Archive for sleeping
the latest
well, I still can’t seem to get caught up on my bills, even since I’ve started working full-time again. I’ve been toying with the idea of going with a less expensive acupuncturist since my Massage Therapist friend knows of one. I feel bad even thinking that though since I really like my acupuncturist and feel like we have a rapor and I want to be loyal. Plus, she worked at a hospital in China. But money is an ongoing problem with me, so we’ll see. I would at least find out if the same herbal formulas are available at a different place before I would try a new place out.
I still don’t sleep much during the workweek. I am not a morning person, nor do I ever really want to be one. I have to be at work at 7:55 and I usually get there at 7:58 which is already a problem. I’m hoping I can save up money and jump into real estate full-time at some point, but I don’t know how soon that could happen. Things keep coming up. At least with real estate there are no rules about what time you have to get there or anything like that. (Well, at my company there aren’t).
I went running in the woods at that park earlier this week. I figured out which way to go so that I wouldn’t have to really do any uphills. So I did the whole loop and it probably wasn’t too far but I felt proud of myself. But for me running in the woods is way easier than on the roads. I still hope to do a 5k at some point but feel no immediacy about when. Since I felt bad that one week when I ran 2 days in a row, I’m not pushing myself at all. Once a week or so is fine by me. A girl I work with is going to walk a 5k in a month or so and her saying that got me thinking about it more. So who knows. But my muscles have been hurting a lot lately. Not because I did anything. Just because I guess it’s a part of the Graves. My dr. had suspected fibromyalgia at one point because I have Lupus antibodies and I had a high sed rate once. I’ve been sent to rheumatologists twice and they just said it was the Graves that causes those labs. I do think I have some kind of chronic inflammatory issue going on from the Graves and the achiness has been bothering me lately and freaking me out, considering that I’m in my twenties. It makes we worried about what it might feel like when I’m actually old. But I do still have hope that things will come together one way or another. I feel like I have new weapons by looking outside the box.
I also came across an interesting tidbit online yesterday about PCOS. If you go to the wikipedia page on it, at the bottom there was information about a supplement that supposedly treats all of the problems by fixing a missing link in the insulin process. It looks like there are actual published studies on this substance and it really does work, the problem is that it is pretty much impossible to get in the U.S. But I guess there is a similar supplement available. I may try it at some point, because I am getting more and more fed up with the PCOS options that are out there. I always think,”Who has the money to take Metformin and end up in the hospital all the time from the side effects?” Not I said the little red hen, Not I.
I also always feel the weight of that stigma, where they say that people with blood sugar problems/diabetes got it because they gained weight and didn’t take care of themselves. I constantly see this message all over magazines and the media and it makes me mad and I feel the unfairness of my situation. I loved working out and suddenly had to stop from being so weak from the Graves/blood sugar problems that came on at the same time. I hate the diabetes stigma, I think it’s an unfair message to be propogating. Instead, we should talk more about having a food supply that is closer to Canadas. Take out the MSG from our Campbells soup, our chips, our sausage and everything else. Take out the corn syrup, the excessive salt, the preservatives. I think it’s not that people don’t try, it’s that in America our food supply is basically tainted.
Prime example. My mom had a Curves magazine and I was reading it. They were saying not to eat corn syrup – it makes you fat. Well, well, well – and what do we have in Curves cereal which claims to make you thin? …..Corn Syrup!!!!
More running, less acupuncture
I went running twice this week. I went to a local wooded park that I had been to once before and had a weird experience at. The experience had left me thinking that these particular woods were “haunted” or had some kind of supernatural thing going on in them. But a friend had told me that she goes there and didn’t experience that. So I decided to check it out again. I didn’t experience anything super scary. I forgot how hilly the place is though. I don’t have the strength to run up those hills so I would run a little walk a little. And I felt stronger for being out there. But every since my shoulders and back have felt really tight.
It seems like it’s been forever since my last acupuncture session and I can definitely tell a difference. Last week I didn’t sleep much because I was always still wide awake at 1 or 2 am. Plus like I said, you feel weaker and sore when you wake up in the morning. At work I keep forgetting things. I get paid this next friday so I will try to see if I can get an appt on Saturday.
I also had run out of $ and subsequently gone off the Pill for 2 weeks. My gyn had said the pill wouldn’t have much effect on my blood sugar, but I think it really did. Because there were a few days where my hands were shaking pretty much the whole day. And I have had a much harder time regulating the sugar since then. I have been catching myself having high blood sugar a few times. I have been back on the pill for 5 days but am still not feeling back to normal. I don’t know if the pill was helping me before or the acupuncture. I also still want to try a progesterone only pill. My gyn is against this because she says a lack of estrogen is what causes dryness “down there.” But I found a PCOS message board and a lot of people said they didn’t have dryness UNTIL they went on the pill. Which seems to be the case for me. It also pointed out that some people are estrogen dominant, meaning they don’t need to take more estrogen. I don’t know, maybe the progesterone only pill won’t help me – but I think it’s worth a try at least.
Sunday run – January 6th
Sunday I wanted to try out those new running clothes. See if they made me feel streamlined. I had stayed out the previous night very late and had 2 beers so needless to say I was tired and weak on Sunday, but still felt the urge to run. It wasn’t very cold outside. I didn’t have as hard of a time picking my feet up. I had more of a problem feeling like low-sugary and like I could fall every time my foot hit the pavement. But overall I was pleased with the run. It is still amazing to me to be able to breathe like a normal runner does. And if I recall I felt lighter on my feet. I was excited because my goal of doing a 5k in the future seemed a lot more doable. It’s like I can visualize myself getting back to that point.
I have still felt weak, or like it takes a lot of effort to walk up the stairs, or like it’s hard to sleep sometimes or my mind is racing at warp speed. But I can’t imagine my life had I not started with acupuncture. It’s amazing that she has gotten me back into running at all, even if I can’t run far yet. Absolutely amazing.
hmmm
- the last time I had acupuncture was aweek ago (December 28). I remember I had been kind of depressed and I told her that and now I’m not. Sleeping has been more of a struggle but not as much in the past few days. I have a hard time with being wired when it’s time to wind down during the week (and right now I’m physically spent but mentally not).
- I did get hired at a new job but haven’t started yet. It’s from 8-5 every day and I’m nervous that it will be a struggle to go to bed at a decent hour and get up. (Always has been a struggle). I tend to get stressed out when I know I have to get up early. Then I can’t sleep or am just wired wanting to read late at night and usually by the end of the week I’m dead. I’m also nervous about the eating at work/low blood sugar situation. To feel good I really need to eat every 2-3 hours, which always makes me feel like a lazy person or paranoid that I will get in trouble for it. But I will say that when I was doing acupuncture once a week my blood sugar was not as big a part of my life.
Hopefully the new job will also give me a little more money to get back into eating healthy and experimenting with new things. One of the things I wanted to try was wheatgrass powder. I guess you just pour it in water and make a drink out of it. If it tastes decent it could be a good way for me to get more greens.
I also ate little cups of applesauce this week in between breakfast & lunch at work and that was a catastrophe. My mom buys the kind with corn syrup added and I’m not sure if this is why, but both times after I ate it my vision was all blurry and I got hot and felt like I was getting closer to passing out. So I am steering clear of that from now on.
I’m hoping to have enough money to do acupuncture once a week again, but we’ll see.
Also tonight I finally went shopping for some running clothes. I got a few tops and a pair of sweat pants and the modern loose polyester equivalent of what used to be running tights. I’m excited about this new gear – a lot of it seems sleek and I’m hoping it will get me more enthused. I like the idea of feeling compact and streamlined when running. I’m thinking running could be an important part of me improving if it really will help my blood sugar problems. My goal of course is to get better to the point where I can run 5k races again like I used to in high school. I need some of those long-sleeve running t-shirts that you get at the races (always the main motivator for me to race, but now that I’m older I also like that the races benefit good causes).
Although I have felt NO urge to go running lately. I haven’t had the energy I had when I was going to acu once a week. But I think that even going every other week I am doing better than I was before I started ever going.
I think my outlook is way better. I realized that by constantly thinking about Graves disease, with it’s disease name I was feeding the beast. Now I think more about healing, or getting better, or the improvements I have had.
Good Morning Starshine
here’s a picture of my wide eyes. you can see them struggling to look sideways. a face shown without the rest of the face looks really funny.
THE SINUSES
So at I almost cancelled my last acupuncture appt. because my sinuses were so clogged and I felt really run down that day. I would blow my nose nonstop. I got there and she stuck many needles around my nose. It made my eyes water. But afterwards on the drive home it felt easier to breathe. And it pretty much got rid of what was going on. I still blow my nose sometimes but I can breathe, I’m not congested.
TIREDNESS
well, it seems that I am not doing as well going every other week to acupuncture instead of every week. but I can’t even pay my bills! but this week I had trouble sleeping, as far as being wired late at night. it would be 2 am and I still didn’t really want to go to bed. then had to get up around 8. needless to say I am exhausted (but still don’t want to go to bed.) I have realized that I stress out about things that are beyond my control (men, jobs etc.) and this really does me no favors physically either. It definitely doesn’t help me wind down at night. I also would pee before I went to bed and feel like there was a tiny bit just sitting there that wouldn’t come out. This irritated me and kept me awake with my repeated trips to the bathroom. This has always been a hallmark of the graves with me. The little things that are like gnats bothering you. I just fell off the wagon in general this week. I noticed myself feeling weaker. And the winter depression from the lack of sunlight finally hit me. But since then I feel better.
THE RUN
I decided one day that I just had to get more sunlight to fight the winter blues I am prone to. So I went for a run in the park near the real estate office. I ran on pavement and I did have a hard time picking up my feet, but I felt like I pushed myself to go a little farther than usual. I could also breathe steadily and calmly which is nice. Then afterwards I felt a tightness in my lungs the rest of the night. Probably from running in the cold. It was weird though, almost like holding mental tension in there. It made me wonder if the run also got some energy blocked in there, but maybe that’s farfetched who knows. But the run did lift up my spirits from being outside in the light. It is very gray here in the winter.
THE YEAST
I have started taking hot baths again at night this week because it really calms me even though I’m sure it doesn’t help the nonstop yeast situation (which is back with a vengeance.) I take diflucan but I haven’t been able to shake this thing yet. The gyno said she sees this ongoing yeast issue in her diabetes patients and that I should try to cut down on carbs/sugar. I try to be careful with what I eat, but I live with my parents right now and I’m broke. They have a huge supply of all manner of sweets at all times. And that stuff fills me up if I’m running out the door, where an apple and spinach will not. So that’s on ongoing struggle. I feel like it’s militant to not be able to have a few cookies once in a while, when otherwise I eat very well. But the acupuncturist had said it is part of my heat issue so who knows what exactly is causing it. I guess a month of antibiotics last spring wasn’t good either. I’ll keep hammering away at it. Try different things.
THE JOB
I’m working on figuring out some other job I can do that will be less stressful than my current one. I’m also trying to do real estate part time and really want it to work out. So I need my main job to be something that doesn’t stress me out or weigh me down mentally.
sleeping without sleep medicine
Nov. 19th – another acupuncture appt.
I will have to start spacing them out more because I can’t afford them AND pay my bills.
I have slept for a total of 6 nights without sleep medicine. I usually wake up to pee an hour before my alarm goes off. It is so nice to be able to lay down and have my body turn itself off and go to sleep. Before I just felt like there was no off switch. My body never wanted to sleep without that medicine. And I think this will help me feel MUCH more clear-headed too. I say the less medications in my system the better.
But the back pain on my left side that is in the same area it was when I had the UTI is still there. It’s not there all day but when it is there it can be really bad. Like a grinding pain as if there’s a set of teeth in there grinding together. With the urine being too alkaline and having blood in it in the past, I still think it could be kidney stones. I told the acupuncturist this and she said I need to go see a dr. so I made an appt tommorrow. I don’t know if they will have to refer me to a specialist to find out though. I hope not.
