The shots usually hit the lateral delt or tricep muscle, but this pharmacist injected me nearly at the top of the shoulder: the thin medial delt, and I felt each injection. The booster hurt a tad more than the flu shot, but more disturbingly, I could hear a sound, a wet slurpy sound. That's never happened before! The pharmacist puts a bandaid on my shoulder but commented that there's no blood, the injection sites didn't bleed. I tell her that one of my docs once told me that I had sticky blood, and that I'm not sure that's a good thing. In fact, sticky blood is a precursor to strokes and high blood pressure. But I haven't been formally diagnosed so I'm not going to go crazy about it.
My dad was prescribed coumadin (warfarin) for his heart problems. Maybe he had sticky blood too? But he also had spinal stenosis and that worries me. Is that something that could be causing my recurrent sciatica? Probably not since it's made worse by walking, and feels better when sitting. That's contradictory to my sciatica experience.
While my shoulder became sore almost immediately, the rest of me didn't develop aches and pains until bedtime. Which meant I didn't get much sleep because I couldn't find a comfortable position that didn't bother my hips, back, sciatica, knees, shoulders, neck, ears... I was finally comfortable at 6:30 AM and that let me sleep for an hour before hobbling off to get the pups to the park. Luckily, I know that walking is key to relieving sciatic pain. In today's email, I get a link to the Nat Geo articles prescribing walking as a remedy for lower back pain. Well, duh. Click here to read it (not sure if there's a paywall).
In the NYT, there's an article about gabapentin and its pervasive off-label usage. I'm guilty of that since I got it prescribed for the nerve pain of shingles, but use it sparingly for sciatic pain. But I don't use it often as there are unpleasant side-effects, like brain fog. But it works so much better than chamomile tea or melatonin for getting a solid night's sleep. (Heck, the vet uses it to "calm" down my dogs (along with tramadol) but I don't like using it on them because I think it makes them upset: mentally altered but not understanding why. I like the calming chews better for the pups when there's fireworks or thunderstorms...)
Because I'm still sore and achy, I won't be disappointed in how much or little I can do today. Cardio goes okay although I'm a lot more tired and breathless on the step machine than I'm used to. And pull-ups are hard today, but at least I could get a dozen each time. I guess that, in itself, is a good thing. Not a lot of folks in the gym. The Aerobics Room feels a bit warm and clammy. It's very humid and I expected rain but it doesn't rain. Instead, there's been very foggy mornings with a lot of moisture on my car, and the yard. I joke that I never have to water my lawn, because honestly, the predawn air creates its own watering system. I skip Bird Dogs and Wall Sits. Push-ups still aggravate my sciatica, but not quite as badly as last week. Hip Bridges are tolerable if I stretch my right leg out every few reps.
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