Well, it’s Tuesday morning and instead of teaching my private clients, I’m lounging on my bed writing this week’s newsletter!
I say lounging, not because I’m feeling relaxed, great – or even good – but because that’s the position where I’m in the least amount of pain. I got out of bed as usual this morning feeling ok ish, had my normal morning shower- still ok ish, actually started to feel a bit better – don’t you just love the feeling of a nice warm shower to start the day! Then getting dressed for work, bending over to fumble around in my sock draw…..just thinking to myself….mmmm, my back feels odd, and then BAM! Sudden sharp, debilitating pain as my back goes into spasm, making my knees buckle and I fall to the floor!
A few expletives later as I pull myself up onto my bed, lie on my back thinking s**t, now what?!
Luckily for me, I work in low back pain, have a good knowledge of back problems and am aware of what was happening. Also, this is not the first time this has happened, I have had various back episodes such as this before…..but it has been a couple of years since my last one.
Everyone assumes because I specialise in back care that I will not suffer…….not true, I’m not exempt – the only difference is I’m more aware of what is going on and I know what I should and shouldn’t be doing. That doesn’t mean that I always do it though!!!
So, as I’m lying on my bed running through all the things that I need to do over the next couple of days, thinking this is seriously bad timing and starting to go down the route of feeling sorry for myself and doing all the ‘what ifs’ etc etc, I just stop….. Literally, my brain just stops and my thoughts change to ‘ok this has happened, accept it, move on and get things sorted to minimise disruption’.
So, I popped a few painkillers, I got on to my trusty phone, cancelled my privates (even driving isn’t happening right now), contacted the lovely Cheryl to see if she could cover my classes tomorrow, let Carole know the situation as I’m supposed to be teaching classes for her, let Sue know what has happened as I have a big presentation on Wednesday evening with her (still hoping to do this!), contacted my partner for a bit of sympathy and support, then hopped onto my laptop and thought ok, let’s get on with all the admin/paperwork etc that I need to do. Mindset in action 🙂
For those of you that have back issues and want to know a little bit more……
Firstly, was this totally out of the blue?
Nope, I have been stirred up around my SI joint for the past few months and it has been getting worse. I continued doing things that I knew were aggravating it – Hot Yoga for one – now I’m not blaming this, the responsibility lies with me. I’m a little too mobile in certain areas and it is VERY easy for me to take things too far, it’s hard for people like me to feel when we have gone too far (until the next day). I had been reining things in, but clearly not enough.
I consumed an unusual amount of alcohol and sugar for me this weekend – both detrimental as they aggravate inflammation and worsen back issues.
As I was out on the town, I wore the most ridiculous high heels – throws your pelvis out and causes back issues, and as I spend most of my time in bare feet or trainers, this is a shock to my body!
I had less sleep than normal – limits the body’s ability to repair.
I have been fighting off this ‘bug’ that appears to be going around everybody, I find that when a virus gets hold of me, it attacks the weak areas – in my case my SI joint.
Basically, I carried on as if nothing was happening, and on reflection, how on earth did I expect my body not to react?
When an episode like this occurs, it is not out of the blue, it’s a culmination of the things that we have been doing and finally your body says whoa! I don’t feel safe and therefore I’m going to send your muscles into spasm so you stop aggravating that area.
Listen to your body, it really does know best 🙂
How am I going to help my body recover? Firstly, I’m taking some pain relief, I will do small gentle Pilates movements that don’t cause me too much pain, and will resist doing the things that are clearly aggravating it – tonight I will be having a nice warm bath and an early night. I know that although it feels VERY painful, that the muscle damage is minimal and that gentle movements will not cause any damage, but in fact, will speed up my recovery.
Much love
Philippa (feeling slightly irritated with myself for not taking my own advice)