Again. But it's remarkable that it even stayed there because it crept up to 149.5 during the week and just went down again yesterday or the day before, and then last night we went out to dinner at Carabbas and ate their excellent pizza and far too much bread. And then I had a heart attack. Actually the heart attack came before dinner and it wasn't really a heart attack but it had us scared for most of the evening!
I had a weird, sharp (but very localized pain) on my left side right about where my heart ought to be, right after I'd lifted Cecilia for the upteen jillionth time that day (we were doing a lot of running around). It was a familiar pain, one I think I've had before, but it didn't go away, and over the next hour my left arm started feeling a bit numb. It was very hard to be rational about this -- chest pain and a problem with the left arm? And I wasn't home so I couldn't Google it to calm my nerves. So Daniel and I tried to act normal and not worry about it, fairly unsuccessfully, for about three hours. Ibuprofen did nothing. We had to talk ourselves out of going to the ER. I wasn't short of breath and my pulse was fine and I'm 35 years old, for crying out loud!
Anyway, when we got home I did Google it, and it said, as we'd guessed, that it was a pinched nerve or pulled muscle or both. Probably I strained a muscle and in the process pinched a nerve. I was wearing a fairly unsupportive bra yesterday and I bet that didn't help. When I woke up this morning the chest pain was gone and my arm was quite a bit better, but when I picked Cecilia up it twinged again -- so now I can't lift anything serious for the rest of the day. The pain is gone again and I'm wearing a good bra so I hope it won't come back, but my arm is still acting weird. If it's not back to normal by Thursday I'll call the doctor, but this is one of those things I don't think doctors can do much about -- they'll say, don't lift anything, but that's about it.
Anyway, that's not weight loss, but it's health-related, so I thought I'd bring it up. Just a bit of the fear of God for me! I'll be interested in seeing how this affects my exercising tomorrow -- I won't do weights but I'll sure do aerobic exercise!
3 comments:
Goodness!!! That would have put the fear of God in me too!!! I am glad it turned out to be nothing. They say that women mostly notice heart pain in their backs - but since that isn't what is commonly advertized they ignore it - which is why women so often die of heart disease.
Have you met with a trainer at your gym to make sure you are using the weight equipment correctly? Perhaps you are doing something that is putting strain on that set of muscels?
That was why I *didn't* think it was a heart attack -- it didn't make sense for me, as a woman, to be feeling it in my arm when I'm not supposed to! (That and the lack of shortness of breath and the very calm pulse.)
I still haven't met with a trainer -- but I hadn't exercised in three days so I didn't think it was the equipment. The equipment that I use is the same as the stuff I was trained on years and years ago so I'm pretty sure I'm using it properly. Only the leg press is new to me but it's hard to see how I could be getting that wrong (and would that affect my pectorals?). Nevertheless, I need to meet with a trainer because there are a lot of machines I'm scared to try and I'd like some advice!
I really do think it was Cecilia that triggered it -- we went to Mary's friend's farm in the morning and she gets unhappy there, so I was picking her up and putting her down all morning, and then in the afternoon we went to Daniel's office for lunch (after the grocery store, where I bought cat litter, which probably made matters worse) and I was carrying my purse, a couple of bags of lunch stuff, a blankie-too, and Cecilia all at once, and I had to park a million miles away and walk mostly uphill. And then Daniel and I went shopping for furniture -- more carrying -- and a TV -- in a store where she'd run for 10 seconds, climb up on me, climb back down, etc. -- and then one time when I picked her up it just twinged and didn't go away. Sigh.
Gotta watch out for that adorable exercise equipment--you'll end up injuring yourself just because you can't stay away!
Take it easy until you recover--I kept re-pulling the same shoulder muscle because it didn't hurt until I did one particular pilates move so I'd forget it was a problem and then I'd hurt it all over again. Got very annoying.
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