Should I Be Worried?

I went back to the gym after the holiday weekend, four full days of very little physical activity except for walking the dogs and taking them to the park, and walking around the mall while waiting for my son's phone to transfer all its data to a new one. People are still on holiday and the gym isn't very crowded. I do a light workout to give myself time to pick up an Rx renewal at the CVS before heading home to take pups to the park.

I've used an entire tube of anti-fungal steroidal cream and I don't see much difference under my armpits. My doc said this could take a long time, so I got tube number two and if nothing's changed by the time half this tube is gone, it'll be time to get a dermatologist appointment. Of course, that in itself will take a good six weeks to acquire so perhaps I should call for the appointment now?

I have another Visual Field test tomorrow and for the past week I've been also drinking powdered beets mixed in water. My husband has a subscription of sorts to SuperBeets so we have a dozen jars of it in the house. He likes it as a pre-workout. I'm just drinking it to see if the purported increase in bloodflow can benefit someone with glaucoma. This eye disease is still a bit of a mystery because not everyone with high eye pressures suffers from vision loss but the prevailing theory is that high eye pressures damage the retina. Lifting heavy weights raises eye pressure. Holding your breath raises eye pressure. Having your head below the heart raises eye pressure (no downward dog). Laying on your side or face down raises eye pressure. 

I don't want to stop lifting weights because that would be bad for my mental health. My compromise has been to lift light weights a lot, and do body weight exercises. Cutting out the bulk of my lifting and stretching routine has been good for my sciatica though. And that's depressing...

There's also the thought that people with low blood pressure don't have an adequate oxygen supply to the eyes and that high blood pressure is better. WTF? High blood pressure is never better! And clinically, blood pressure and eye pressure have little concrete correlation to each other.There's also some evidence that beet juice might lower inflammation in the body. (Yeah, but doesn't anything that's deeply colored red, blue or purple also make that claim?)

More concerning though is the test result I got back from Cologuard today, recommending that I make an appointment with a gastroenterologist. Ugh. I was hoping to avoid the unpleasant prep required for the bowel exam, but it looks like that's not the case. While the test isn't actually diagnostic, and there is a percentage of false negatives, it does strongly suggest an actual peak at the internals. My last test 3 years ago was negative. So it's been 13 years and my colon is overdue for a look-see. I've already contacted a doctor with local offices and am just waiting for them to get back to me. 

I did buy a new hair clip only because it specifically stated it was for long, fine hair and it does look like it means business. Most of the clips I've purchased lately have been disappointing, with too deep a profile making them hard to wear while driving because they constantly knock into the headrest, and the spring is too weak to hold a lot of hair, and the teeth are too pointy which scratches the scalp. This is none of these...

31 May 2023
Wednesday EOM

Precor elliptical #1
Program 1
Time: 30 + 5 (5522)
Distance: 2.81
Cal: 311
Avg Hr: 149, 182-80

HGPU 20

20 Hip Bridges
Crunches 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
20 Hip Bridges
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat stretch 12x
Fire Hydrants 30 x 2
Child’s Pose / Cobra Pose
Bird Dog Planks 60s x 2
Push-Ups 25
Air Squats 25
Upper body stretch
Eye yoga

StepMill (L)
Manual 10 min
Speed 6 (52-60)
Steps 540
Floors 33
Cal 79
Hr 131