It's Saturday night

It is Saturday night and I'm looking forward to a restful night.  One thing I've been taking this week to help me rest better is a combination of minerals known as ZMA.  Zinc, Magnesium and Vitamin B6.  The product is designed to help with trace minerals essential to cellular repair and it so happens to help me relax better.  Dan Palmer is a good friend and very knowledgeable regarding supplements and their benefits.  He recommended taking ZMA to assist in sleep and relaxation.  From my perspective he is correct.  I still need something to overcome the pain associated with the neuropathy, but at least I can relax more rather than tossing and turning so much.
This week has been a difficult one regarding foot and leg pain.  I've increased my efforts to discover positive exercise "solutions" to the challenges.  A new seated leg curl station where I work seems to have excellent albeit temporary results.  When my legs/feet became especially painful I would do 2-3 sets of 15-20 repetitions of 100 lb leg curls and for about 20 minutes the pain reduced substantially. Leg curls is a description of an exercise that uses the hamstring muscles in the back of the upper leg and the calf muscle closest to the skin.  Additionally I spent more time barefoot on a cool basketball floor.  Even with these attempts my pain was so strong yesterday afternoon I could barely focus while working with my clients.  I found a few minutes and using my Spyder Hang Ups (gravity boots) I hung upside down until I felt a distinct release in my lower back.  The change was disconcerting at first because it felt like my spine elongated by inches!  I'm sure it wasn't but a few centimeters, nonetheless it was a sudden change.  I'm happy to say that I was able to finish out the day with less pain.
Even trying new shoes...went and purchased a pair of shoes like those I'd worn about 45 years ago, low-rise Converse All-Stars.  Crossing my fingers.  I have a link for you in case you're not aware of this organization yet.  Enjoy and sleep well.

thickness

Today was the celebration of my niece Madeline Margene Slaughter's wonderful life.  It was indeed an excellent uplifting experience.  For me the center of attention became the angle of the chapel pews and their height.  The angle proved to be a bit too steep creating pressure backwards into my lower backs/hips.  And the seats were slightly too shallow to give enough leg support.  After a very beautiful service we traveled to the cemetery for he interment. The ground was frozen and the shoes I'd chosen due to the anticipation of the frozen ground proved to be less than ideal.  Doc Martin's are a wonderful shoe, but not if you only where them once every 5 years.  Then we went out to eat as a family, Jody and I, Tage and Marcella, Jason and Stephanie with Ora, Ellis, and Patience in tow.  The meal was rather delightful, the kids were very good and the food excellent.
Upon arriving home I need some of the pain-numbers desperately.  Tage had talked about these "meds" that are available where taking one would ensure the loss of pain.  Problem is he said "you'd want more."  I was tempted to ask him more about it and where can a sample be found!  So I got home, took 2 generic lortab and really didn't feel too much change for about an hour.  But it was wonderful when they kicked in the discomfort was gone and I had a great time playing with my grandkids especially Ellis.!  I don't recall playing so long and hard as we did tonight...it was great!  Then we started doing "airplane or flying" games where I toss them about.  My back began to repeal at that point.  I found the meds were wearing off, this being about 4 hours later in the sequence. Took one 100mg Lyrica before bed.  Slept deeply until I awoke with dream where I need to spit long slippery snake from  my throat.  In so doing I hacked and coughed and eventually ended up hacking and coughing so hard I threw up.  The process has continued for many many minutes to this point.  So far my only relief has come from sitting upright and drinking some cleansing Chia-seed gel.  I've had about 1/2 cup already and will finish more!  As anyone else experienced anything like this?  Being awakened out of dead sleep with the need to hack and cough to clear your throat only to find it is clogged with slimmy disgusting slim!  And it won't come out with normal coughing?!  If so, please do tell how you chose to handle it.

Flying By

The days seem to fly by and I've discovered I'm as efficient at this "daily" blog as I have been with general journal entries.  This week has been a very interesting week.  Specific to the neuropathy, my feet have been at a new level of continuous pain and general discomfort.  That is distressing to me.  I had hoped some of my exercise and stretching measures were beginning work.  Alas apparently not so.  Then another part of my brain reminds me whenever I have clients begin a new exercise regimen I expect them to have some good progress and then falter a bit.  Now I need to believe and apply that to my current situation. Because of the pain however I used more of the extreme pain-reducers than I normally would.  I say pain-reducers rather than pain killers because I can still feel the discomfort in my lower legs and feet, I just don't care about it with the pain-reducers on board.  This is pain med well beyond ibuprofen or naproxin.  I don't enjoy using these medications because the make the rest of life hazy.  There are those individuals who are able to isolate their pain and ignore it, unfortunately I don't think I'm one of those people.  The foot/leg pain reaches a point where only a primal scream would alleviate the building tension and discomfort and only for a brief moment too.  Primal screams however are not well tolerated in the dead of the night even from my very understanding and patient spouse.
This week also brought with it the end of the temporal existence of an amazingly beautiful daughter of God.  Madeline Slaughter, my great-niece passed away from the effects of Ewing's sarcoma.  What a valiant battle she and her parents fought.  I am in awe of their abilities and their reliance on Heavenly Father.  She has returned home, to a place where many whom she did not know were anxiously awaiting her entrance into their world.  I can only imagine the extreme joy to be free of the physical pains brought on by disease, the sadness at leaving, albeit temporarily, those she loves here in this realm, and the excitement she felt has she was ushered in to meet, re-meet, her Savior.  I'm grateful to have known her here, to be associated with her family still.  God will watch over them until all are reunited.  What a wonderful plan!

In the beginning...

Just the other night I awoke with a desire to share my experiences with idiopathic neuropathy.  Since it is part of my life 24/7 a wide variety of topics and discussion points will come up.  It is my real hope that someone will find some of what I write as "familiar" and might help them and quite possibly they will have experiences that can help me and as a result many others.

I know there are many blogs available about living with neuropathy so I hesitated to continue this effort not believing I would have anything of real value to contribute to the discussion.  But then the thought came that I shouldn't judge my experiences against those of other individual bloggers, but allow you as the reader to make the decision regarding the value contained in my words and expressions.  This all began for me about 3 1/2 years ago.  I am in my mid-50's, work as a personal trainer and teach a couple of days per week at a for-profit career university in Utah.  It isn't uncommon for me to be on my feet the better part of 12-14 hours per day.  Honestly those are good days, but the changes occur when I drive home.  This is a 40 minute commute.  When I arrive home and climb out of my truck it is as if my legs have turned to concrete and my feet are full of broken glass.  It takes several minutes sometimes hours for those feelings to soften.  They never go away, and only medication allows me to sleep. I don't like the side effects of the medication, but I love the sleep!

A large part of my focus here will be to discuss my personal quest to find exercise and fitness-related answers to this nagging problem.  I'll share my "findings" openly so you too may see if they work for you, which I hope they will.