Sunday, August 10, 2008

Injuries and new meds

No weigh-in today. I know I am well over 140 now after pretty much bingeing for the past two days. So well call next week

Lots of stuff happening here, not good.

I had a doctor appointment on Friday (to get new meds) after which I was supposed to give blood. Brad was driving me and needed to stop for gas. I ran into the station to put some money on a pump. On the way in I tripped over the curb and fell too fast to even put out my hands. I slammed squarely into the glass door with my head, and my right knee came down hard on the concrete sidewalk. :(

Since we were headed to the doctor he took X-rays and says nothing is broken (the blessings of a larger bone structure), but my right knee is swollen and both knees have bruises. My head has a nice cut, not a good sign since I slammed into something flat.

Head photo 1 - Head photo 2
Knee photo 1 - Knee photo 2

I actually felt better a while after the incident and though I nixed the idea of giving blood, Brad and I did walk about 3 miles (I wore a tight knee brace!). But this morning I woke up feeling like death warmed over. When I slammed my head into the door I must have hurt the muscles in my neck and shoulders because now it hurts just to turn my head.

Anyway, I am going to be out of commission for a while. About the only thing I can do right now is walk if I have a good knee brace on. There's no way I can do either upper or lower body weights with my neck, shoulders, and knees all messed up. I need rest, heat on my neck and shoulders, and ice on my right knee. Last night I got to bed around 2 a.m. (I was working on my Flickr photos (24 Hours of Flickr) and researching hypothyroidism (.pdf booklet) and slept until 1 p.m. today.

I made the mistake of starting my binge-when-I-donate-blood before I actually made it to the blood center. It won't happen again. Next time when I give blood I won't eat off plan (and will eat fairly light) until I actually get there. All I can say to my readers is, "Sorry. I let things get way out of control."

The doctor said to take an anti-inflammatory and that the swelling in the right knee should go down in 7-10 days, so I'm taking two Ibuprofen three times a day. I'm also taking one aspirin a day to help prevent any clots, since I know that can be an issue with a head injury.

By the way, I felt lightheaded and nauseous after the incident and when the doctor's office took my blood pressure and it was something like 70/50! :o It eventually came back up. I used one of those drugstore machines and it was back up to a little above what is normal for me (my normal is about 99/69).

The left knee looks worse today, with a nice bruise. There is also some bruising spreading to my forehead from the head injury.

By the way, I am now officially hypothyroid and on medication (Levothyroxine aka Synthroid (photo) - 50mcg a day - 0.05mg), and because my ferritin was low he told me to take an OTC iron supplement. He went over my glucose tolerance test results and said he has never seen a more clear cut case of hypoglycemia than me. In hour 3 of the test my blood sugar was all the way down to 30 and I was still walking and talking! The remedy - what I am already doing - eating frequently. I go back on September 3 for more blood tests to see how the thyroid meds are working. I need to get my TSH down and my Free T3 and T4 up.

I came into work today, not realizing how messed up my shoulders were, but I am taking tomorrow off as a sick day. I also have a sore throat so I fear I'm coming down with something, but I won't know about that until I see how I feel tomorrow.

At any rate, no gym for a while. Sorry. I'm not trying to get out of it, but if I try to work out in this condition I'll probably only make things worse. Once I get a couple good sleep in days and get my energy back I might at least be able to walk on the treadmill.

I didn't weigh myself this morning. My eating has been the worst of the worst so I'm just going to pound the water, eat low calorie, and wait.

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1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hoping for a speedy recovery for you.
Sorry you'll be out of commission gym-wise.