She's hobbling but at least she's back!!!

Firstly, thanks to all my sparkie friends for your messages, emails and goodies. I really have appreciated your care and concern for me – you are all wonderful.

I have been missing in action for a few weeks – we arrived back from our caravanning adventure two weeks ago, and I immediately had my varicose veins done which has kept me out of action for a few days.

For most of the first half of the year, I was in a really good place – my diet was working well and my exercise program – woohoo – I was exercising and loving it – walking, running, cycling and weight training for up to 2 ½ hours every day – cause my body felt great. However, then some niggling pains set in which I tried to ignore and self-treated with massage, hot and cold packs and painkillers.

I felt like the two sides of my body didn’t belong together – my right side felt wonderful and the left side felt awful – strong shoulder pain, intense hip pain when I ran, walked or used the stairs and pain in my knee, as well as the aches from my varicose veins – if a dog had as many whinges he would be put down!!! Just saying!!! I felt lethargic and constantly tired cause I wasn’t sleeping well from the pain.

The pain over the past two months seemed to get worse while we were away, but nothing was going to spoil our holiday – I usually keep any negatives to myself and so I pasted on the ‘brave face’, but inwardly I was struggling to get out of bed every day.

My hip has been so sore that it troubles me to walk and to go up and down stairs, – the shoulder hurts when I brush my hair, put on my bra, and try to reach anything over my head or reach out to the side. I feel like my body has really let me down – although I also know that I have let it down for so long that this is the price to pay.

After another sleepless night last night, my husband said to me over breakfast – as I opened a new packet of painkillers –“the time has come for you to bite the bullet and go to the doctor TODAY - you need to find out what is going on”.

I felt like a hypochondriac as I reeled off my list of aches and pains in the surgery and have spent the day running around getting x-rays and ultra sounds of various body parts.
The diagnosis has finally been received – and the doc tried to put a lot of the blame on my overzealous exercise program AT MY AGE!!!!

I have osteoarthritis in the hip, knee and shoulder as well as bursitis in the hip and shoulder, and a tendon tear in the shoulder – certainly explains all the aches and pains – they all need a rest to allow time to heal, helped along by cortisone injections, anti-inflammatories, physio, etc.

I feel relieved that I finally know what is causing the pain and that it can be treated – although I will have to look for other exercise options – we have a good heated pool near us so I might give the aquarobics a try. I am frustrated that my body is rebelling, so now I need to take care of it for a while – I have promised to cut back to 30 minute walks for the time being until we can reassess the progress over the next few weeks.

I would love to hear any remedies or experiences that you may have had with osteoarthritis and bursitis –and the associated pain management. The doc assures me that it can be treated and managed if not cured.

In the interests of full disclosure, I met some challenges with my diet while we were travelling and eating with friends so often – I put back about five kilos (blame the hot chips and hot chocolates) - so easy to stack back on but so darned hard to budge!!

I am now back on track and have re-lost 2.7 of those dastardly kilos since we came home.

Thank you so much for reading to the end and putting up with my whining – have a fabulous week.