cancel the trip I’d been looking forward to all year. I’m disappointed to not be there this weekend enjoying myself, but I’m actually feeling much more relaxed here at home where I can rest and catch up on what I’ve been missing. Nothing is 2018 has been easy so far, but I’m hopeful that better days are on the horizon.

Only the beginning

· Lauren

“My personal conversation with my body hasn’t yet progressed far enough to the point that I love what I have. It’s a process, I know, but frankly, I want to spend as little time as possible thinking about my arms and legs and the way the fat on my back folds when I’m not paying attention at the beach. I just want apathy – to feel nothing about my body at all, to be merely grateful that it functions as I require, that I put clothes on it (when forced), and food in it when necessary (surprisingly often!). Love, like hate, requires too much active effort for something I don’t even want to deal with.”
-Scaachi Koul

It’s no secret that I have less than loving feelings for my body. In fact, I’m undoubtedly its worst critic. I am rarely happy with how I look, much to the detriment of my self-esteem. This is something that I am working on. (Yesterday morning I gave myself compliments as I was putting on my makeup.) Specifically, I wrote about focusing on my successes rather than my failures not too long ago, but it’s (unsurprisingly) an uphill battle. I keep trying to remind myself of the progresses I’m making at the gym and with my running, but I still have a long way to go when it comes to obsessing about my weight and the size of my clothes. Fortunately, taking a break from the 6-week fat loss challenge that ended last month was very beneficial. I kept exercising as much as I had been before, but I worried less about strictly following the diet plan and posting pictures of every single meal and snack for the trainers to comment on. This greatly reduced my anxiety and allowed me to focus more on my overall health. The Monday after the fat loss challenge ended I weighed in at the gym and I had only lost 4 lbs, but I had also lost inches on just about every measurement. That was encouraging. Not that I kept the progress going since then, in fact I’ve regressed a bit, but it’s good to know that if I can find the energy to work hard enough I can eventually get where I’m going. It just might be a long road with a number of obstacles along the way.

Unfortunately my life, and the world in general (more on that soon), has been a bit rough these days so very few things seem positive. But I know that at some point I will find my equilibrium. My first priority is to get my physical health under control. Speaking of which, I have another sleep study scheduled for this coming Friday to determine whether or not I have narcolepsy. The Klonopin prescription that my neurologist gave me a few weeks ago doesn’t seem to be making much difference so we’re taking the investigation to the next level. My first sleep study was no picnic, but I can endure another one if it means that I might get additional answers into what’s going on with my crazy brain. It’s so hard to take care of your body the way you should when it’s causing you so much trouble. However, I am doing a few things in the realm of self-care to keep my spirits up while things are not all sunshine and roses. I have added an extra day at boot camp every week (which means I am sore almost all the time), and I’ve started running more (which my feet and legs are having to acclimate to again). In fact, my workout buddy and I have started running from her house to the gym (~1.75 miles), completing a boot camp class, and then running back. It can be grueling, but I know it’s extremely beneficial across the board. Then when I get home I’ve been pampering myself with some probably unnecessary, but refreshingly indulgent beauty products. I bought some Kiehl’s shower scrub at the airport on my trip to Portland last month, I got a bottle of way too expensive Crabtree & Evelyn body lotion with some leftover Amazon credit, and I’ve been applying Vitamin C serum to my face every morning. These things might not make any real difference in the health of my skin, but the routine of nourishing my body is soothing when it feels like so many other areas of my life are in chaos. But I know it won’t always be like this which helps me get through the hardest days. I’ll get to where I need to be. I just don’t know when!

Searching for the correct diagnosis

· Lauren

“Not only do I still have twitchy legs sometimes during the day, but I’m so tired all the time. And some days I just can’t get out of bed at all. I can sleep all day, and it doesn’t feel like a choice I’m making. I just wake up in the afternoon/evening and feel depressed that I’ve lost yet another day to my poor health.”
8/10/18 webpage post

On Thursday I went back to the neurologist as a follow-up to my first appointment a little over a month ago. I’ve been taking gabapentin every night, in addition to the Requip, and that combination of drugs seems to be keeping my legs remarkably calm before I fall asleep at night. I haven’t had trouble with muscle spasms plaguing me after I get in bed, at least. (Unmedicated I’m still a huge mess. I dozed off on my couch the other evening and my legs immediately started twitching. It’s super frustrating.) It’s a major improvement over the situation I was dealing not that long ago, before I started taking any medication specifically for Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS). Unfortunately, I’m still feeling tired all the time so, while there has been definite progress, I’m not completely back to normal. When I told the doctor about my constant exhaustion he had a couple of thoughts. First of all, he theorized that the prescriptions I’ve been taking are meant for RLS, but might not be giving me the best results if I have Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (PLMD). This is what one previous doctor and the technician at my sleep study thought might be the root of my leg spasm problem. With that in mind the neurologist gave me an additional prescription for Klonopin to see if that helps me get some actual restful sleep at night. (Yep, that means I am now taking three different anti-seizure/convulsant drugs every day. Fun!) But if after a few weeks of this new protocol that doesn’t work, he suggested that I might have narcolepsy.

Narcolepsy is a condition that I knew very little about before Thursday. With my limited knowledge I thought it meant that sufferers had a tendency to simply doze off at the drop of a hat, but obviously it’s more complicated than that. From what I read, in addition to excessive daytime sleepiness (which I certainly have trouble with), narcoleptics experience abnormal REM sleep. The neurologist told me that in order to get a diagnosis I would need to do another sleep study where I would be allowed to fall asleep for several short periods of time to determine whether my brain goes through the proper progression into REM sleep. Narcolepsy apparently causes people to go directly into REM sleep without the usual hour and a half or so of NREM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep beforehand. While it sounds a little far-fetched, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is the cause of at least some of my medical problems. I hate to admit it, but I doze off at work sometimes. Only for very short periods of time, but it happens. Especially in meetings, and especially if I haven’t had enough caffeine. Fortunately I don’t seem to have any of the other, scarier narcolepsy symptoms – like cataplexy (periodic loss of muscle function), hallucinations, or sleep paralysis. That also means that narcolepsy might not be the right answer. We’ll see. I have another appointment with the neurologist in six weeks to discuss a path forward. I have some hope that we are zeroing in on something.

On the plus side, I’ve been able to start reading again! I’ve always loved reading, and I used to look forward to immersing myself in a good book when I crawled into bed every night. It was the way I wound down and calmed my brain after a busy day. It usually made me drowsy too. But before my days of taking any RLS drugs I started getting twitchy legs when I was stationary for more than a short period of time – either lying in bed or sitting on the couch. This really put a damper in my reading habit. Books by my favorite authors that I was dying to read piled up in my Kindle app while I was desperately trying to avoid the muscle spasms that made me want to crawl out of my skin. But now that I’m fully medicated at night I can read for a while before falling asleep without worrying about leg craziness. It’s a miracle! Even though I haven’t yet reached the end of my road to recovery (or remission), I’m still so grateful to modern medicine for improving my quality of life. Maybe one day I’ll even feel normal again!

Focusing on success

· Lauren

“Some days getting out of bed and changing out of my pajamas is about all I’m able to do. This is not beneficial to my mental health, but I am trying to cut myself some slack and let go of the guilt of resting as much as I need to.”
6/8/webpage post

After the last couple of posts about my health issues it probably won’t surprise you when I say that I’ve taken a break from the 6-week fat loss challenge. At some point last week I decided that being so strict with my food choices and having to post pictures of every meal and snack was more than I can handle right now. I’m exhausted and stressed all the time and I realized that I need to give myself a break in certain areas. There’s no use making myself crazy over something that’s not absolutely essential. Instead I’m going to focus on getting healthy and back to my normal, more energetic self. That doesn’t mean I’ve started hitting the Del Taco drive-thru on a regular basis again, though. I am endeavoring to stick to my new, healthier eating habits that I’ve been establishing over the last five weeks, with a small change here and there to make it more manageable. I did go to McDonald’s one day last week, but that was my weekly cheat meal. I’ve made enough progress (albeit minor) recently that I don’t want to revert back to my unhealthy ways and end up right back where I started. That would only add to my stress and make me feel terrible about myself again. Not worth it!

So for now, instead of worrying over the things I’m not doing, I’m trying to focus on some recent successes. They may be small, but they are most certainly steps in the right direction. Last week at boot camp one of our strength exercises was inverted rows, which have never been easy for me in the past. However, this time I was able to complete half of each set in a fully inverted position, with my back completely parallel to the floor. How’s that for progress! I was surprised, but super proud of myself. Obviously going to the gym three days a week consistently for the past six months has been paying off. I did have to take a step back, making the rows easier, in order to finish the set, but I’m OK with that. Also, I find myself reaching for heavier weights at the gym. In the same class as the inverted rows I was using an 88 lb kettlebell for deadlifts. I know that’s not a lot for most people, but it’s much more weight than I used to be able to comfortably deadlift. And I appreciate deadlifts because they have been strengthening my back, which makes just about every other exercise safer and easier. At a boot camp class later that week we did farmer carries (basically just walking across the room, slowly, with heavy weights in each hand) and I was able to hold a 53 lb kettlebell in each hand. It felt like my arms were about to pop out of their sockets, but I made it all the way across the gym floor and back! That’s a huge step up for me considering what I used to be capable of. I am certainly reaching for heavier weights almost every time I go to boot camp. I never thought I’d be able to use 20 lb dumbbells for chest presses, but I have done it more than once now, and I think I might actually try 25 lb weights next time! My running is also improving, albeit very gradually. In the spring I struggled to complete a 10-mile run (a distance that would have been easy for me at any point last year), but a few weeks ago I finished it with much less trouble. (And this was with the weather working against me. Summer in Los Angeles has been really miserable.) I have given up the idea of running a marathon this fall, mostly because I don’t want to train in the heat, but I have plenty of half marathons on my calendar to prepare for. My next one is in about three weeks. Yikes! While getting ready for a 10K last Sunday I had to tighten my hydration belt because my body shape has changed enough that it was too loose on my waist and hips. That certainly felt good! I don’t think I’ve lost much weight during this fat-loss challenge, but I am definitely seeing results in other areas. My final weigh-in is on Monday morning so I’ll find out the final verdict soon enough. I may not have lost the 20 lbs I wanted to, but I think I’m on the right path.

Searching for the right combination

· Lauren

There was a time, not so long ago, that I wasn’t taking any prescription drugs. It was fantastic. But then 2018 came crashing onto the scene and now I am picking up one refill or another at the pharmacy just about every week. I’ve been on five different medications at one point or another since January and I’m still searching for the right one(s). In my post about my health last week I mentioned that I’ve been taking 1 mg of Requip, a Parkinson’s and Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) treatment, to calm my legs at night so that I can fall asleep. While I believe that it has been somewhat effective, meaning I can go to sleep without leg spasms now, I am still not feeling 100% like myself again. Not only do I still have twitchy legs sometimes during the day, but I’m so tired all the time. And some days I just can’t get out of bed at all. I can sleep all day, and it doesn’t feel like a choice I’m making. I just wake up in the afternoon/evening and feel depressed that I’ve lost yet another day to my poor health. And the kicker is that I never feel rested no matter how much I sleep. For example, the other day I opened my eyes and the clock on my nightstand said 5:30 PM! I managed to drag myself out of bed, get dressed and go to my boot camp class at 8 PM, and then went back to sleep at 11:30 PM. I was only awake for 6 hours that day and I was still tired when I got up to go to work the next morning! It’s beyond ridiculous. I can’t afford for this to continue, both monetarily (I need to work to support myself!) and mentally (I am at the end of my rope!). Fortunately I had my long-awaited appointment with the neurologist yesterday afternoon. I explained all of my symptoms to him, showed him copies of my blood work from December and my sleep study in May, and told him what pharmaceuticals I have tried so far. After laying it all out on the table the doctor was a bit baffled by the whole picture. It was frustrating, but understandable. All of the other medical professionals I have seen so far have been baffled too. My symptoms don’t all fit into one nice, easy, predefined diagnosis. Of course it isn’t that simple! Some things point to RLS, but others suggest Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (PLMD), while a few could be signs of a more serious affliction. So while I don’t have any definitive answers, the neurologist did write me a prescription for another drug to try in combination with the Requip. So I will be adding Gabapentin to my nightly pill dosage to see if it makes a difference. On top of that, I have instructions to double the dose in one week if the initial amount doesn’t seem to be working at all. I also have another appointment in September to report back on the results, and perhaps conduct some further tests. (The doctor seemed concerned that I could visually see my muscles contract during the leg spasms, so he might order some electrical stimulation tests to see what’s going on in there.) I’m still encouraged by this progress, even if it is small. Finding the right combination of medications is the key to relief and the neurologist told me that it might take a while. After two and a half years of dealing with this issue I will try to be patient as we zero in on a solution!