A New Theory

So, earlier this week I thought "I'm going to try something different."

You see, it seems to always be the same routine for me.  Good day, okay day, bad day, good day, okay day... Well, you get the idea.  Even my 4 year-old can figure out that pattern.  Usually what happens is that I have a good day, usually on Mondays because my husband has been around to help with stuff around the house and make me sit more often over the weekends.  When I'm having a good day I take full advantage of it; as in doing as many chores (laundry, picking up, running errands, etc.) as my body will let me.  I will still sit and rest in between knowing full well that I don't want to over do it.  Then, the next day, I feel pretty crappy.  And the day after that, even crappier (is that a word?).  So I usually listen to my body and sit/lay on the couch for those days.

This week, I wanted to try something different.  Monday was an excellent day.  I felt like a had a ton of energy (compared to most of my days recently, not compared to the way I was a year ago).  I have a lot of stuff to get done right now because I am putting all of my daughters' old clothes and baby items in a consignment sale that I have to get ready.  Therefore, on Tuesday, even though I had a whole lot less energy and my legs/hips were starting to feel bad, I pushed myself to do stuff.  On Wednesday, I felt even worse, and was in a decent amount of pain.  However, I went ahead and continued to work through it.

My theory was this...  Maybe I get fatigued and sore after I have a busy day.  Then I sit/lay all day the next day which keeps my muscles tight, and therefore, painful.  I also know that exercise gives you energy.  So I thought that maybe I was just feeling more fatigued because I was just sitting around, instead of pushing through it, like I used to do when I was a runner. So, to solve this problem, I just need to push through the pain in my lower extremities and the fatigue.

Those of you with POTS, or a similar chronic condition, probably know what the results of my mini-study were.  But thank you for not ruining it for all those healthy people out there reading this by telling them the results ahead of time.

Guess what?!?!  It didn't work.  Today is Friday and I have tried to push through my fatigue and pain almost all week.  However, the amount I was able to do decreased with each day and my fatigue and pain increased each day.  Yesterday I barely did anything, but I still didn't sit/lay ALL day.  Now, today, I feel like my legs have a 20lb. weight on each and I'm already ready for pain meds (I usually wait until evening to take them because I don't want to take them very often).  I had to go downstairs to get something this morning and I had to stop and rest halfway up the stairs when I came back up. 

It's things like this that really make me feel like POTS is not the only thing going on.  But that's a whole other topic that I will have to address some other time.