I started writing this post this morning with the goal of 100 consecutive days of swinging my kettlebells...
I then went to a appointment with my doctor that helped me when I had Bell's Palsy since I have been having some similar symptoms and wanted to ask him some questions about it.
This guy is brilliant! Dr Agnew, within the first few minutes began asking the right questions and looked at me and my symptoms as a whole person. What I mean by that is, if you have a foot pain, he looks to see if your back is out of wack (which is one of my ailments).
Specifically he took my blood pressure the regular way, arm down.. he then took my blood pressure with my arms raised over my head. My blood pressure the regular way was high, 150/110, but I get nervous in the doctors office. The pressure reading with my arm over my head he said went to NOTHING! Zero! The color started going out of my arm and falling asleep. My arms fall asleep at night too and I thought it was our mattress or being overweight (which is part of it), my shoulders and neck are tight almost always. What he suspects is something called costoclavical compression, or sometimes called Thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS).
Dr Agnew said that TOS could be a major contributor to the problems I've had with sleep apnea as well as weight loss. He said that specifically since when I lay down or raise my arms above my head, it compresses the nerves in my neck and cuts off the circulation to my arms, thyroid as well as my brain. Now that scared me too! Cutting off the blood to the BRAIN!
When I was training with Kim Oddo and lifting weights like crazy, I used to get piercing headaches when I would press or pull anything above my head. I couldn't figure it out why that was happening, but it would happen over and over again. Someone like Kim didn't have an answer for me when I would ask him about it. I just thought it was a pinched nerve, which I guess it was, but it would go away after a little bit.
He's ordered some x-rays and physical therapy and we're going to put me on a list to go get this super cool 3-D MRI at UCLA. This is the kind of research that he has been involved in since I saw him for Bell's Palsy. He's on the cutting edge and knows his stuff.
So the kettlebells are out for a short while. I'm bummed because I love them, but walking, skating, biking (as long as I don't lean on the handle bars)... all that kind of workouts are OK. I'm afraid that most of Bikram is not going to work right now since I have to keep my arms above my head next to my ears.
My hope is that this short time of discovering if this is truly what is happening then treat what we find to liberate me from a sleeping machine for sleep apnea, let me sleep through the night, increase the blood flow to my brain which may help boost my metabolism...and get me back to that Super Model career that is being held for me! (lol) :)
I gotta go for a WALK!
4 comments:
I watch stories about people going years without being diagnosed. Thankfully you have a good doctor who can now help you!
Yeah, walking is the only thing now.
Will you go to physical therapy?
Just got done walking 3 miles, but now I need to do a lot more than that! I'll keep pushing that and skating too!!
Yes, I'm going to physical therapy soon and xrays and all kinds of stuff to verify.. but you should have seen my arm go white when he held it up over my head and took my blood pressure, it was eye opening!
I'm excited to get this taken care of... I've felt crazy for so long thinking it was all in my head!
Yes, to go undiagnosed for all those years and finally an answer! What relief!
I am glad you get to have this problem finally helped!
walking is a great exercise! 3 miles is great!!! I know alot of people who lost weight just by walking.
If walking were enough I would have lost a ton of weight with Kim.. but I guess this squeeze of my nerves and arteries in my neck/shoulder doesn't help my body release weight for a few reasons. The blood doesn't get to my brain and wakes me up multiple times in the night.. and if you don't sleep you don't lose weight... and then if blood doesn't get to the head and neck it doesn't get to the thyroid gland and that slows the metabolism.. this is what I was told yesterday. I'm researching and learning more every day. Don't get me wrong, I don't like being 'sick' or living in doctors offices like I did after my bout with cancer.. but I do like the fact that there is the possibility that I could FINALLY get my body to lose some weight and even my shoulder, neck and back pain that I just thought was part of being overweight or getting old (which it may be???)
I will keep walking, skating and moving and I look forward to being able to move my shoulders and swing my bells!
:)
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