I decided to post this for anyone curious and for maybe some advice as well.
So I don't think I ever posted about this but I have finished physical therapy. My last day was July 29, 2021. I do, however, still have 2 more days that I could use. Basically, because of the insurance I have I can only have 16 physical therapy visits and have so far used 14 of them. So the last two I have my therapist and I decided to use as check-in days later in the year to next year (GOD willing). I' hoping that when I do go to see her again I have made even more progress and things keep going in the right direction.
Now onto what I have. I went back to that Arthritis & Rheumatism specialist I went to before who suggested physical therapy and gave me those Meloxicam pills on Wednesday of this week. Basically, the pills were a trial and error type of thing to see if things like that would help me. They do not and he figured out why. So pretty much my condition doesn't have a name. He called it something but I have no clue how to spell it. 😅 No pills can help me. Hopefully, I can remember exactly what he said. It wasn't until I got home that day where I pieced everything together and it made sense.
He told me that I have some hypermobile joints and too much and too intense movement causes irritation and tightness to said joints (and some muscles) and cause all this pain. He said more but I can't exactly remember or know how to explain it. I know not very good since I should have made it more clear. That's pretty much the gist of what's wrong. That's the simplest way I could think of saying it. (I should've written it down. I thought I could remember.) He also said I need to make some life style changes to slowly, hopefully get back to where I was. If I get too extreme again then it may just cause some flares up and lead to all these pains again assuming I manage to control and calm down what's happening now.
Maybe a quick backstory can help. So two or three years ago was when my pain started getting pretty bad. It all started years before in my knees, then went to my ankles, then my elbows and then my wrists. I was doing pretty intense activities (first marching band in high school, then I graduated and started working out using Jillian Michaels, FitnessBlender, Blogilates, etc). It wasn't until I started my job as a Whole Foods employee that I noticed that things were bad. Back when I had my job in 2019 I did A LOT of moving (walking, running, lifting, bending, reaching, pushing of carts, etc) it was all a workout in itself. Then, on top of all that I would not only do all that work and get sore but I would do big workouts that would cause soreness the same day. You can imagine the struggles. When I think back to it now I would consider it overtraining considering what I would do at work.
I noticed one day walking to the bus to go to work one morning that my calves would hurt immensely. I didn't understand why. I thought it was all the walking I did, maybe the shoes I would wear, possibly even soreness from a workout I did. Turns out, according to my therapist, it was my nerves in my legs tightening around my muscles to tighten and cause that pain. As time went on it got worse and worse to the point where I couldn't go to work anymore. Eventually I got fired but good thing I stopped because who knows how much worse it would be now had I not listened to my body at the time.
Since I had stopped working I decided to keep doing my usual workouts then as time went on the rest of my body followed what happened in my calves. My nerves started tightening which caused my muscles to tighten and then I could no longer do my workouts either. It felt like something was slowly infecting my body. Some things I never expected to happen to me. So I had to stop working out.
Thankfully because of the specialist and my physical therapist I now understand what was going on and why. I have hypermobile joints (a few) that I was overextending combine that with intense movements and workouts, add in the nerves tightening and you have yourself a recipe for disaster that is joint pain and I think muscle tension. I hope that's the right terminology. I could be wrong.
I REALLY hope you all (whoever takes the time to read this) understands what I'm trying to say. I tried explaining it in the way I understood it. Hopefully you guys get it too. This is something that can go away but can also as easily come back if I'm not careful. Now that I get it I can live life accordingly. Although there will be trial and errors here and there but I have an idea of things that I should and shouldn't do. For example, use things that have big grips like spoons or frying pans that have those big black grips on them. Not trying to open extremely tight things. Getting wrists braces recommended by the specialists. Keep my wrists straight when I do hold my phone. Use the phone stand as much as possible to not strain my wrists. Not put too much pressure on my wrists and knees, etc.
If anyone has any other suggestions or pieces of advice that would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for reading. I hope this made sense. I'm terrible at explaining things and organizing my thoughts. 😅 Have a Blessed day!
Some New Information About My Pains
Hello Blender Peeps!
I decided to post this for anyone curious and for maybe some advice as well.
So I don't think I ever posted about this but I have finished physical therapy. My last day was July 29, 2021. I do, however, still have 2 more days that I could use. Basically, because of the insurance I have I can only have 16 physical therapy visits and have so far used 14 of them. So the last two I have my therapist and I decided to use as check-in days later in the year to next year (GOD willing). I' hoping that when I do go to see her again I have made even more progress and things keep going in the right direction.
Now onto what I have. I went back to that Arthritis & Rheumatism specialist I went to before who suggested physical therapy and gave me those Meloxicam pills on Wednesday of this week. Basically, the pills were a trial and error type of thing to see if things like that would help me. They do not and he figured out why. So pretty much my condition doesn't have a name. He called it something but I have no clue how to spell it. 😅 No pills can help me. Hopefully, I can remember exactly what he said. It wasn't until I got home that day where I pieced everything together and it made sense.
He told me that I have some hypermobile joints and too much and too intense movement causes irritation and tightness to said joints (and some muscles) and cause all this pain. He said more but I can't exactly remember or know how to explain it. I know not very good since I should have made it more clear. That's pretty much the gist of what's wrong. That's the simplest way I could think of saying it. (I should've written it down. I thought I could remember.) He also said I need to make some life style changes to slowly, hopefully get back to where I was. If I get too extreme again then it may just cause some flares up and lead to all these pains again assuming I manage to control and calm down what's happening now.
Maybe a quick backstory can help. So two or three years ago was when my pain started getting pretty bad. It all started years before in my knees, then went to my ankles, then my elbows and then my wrists. I was doing pretty intense activities (first marching band in high school, then I graduated and started working out using Jillian Michaels, FitnessBlender, Blogilates, etc). It wasn't until I started my job as a Whole Foods employee that I noticed that things were bad. Back when I had my job in 2019 I did A LOT of moving (walking, running, lifting, bending, reaching, pushing of carts, etc) it was all a workout in itself. Then, on top of all that I would not only do all that work and get sore but I would do big workouts that would cause soreness the same day. You can imagine the struggles. When I think back to it now I would consider it overtraining considering what I would do at work.
I noticed one day walking to the bus to go to work one morning that my calves would hurt immensely. I didn't understand why. I thought it was all the walking I did, maybe the shoes I would wear, possibly even soreness from a workout I did. Turns out, according to my therapist, it was my nerves in my legs tightening around my muscles to tighten and cause that pain. As time went on it got worse and worse to the point where I couldn't go to work anymore. Eventually I got fired but good thing I stopped because who knows how much worse it would be now had I not listened to my body at the time.
Since I had stopped working I decided to keep doing my usual workouts then as time went on the rest of my body followed what happened in my calves. My nerves started tightening which caused my muscles to tighten and then I could no longer do my workouts either. It felt like something was slowly infecting my body. Some things I never expected to happen to me. So I had to stop working out.
Thankfully because of the specialist and my physical therapist I now understand what was going on and why. I have hypermobile joints (a few) that I was overextending combine that with intense movements and workouts, add in the nerves tightening and you have yourself a recipe for disaster that is joint pain and I think muscle tension. I hope that's the right terminology. I could be wrong.
I REALLY hope you all (whoever takes the time to read this) understands what I'm trying to say. I tried explaining it in the way I understood it. Hopefully you guys get it too. This is something that can go away but can also as easily come back if I'm not careful. Now that I get it I can live life accordingly. Although there will be trial and errors here and there but I have an idea of things that I should and shouldn't do. For example, use things that have big grips like spoons or frying pans that have those big black grips on them. Not trying to open extremely tight things. Getting wrists braces recommended by the specialists. Keep my wrists straight when I do hold my phone. Use the phone stand as much as possible to not strain my wrists. Not put too much pressure on my wrists and knees, etc.
If anyone has any other suggestions or pieces of advice that would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for reading. I hope this made sense. I'm terrible at explaining things and organizing my thoughts. 😅 Have a Blessed day!