Pain, pain, go away

Know how sometimes you have a little niggle -  a twinge of pain somewhere that you think will go away in a bit, so you don't do anything about it, or you forget about, or you simply don't have time to do something about? Yeah, I had one of those. This, dear friends, is a cautionary tale about getting older.

So everyone knows that I am I serious need of a body upgrade. In case you missed it, let me give you the low down. I have:

~ a skew sacrum (fractured falling off a horse in full gallop; it was never picked up until after it had healed) which gives me incredible back-pain and periodic sciatica

~ damaged cervical vertebrae (same horse, same fall)

~ hyper-mobility syndrome (all my joints bend more than they should) giving rise to multiple twisted ankles and sore knees

~ torn ligaments in one ankle (that hyper-mobility thing in overdrive) with chipped bone fragments that had to be surgically removed and so now I have reduced mobility in that ankle (& can't wear high heels for more than a day in a stretch)

~ fractured knee-caps in both knees

~ RSI in both wrists (that's thanks to practicing octave scales for my Gd 8 piano exam...)

~ APS (blood clotting disorder which results in my blood not pumping very well, so my heart works overtime all the time, yet, oddly, my blood pressure is naturally low)

~ poor circulation (thanks to my APS issues) causing me to suffer terribly in cold weather, when my hands are white, my lips are blue and I can't stop shivering

~ one side of my body shorter than the other (so my clothes always fall off my right shoulder...): running with one slightly shorter leg is a lot of fun, not.

~ virus, mould spores and hayfever-induced asthma

~ I get migraines every month (both period related and APS related)

... Have I forgotten anything?

I pretty much live with some sort of daily pain. I can't remember the last time I had a totally pain-free day. Some days the pain is mild - just an ache. Some days I don't want to move out of bed cause it all just hurts too much.

Of course, I am my own worst enemy, because if I was dedicated in doing my exercises, my back wouldn't get so bad. But, you know how it is. Life gets in the way of taking proper care of yourself.

Earlier this year, like back in the first term, my shoulders and neck got all messed up, again. I was getting headaches, and eventually things were so bad I was struggling to turn my head to see my blind spot. After 3 months I figured it wasn't getting better, so I went for a deep tissue massage, and came out with a shoulder injury... And still not able to see my blind spot. 

I thought it was 'just' a ligament injury, and would heal in a few months. Hah! Turns out it was a whole lot more. Turns out that my pain is chronic, and that my spinal column is a mess. Yes, I though I knew that already, but it's actually much worse than I thought it was. Because of not doing anything about my pain for such a long time, I have made things 100x worse. Now I have two serious spinal issues that need to be corrected if I want to have any quality of life when I am 60. (And 60 is suddenly looking a lot closer to me now than 40 did when I was 20!)

And, of course, that 'whole lot more' is costing me a pretty packet to get my Physio to fix.

That's the problem with chronic pain and injury. The longer you leave it, the worse it is to fix. My brain is still so messed up over all this, that when you press on my shoulder, I feel the pain in my butt, or in my toes, or in my fingers. As I said, chronic pain -  it messes with everything. (Fortunately, my body is responding well, and quickly, to treatment!)

But the worst of all is that if I had sorted myself out properly when I was younger, none of this would be necessary now. Of course, when I was younger, I didn't think it was that serious. I didn't think it was that necessary. Getting on with enjoying my life was a lot more fun! When I was younger I was foolish, oh so foolish! (plus, I didn't really have the money to fix myself...)

So, young people, take a lesson from me. When you get injured, take the time to get professional help and get yourself properly healed. Don't just press on, or do things half-cocked. It will come back to haunt you when you get older, and it will cost you a great deal more!

And I give everyone permission, when you see me, to ask how good I am being about my treatment -  my exercises, my stretches, my posture! I don't ever want to get back to where I was a few weeks ago. I want to live a life in which living pain-free (most of the time) and having pain-free movement is normal.