A Pain in the Ass

Literally.

I suffer from sciatica pain now and again. It started a number of years ago when I had an injury to my hip and the pain has come and gone over the years since. It got a lot worse during each of my pregnancies. I lived through the pain with R's pregnancy but once I was pregnant with A and had to also chase after 2-year-old R I realized I had to do something because I was never going to survive if I didn't! The pain varies from a constant dull ache, to a sharp pain that feels like someone jabbed me inside the butt/hip joint with a hot electrified poker. The pain radiates down as far as my calf muscle at times and often stops me in my tracks. Not fun. So, I found a chiropractor at that point and now I see him every so often for a readjustment when the pain flares up. Usually not more than a few times a year and sometimes I go as long as a year between visits.

I tried a new workout video a few days ago and sure enough my damn hip started to ache. I was annoyed because I've gotten into a good mindset and routine with my daily exercise and I hated the thought of being sidelined!!! So, yesterday I called my insurance company to get pre-approved and then called the chiropractor to make an appointment. Luckily, he was able to fit me in this morning. In the meantime, I was doing some research online to see what it said about exercise and sciatica and I happened to find some stretches for the hip that are supposed to help when the problem is caused by a tightening of a particular muscle in the hip that irritates the sciatic nerve. I decided to give the stretches a try to see if they helped at all. I also figured I'd keep the appointment so that he could work out any kinks since my last visit in the fall.

The stretching exercises seemed to help as the pain was gone this morning - but then again, when I have the flare ups the mornings are usually better and the pain gets worse as the day progresses. I went to my appointment this morning and my back most definitely needed some adjusting because he easily got a number of lovely-sounding cracks out of it! Of course, now my sciatic nerve is irritated by the adjustment so the pain is back and a bit worse than yesterday (that seems to be the usual course of things - it gets temporarily worse and then it goes away...for a while anyway). I'm going to take some ibuprofen and hope that things improve considerably by tomorrow. I also plan to keep up with the stretches a couple of times a day to see if that will help the muscle stay a bit looser. One can hope.

I'm not sure how often Lauri and I will get to walk this coming week - the weather forecast is calling for frigid morning temps (at or below zero) all week long. Ugh. I thought that it was bad when we walked one 8-degree morning recently - I don't care to walk when it's any colder than that, thank you very much! So, I want to be able to mix up my boring treadmill and hand weight workouts with some of the exercise videos I just got.

I've been at the diet/exercise thing for over three weeks now and I feel like I'm finally getting better control over the eating. This week I've done much better in keeping at or below my daily calorie goal and the weight loss I reportedly recently has stuck! Definitely good motivation when the numbers drop and stay down!

Time to grab some lunch and then R needs to be dropped off at a birthday party at a local indoor pool. Have a great day!