The good news: My bacterial infection tested as cleared!
The bad news: I still feel like crap.
Mid October was my follow up appointment for the treatment of the infection. The results came a week later, and showed that all was well. Well? Pain has seemed to lessen over the past few weeks, although I’ve stayed on the acid blocker until yesterday, and gut ache came back. My extreme low blood pressure problem doesn’t seem “as bad” as when I was first starting treatment, but it is still quite a bother, and definitely does not add to quality of life. But still, 90% of the time, I feel like I’ve been run over by a recycle truck full of my empty nut butter jars. (I had a pretty nice 10% weekend though!)
The medical doctor hasn’t offered too much, because I haven’t tested as having any “sickness” other than my history of and recovery from anorexia. So the first message I received from the clinic after expressing that I’m still not feeling well was to seek counseling. ARGH! What they don’t understand is that I have been taking care of myself properly for a long time. I eat well, very healthy, and enough and my exercise is NOT crazy. But I’m still not recovering. Seemingly harmless activity seems to push me over the edge into exhaustion. I basically have chronic fatigue. Why won’t this get better?
So I went right back to my natural health doctor for advice and direction. And he had some insight and a verdict: I have severe overtraining syndrome. No matter how much I rest, how much I eat, how much I sleep…my body is constantly in or on the edge of an over trained state. I’ve beat it up so badly that it may never bounce back.
When I was a kid, if I made a silly face or stuck my tongue out, my dad would always say, “If you keep that up its going to stick that way forever!” Well, it seems that the same concept applied to my extreme over exercise (which was a part of my ED).
The article linked above describes overtraining syndrome as “the name given to the collection of emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms due to overtraining that has persisted for weeks to months.” This article further states, “Evidence is accumulating which suggests that once an athlete has experienced the overtraining syndrome for more than a few months he/she may never again be able to return to their former top levels of performance and in the worse cases may remain severely ill for up to and exceeding two years. Currently there are no proven cures for the severe overtraining syndrome.”
Reading that is horribly depressing. I’ve overtrained for more than a few months…try a few years.
There are two types of overtraining syndrome. I have the “parasympathetic” version characterized by early on-set or constant fatigue, perilously low basic pulse rate, rapid return of heart rate to basal levels with unfavorable hypotension, hypoglycemia and progressive anemia and digestive disturbances. Other crappy things about this include whacked hormones, low white blood cell count (poor immune function, thus I couldn’t fight the bacterial infection), decreased appetite, weight loss, prolonged muscle soreness and injury, depression, insomnia and sleep issues, amenorrhea, lack of enthusiasm or emotion. *Raises hand* None of this is new, but now I guess it has a name.
And why doesn’t the medical system recognize this? The first article describes, “Additionally, it is possible to have the overtraining syndrome, but have completely normal physical findings and biochemical tests.” No, my tests are not all “normal,” but they aren’t abnormal enough to warrant a “disease,” so I get brushed aside.
So what do I do? Stay the course…keep exercise very light, which means yoga and low intensity cardio. I’m still working on the cardio thing a little, I’ll admit. My other option is to do hormone testing and start a natural hormone therapy. My natural wellness doctor explained that his method of hormone therapy is very light, gentle, and applied only after extensive testing to ensure the proper amounts and types. The hormones given are plant based and they match the levels in the human body…unlike the general medical system which uses horse pee with enormous levels of hormones as therapy. Anyways, I’m still considering the options, but hormone therapy would probably speed my progress and help me feel better. As I fully own the responsibility for over stressing my body into this state, I need to be kind to myself with forgiveness and positivity to stay on the right course.
After my good weekend, I crashed again on yesterday. And then I got this “diagnosis,” and depression is trying hard to set in. I’m sad, scared, disheartened. No, I don’t think this is irreversible. But it is going to be so long, and I’ve already lost so much time… maybe I’ll write more on that later, but I’m not going to let it ruminate for now. I’m trying to focus on the positive- I have an explanation and a piece of my puzzle that I can tangibly work on. And I guess it is comforting to have a name to the “face” that is my affliction.
In other bad news, Nathan is injured with a torn supraspinatus and teres minor (rotator cuff) and is out of yoga commission for awhile. That means no hot yoga relationship recovery that I’d was so excited to continue from the great weekend. I hate hearing about the painful therapy he has to do to fix it, but he seems positive it will heal quickly.
It’s not all bad. Like I said, the bacterial infection is gone. Also, my back is feeling really good, since I’ve been being extra gentle with it. And also…pumpkin pie omelet.
4 egg whites, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger stevia, vanilla...filled with fresh spiced pumpkin puree. I'm thinking add some mozz next time...
