Friday, October 15, 2010

Fibro Friday: Week 1--Starting out Sloooooow

Week one of trying to pull myself out of this funk that is Fibromyalgia. I don't know how much of this will be a head game, or how much of this will be physical, but whatever it is the journey has officially started.

This week is working on starting a routine, and starting it slowly. Very slowly. I don't want to be beat before I start which is often the case.

So here is how it went for my first partial week(next week will be a full week, but since I started on Sunday...:

3 times this week I did 3 sets of 5 different back exercises given to me by my spine specialist. The purpose of these exercises is to strengthen my lower back and abs, as well as, to help with my herniated disc.

Twice this week I rode my bike. My bike that now has a huuuuuge wide load seat on it. A seat that does not hurt my sit bones for weeks after a ride. Really weeks, I'm not kidding. It's like someone decided to see how deep of a bruise they could cause and called it a bike seat. Does the seat look all sleek and cool like the torture seat, no, but with the unsleek and uncool seat maybe I can look sleek and cool, and I think that is a fair trade off.

The bike riding and the back exercises did have some painful repercussions, but nothing I couldn't handle. The worst was the leg and hip pain at night when I was trying to sleep. I felt like there was a distinct horizontal line right at my hips. Above the line was fine, below the line could have fallen off of my body and I would have appreciated the reprieve.

To sum it up:

3 days 3 sets of 5 back exercises* resulting in sharp back pain, but not so intense that I could not function. 4 of 10.

2 days moderate pace 1/2 mile bike ride. No immediate pain, but 6 of 10 later that night that caused inability to sleep.

3 pounds lost.

*Found in "Ishmael's Care of the Back", 4th edition by Brian Krabak, MD, MBA and Brandee Waite, MD.

No comments: