Oooooogggg.....

[dancinghorse]

Whimper.

I have had back spasms for two days. I have never had anything like them before. Occasional small aches, usually from the tireds or too much heavy lifting, but this is a new thing.

Major stress reaction, beats a heart attack or a stroke, and really I can soldier through pain, but I have horses to feed. And that involves a lot of walking and stretching and lifting and bending and pulling. And moving fairly fast sometimes, if one of them needs to be snagged and redirected, or corrected.

Forget Easter dinner. No way I was driving 40 minutes one-way. Parentals came here instead, bearing food, which I ate eventually, and Drooogs, which I leaped on immediately. Just advil. Works well for me.

Horse corrals were not cleaned today. (Bad me. I clean them daily.) Horses have been fed and watered. Was feeling enough better this noon that I was able to brush out a couple, not very well but it's the principle of the thing. I even made a necessary phone call and did a necessary e-mail. Aren't I virtuous. I still must Write Pages--good news there, mip came to the other night and is up and staggering again. And feed horses again. Also, dogs. Which involves hauling a 50lb sack of kibble in from the shed. I'm in denial over that, for the moment. Cats' sack is only 20lbs and I managed that earlier. It's not lifting that's getting me, it's standing up. And walking. Spasms keep knocking me off my stride though not yet, quite, off my feet.

Gee, you think I'm stressed? According to a certain person, I have no excuse. Tell that to my back muscles, please.

Comments

[house-draven.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you were able to get so much done, despite the pain, and VERY glad the mip has come back home, but it does sound as if you could use a major therapeutic stretching regimen.

There's a fabulous book called Stretching by Bob Anderson, well-illustrated, easy to follow. It's been around forever -- this is the 20th anniversary. You can find it here. As I recall, there's also advice on how to put together a stretching routine that's right for what *you* need. Mike Gray, my fibro doctor, highly recommends it, and he's right -- when I do it, it makes all the difference in the world -- I'm not doing it now because I don't have the book here with me and I'm too fibro-brained to remember the full routine.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Flexibility is not usually a problem--I have a really good daily regimen for staying limber and in shape--but when tension decides to localize in a particular muscle group, it sounds like just the thing.

Thank you.

One thing that is helping is riding-type tension release. It really helps when I'm in motion. Kind of like martial-arts centering, then draining the knots away.

[house-draven.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wasn't clear because of fibro-brain -- I was talking about having the exercises to work on the particular knotted groups as they grabbed you.

Hope it may be of use to you.

I'd think those riding-type tension release exercises *would* be of great use, yes, indeed. Maybe a combination of everything will be just the ticket. Do you have a garden tub in your bathroom? Maybe using those little hand roller-ball massagers in the tub on the shoulders or other area that was knotted might be of use when you were soaking, too. I do a lot of self-massage, but of course, can't reach much of my back.

Oddly enough, I, too, am getting back to writing. There must indeed be something in the air.