Been in the wars lately …
Which is weird, cos I’ve been fairly lazy lately. What’s the issue this time ? Shoulder isn’t actually too bad, although I suspect it’s just biding its time. Nah – it’s another old injury, plus something I suspect caused by last year’s leg injury.
No 1 – Back
Unless you’ve actually had back problems, you won’t realise that it feels like you’ve had your strings cut … In my case, I originally injured the lower lumber area (the bit above your bum) of my spine while playing cricket twenty years ago. Let’s just say it was doing too much too soon, attempting to bowl stronger than my frame and muscles could support.
The knock on effect of the inflammation when it gets poorly is that the nerves controlling the legs get a bit cramped up. That leads to cold feeling legs and the control messages don’t get through as well as before. When I originally strained my back, I kept on playing cricket (although my bowling wasn’t as effective) but while I could still sprint with my right leg, the “sprint” message to the left leg was turning into “jog”. Ho hum.
It’s another injury that never completely heals, although when it’s not acting up I still have most of my mobility.
What happened this time ? I haven’t a clue how I did it, as it flared up during a meeting last Wednesday … Thursday was really bad, so bad I upgraded the usual Friday pm off into a 3 day weekend. Cue a few days of barely being able to move without going OUCH in a big way. It finally started releasing on Saturday night and has improved through 2 days at work to the point where I nearly have all my mobility and concentration back.
What’s concentration got to do with it ? It’s tough to concentrate when you have constant pain, even at low levels. It’s not jut the distraction of the actual pain, it’s also loss of quality sleep. Again, that’s not something that people who don’t have to live with pain will understand. Thankfully the low level pain I manage doesn’t need painkillers.
My back’s improving now, I have most of my mobility back. That can be a bad thing because I use full mobility as soon as I have it, leaving me prone to aggravating the injury again 🙂 No sense, no feeling ?
Could be hopeful for a peek at cars again, which I’ve been putting off due to : Waiting out garages that are asking silly prices and wanting to test drive without going OW from my back.
Issue 2 – Legs …
I suspect I have a Venous Leg Ulcer … (Look it up, I’m not going to describe symptoms cos they can be icky). It’s not big, about 2cm by 2cm and only slightly icky. It fits the various symptoms, as in it’s a wound that wasn’t healing. Looking up the causes, it seems like something unwell or old people get and I don’t think I count as that just yet. However … the prime cause is damage to the veins. That can be caused by a few things :
Getting old
Trauma
Deep Vein Thrombosis
Sick stuff (tumours, infections, high blood pressure)
The symptoms fit but not the cause – except when you think back to a year ago and consider what I suspect was a minor fracture on my shin … (Not enough of a break to stop the leg supporting my weight but still awkward). That whack probably damaged the blood vessels on its way to becoming an 8 inch long bruise.
Right – that’s probable cause 🙂 And I suspect the ulcer itself was initiated by a forgotten cricket thing from the 2 games early this summer.
And after some attention to it over the weekend just gone, I suspect it’s now turned a corner and seems to be improving (no icky today). The recommended treatment involves a compression bandage but I think I’ll wait a while longer before I resort to seeing the quacks. With that and the back though, no cricket for me for a while.
Lesson though for the wannabe docs out there –
Wiki and Google are great tools for finding out information. However, always, ALWAYS take a balanced view over what you’re reading. It’s easy to match a series of symptoms to a prognosis you’ve guessed at but make sure you’re not turning Symptom 1 + Symptom 2 into an OMG I’M GONNA DIE Cause.
The problem with looking up stuff on Wiki and Google is that there isn’t a knowledgeable doctor or nurse who’s seen it before moderating what you’re looking up. Especially as we tend to look for stuff that supports a prognosis instead of looking to disprove a theory. It takes a degree qualification plus a few years on top, plus more years of practical training to turn a smart person into a medic. Amateur investigations just don’t compare.
Heh heh heh – that’s me done preaching for the day 🙂
It’s been a painful week but I appear to be turning the corner on it. Just a shame it happened last week instead of this one, as there’s a Test Match starting this Thursday.