I think Dear Dairy will be short today. Dear Diary, I felt sh**t today. Perhaps this is a little too short.
I fear the fibromyalgia and the drugs for the sciatica were the main causes. It makes me feel pretty fed up never mind feeling sick with fatigue. I will be honest with you, although I am often irreverent, sarcastic and make fun of things, I sometimes have days where I can’t see a way out. Today is one of those that headed into that quadrant.
For those of you who haven’t met me personally, I would like you to know that I am heavy. The medics helpfully describe it as morbidly obese, but never out loud to me. To be fair, I don’t need them to tell me as I know. I also don’t think it is a particularly helpful label for many people. Many people are not at risk of dying because they are very overweight, to be honest, I don’t think I am but…. I think it is not making me feel so well. Being ‘morbid’ anything doesn’t inspire me to make changes, it just encourages me to think morbidly.
However, despite regular contact with the medical profession, despite me asking for support and help to feel better, the only thing they seem to want to offer me is a diet of drugs. In over five years, the GP’s have not bothered weighing me, taking my blood pressure, checking my bloods for diabetes or anything else. They can’t even manage to get me referred for physiotherapy or a Pain Management course I am supposed to be doing. The latest drug they have encouraged me to take has a primary side effect of ‘putting weight on’ and guess what – they are right! How can this be helping me?
In the past week alone, I have put 3lbs on and this is with the counter measures of swimming regularly, fasting several days and primarily preparing my own food. This cannot continue. I cannot live my life like this. I know it is inflammation which is wrecking my body but I now have to get a grip. I can’t live like this for the rest of my life.
I am not a fan of calorie counting but I think I am going to follow the principles of the Fast 800 diet which was developed by the late Dr Michael Mosely and his not so late wife, Dr Claire Bailey. I am sorry but I am afraid I have to do something drastic and soon. For those of you who say, it isn’t good to lose weight rapidly – why do they put people on liquid only diets when they are scheduled for weight loss surgery (which I am not an advocate of by the way)?
Other things I am going to do are:
- Look at my pain killer regime and change it.
- Press harder for the surgery option on my lower back. Taking a huge amount of damaging tablets for the next twenty years plus to control the immense pain I have is not an option I want to take.
Before I finish, I just want to tell myself (and any of you reading this) that surgery is not the answer to everything. I have a shoulder issue that hurts a lot but is not on my list of needing a scalpel. However, I have had severe sciatic pain which is resulting in numbness in my foot for two years. The drugs are having minimal effect and even if I eventually get the nerve blocking procedure I have already been waiting 6 months for, that will only mask the problem for about 8 months. It may also result in the nerve damage becoming permanent.
I wish myself not luck but all the faith I need in myself to make this work. Are you with me?