Ithil

How long the icky feeling lasts? It could be a nerve, at least it's quite a common issue.

Yesterday was one of those days when I'm in the lab 11 hours and after that do more master's stuff. It all was though made tricky by the fact that labwork was killing my shoulder (the injured one which got cortisone shots in many joints on Thursday) due to the injections. Those always make the hand sore for half a week before starting to work. Today I'm in a shape where I can exercise, yesterday I wasn't able to get my painkiller out of the box after university so it felt more reasonable to move the exercise day (originally yesterday) and rest day (originally today) around. There was no way I could have gone to a walk/slow run, exercise biked or done a workout with that amount of pain and I'm normally the one who keeps repeatin that she's fine, no painkiller needed. Food-wise things are looking good, I've drank my six glasses per day of water and eaten a fruit a day. We have also made every meal from scratch. I've learned that I miss my body. I'm not overweight and way closer to underweight than it, but I'm missing the muscles from my soccer, gym and running days. Then I felt I can control my body, now it's something that keeps breaking no matter what I do. More muscles will help, that way my joints get more support and for example fibromyalgia symptoms aren't such a bother when I exercise more.

It's an obstacle in a way but as there's similar challenges in many areas in life due to the physical issues stopping excecising and still going to do my master's every day despite the pain would be bit wonky. Yes, it takes more effort but that's how the things just are and I'm ready to get over that hurdle. There's been the days of bitterness and "why me?!" questions but there's really not much else to do than adapt and live the life the way I want despite taking more effort than before this mess started. I hadn't read that post before, thank you for linking it. I got your point and thank you for encouragement!

Great work! You will be able to stick with it, some days just may be off days due to the pain but that's okay. Chronic pain just is sometimes like that and it's hard to avoid+the ways to manage it are quite limited.

Thanks! Giving up isn't an option, during recovery sitting on the couch was necessary but that quite fast becomes boring. I can either wallow in pain or try to live my life as normally as I can and somehow the latter alternative sounds better. The yoga link is great, I hate gym classes (but not gyms in general, I find training in there relaxing) but really want to try it. Thanks for linking it, I'll definitely try it!

Well, I haven't either but I figured that this would be a good area to start as I struggle sometimes with remembering my limits and I tend to repeat that "I'm fine, I don't need a painkiller" despite clearly needing one which isn't the best way of handling things. Exercising is also something which tends to be tricky when there's a history of injuries. I'm trying to think a good way to handle the accountability thing, any suggestions? This way our discussions already seem to take a lot of topic space so maybe another way of the accountability would work as well.

I found this challenge bit late but I guess today isn't too far from the start. I'm trying to stay on track of all of the people but it will take time. Next task is to find an avatar as my goals are chosen.

Yep, there's no easy fixes. I'm the kind who works until she gets what she wants but it would be great if there was some fix. Most of my problems are derived from a messed up pain system ("Hello body, why on Earth you need to tell me every second that there's pain for no reason?!") which basically involves no fixes. There's some explorative things but for example botox didn't sound too great... Since we seem to struggle with physical limits would it be useful to have some sort of accountability thing going on as I see in my life that sometimes people who don't have issues tend to want me just sit down and not encourage me to reach my physical goals as I might get hurt. That doesn't lead to good results. I don't break, I know my limits but on one hand I do need support to be able to reach my goals but on the other hand I need somebody who gets that due to the limits I have on one day I can accomplish far more than in others and it's normal. Motivating myself in worst pain is sometimes hard and then it's far too easy to forget the importance of exercise. There can never be too many people who get the place you are in life.

Well, soccer is kind of bad and taking into account so is walking on your livingroom floor (how I wrecked my ankle) or walking past a door handle (how I wrecked my shoulder). It's interesting how you sometimes meet a person in a sort of similar situation than you are and it seems have happened with you. I struggle still with the idea that I'll be in pain every day no matter what I do despite it being the reality in a way with my ankle since my teens and my whole body for the past 3-4 years. There's days of pity and wallowing in it but then there's the days when I decide that no matter how bad I am things could be worse and there is a lot of things to be grateful about. I myself was told at 15 that if I take that surgery I'll never walk again but my injury itself might do that even without it. When I finally decided to take it I was given a better outcome prediction+I decided that the life I had wasn't really worth much with the ankle I had.

Thanks! This has been the best site I've found as it totally made my inner nerd happy.

Thanks, I'm sorry that you have wrecked your body too. I'm just bit accident-prone as new ankle injury and shoulder injury happened in such ridiculous ways that my doctor almost didn't believe me. It really takes forever to regain balance, my ankles are still bit shaky but luckily I was never the high-heeled girl type (more of the soccer type..). I can't let my medical stuff or old injuries hold me back, I need something to balance battling the medical system and my studies + there's nothing as depressing as sitting on the couch when you know that you'll be in pain no matter what you do. I have never stopped missing running, now I just need somehow to make it happen. This is though a bit of a funny day to find this challenge, I got three injections in my shoulder+elbow due to the injury site being bit inflamed so any kind of thing involving my right arm is our for the next week. I guess this means walks, trying to run or exercise bike.

Hi, I'm Ithil, I'm 24 and currently working on my master's thesis. I used to play soccer and run long distance in high school but it all ended during one day when during a soccer game an opponent stepped on my ankle twisting it and it tore most of the ligaments in my ankle. I wasn't given a good prognosis if I'd gone to surgery so with 1,5 years of physiotherapy it recovered so that I was able to walk but re-twisted it countless of times each year and needed crutches anywhere between 5-10+ times per year for many weeks. Three years back (six years since the injury) I decided that it was too much and I was suffering while the ankle controlled my life undergoing the surgery. Thanks to my great surgeon after a year of physiotherapy I walk normally now, only bad thing is that since there originally were ripped nerves too when the injury happened there's permanent nerve damage. Last year I hurt my other ankle+shoulder both of which need now physiotherapy but are recovered in a place where I've consulted doctors and all sort of exercise is okay unless it involves heavy weights or is a contact sport, any activity also isn't allowed to cause pain. I still need weekly physiotherapy for the shoulder but on other days exercises are okay. There's though another health twist: I have an autoimmune+a nerve pain issue on my face+a couple of more conditions causing chronic pain so I'm basically on scale 0-10 in level 5 pain in any given moment. This makes it bit different for me to exercise: all is okay uness it makes my pain go higher than the normal level I'm on, this means I have to assess if the pain I feel for example in my leg is my normal type of pain or if it's a sign of a coming injury. I hope this doesn't sound too weird, sometimes explaining chronic pain can be bit tricky as I'm so used to having my pain in anywhere between 5-10 so I can't see it as an abnormality. Pain though isn't with my conditions a sign of damage, it's just a sign that my pain system itself doesn't function normally so as long as I make sure that there's no extra pain when moving all is fine. The reason why I signed in Nerd Fitness was that I want to exercise more and start running again for the first time since the first injury. It scares me a lot since it's eight or nine years since that. I need to ease my body slowly into that as my calves have been a problem when trying short stints of running. I also enjoy walking and exercise biking but finding a suitable workout routine is in process too. I'm interested in yoga or other similar things but I'm not a group exercise person so going to a class is a really spooky idea, I don't know what to do with that. I also want to start eating healthier. I'm eager to know any kind of new people and obtain people to help with my journey, especially valuable would be any kind of support from other people whose exercise is made difficult by pain or a physical condition. I though value all sort of support and tips so don't be silent just because you don't have any health issues yourself. Also I'm a lot more than my health situation, it's just quite critical backgroud to explain why my exercises need to be bit different. I have a lot of other things (like 5 pets, a fiancé and my studies) in my live so my health is just a teeny part of it so don't let it scare you away, I won't bite!

I'm 24 and attempting my first challenge here. The reason I'm here is that I want to live a healthier life, find the joy of exercising again and live a more active life than before. In my teens I was the one who ran long distances as she loved it and played soccer 3-4 times per week with her team. Then the worst happened and I tore my ankle joints in a game to pieces when an opponent managed to step on it and it basically ended my football days.. Three years back (six years since the original injury) I regained my ability to move well and not having use crutches 5-6 times per year or re-twist the ankle countless times per year all thanks to a surgery+good surgeon. A nerve damage though stayed and a year back I hurt my other ankle so I have to keep an eye on both of them. I also have a shoulder injury in recovery but with all of the injuries I've been cleared by a doctor that exercises are great and everything is ok now as long as it's not a contact sport and whatever I do it can't cause pain. My injuries just mean that I have to listen to my body closely. There's though other reasons why I need to listen to my body: I have many medical conditions which cause pain, some cause nerve pain in my face and other body but some cause joint pain. That means that every time I move I have to gauge if that's my normal pain bugging me or is there something odd going on and I need to stop. This might sound difficult but I've learned to do that and it is medically okay for me to exercise in the same "no more pain than my normal daily treshold is without any exercise" condition as with my injuries. Some of the conditions cause sleepiness and other symptoms so they just mean that my life is bit different sometimes. Generally I'm though a person who goes to university, has five pets and a fiancé, likes to read and enjoys watching tv so apart from the health mess I'm not that different. Please don't let this all scare you away, I have learned to live with it and they're just a teeny part of what my life is about. Main goal: Get back to weekly exercise routine and correct your diet to a heathier one by eating 1 fruit daily + drink the recommended amount of water Smaller goals to support reaching the big one: 1. Exercise 3 times per week. Anything from walking, running, exercise biking, workouts etc counts as long as it lasts over 30 minutes and is something I can with good conscience call exercise-level activity 2. Do physiotherapy for the shoulder 3 times per week and the stretches 1-2 times depending on its movement. If the routine changes to less then do that and if it's in pain do as the physiotherapist told you to do and do not do the physiotherapy before the hand is ok. Hand being not okay also means no for any exercises that use it within that time period. 3. Eat a fruit per day 4. Drink 6 glasses of water per day Life quest: 1. Read 40 pages of a novel every day, if there's a busy situation this can be then moved to the next day if you then read 80 pages 2. Work on the master's at least 30 minutes every day I'm excited about this challenge and I'll do my best to accomplish my goals!