I'm doing -- OW-- ok at the mo-- OW
Mar. 16th, 2007 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Intermittent pain is extremely, extremely annoying.
So you know how I whined about the knees this morning? And the cramps, oh the cramps, poor me, end of the world?
Yeah. I wore legwarmers up around my knees (actually pulled up so they didn't bother my prone-to-itchiness shins) throughout my entire shift, and really was weepy about my poor knees. For a couple hours they bothered me and I just felt creaky. (I wore different shoes today, just in case-- SCW, with 20 years' experience waitressing, has in the past shared that if your knees hurt it's often because your sneakers are wearing out and it's time for new ones, so I thought I'd see if a change of shoes helped. No.)
Then, about 3 hours into my shift, I suddenly had a terrible pain, a kind of a severe sort of twingey kind of pain, that started yanking somewhere between the back of my hip and the back of my thigh. It wasn't my butt, it kind of ran along the outer edge of the butt-al region. But it hurt, and hurt bad, and I couldn't think about anything else, and couldn't take a step, and couldn't do anything.
It eased after I stood panting and clinging onto the cash register for about two or three minutes (which is a damn long time to be trying not to fall down behind a busy bar), but I couldn't really walk very well, and I kind of gimped around. Now, I'd been planning on taking my 1/2 hr break pretty much right then, so it was good timing: I limped around, wrapped things up, and went off to eat my sandwich. I took one ibuprofin and one semi-illicit Canadian codiene-and-aspirin at 5:45ish.
I sat for half an hour and tried to stretch; it mostly hurt less when I was sitting, which was a relief. Then I came back, and kept working. It would twinge every now and then, for a few seconds, and walking was unpleasant from time to time. Around 6:45 or so it twinged really hard again and I really wished I could cry but I didn't have time. My knees, on the plus side, may have stopped hurting, or perhaps it's that I stopped noticing.
A customer at the corner of the bar said, "Got a sciatic nerve problem?" I regarded him with some astonishment, as I had said nothing, and thought I hadn't been limping too badly.
"My leg's bothering me a little, yeah," I said.
"All down the back, right?" he said. "I can see how you're walking funny."
"Yeah," I said, putting a hand to the back between my hipbone and the small of my back. "From there down to the back of my knee."
"Sciatic nerve," he said. "It's a real bitch."
"Awesome," I said. "Yeah."
I got the hell out of there by 8. They put on an extraneous bartender, and at first we were kind of annoyed-- what are we doing with another person? But then it was busy, and she covered my break, and she covered SCW's final cigarette break, and she took over my section when SCW left, and I didn't have to work real hard while I was limping, so I felt better.
So I went to practice. If nothing else, I thought, I can observe; we're scrimmaging as teams now, and I'd like to see how everyone does, especially my new teammates Rockets and Fleshette, and of course Lizzie who didn't get to skate with us for the first bout because she was so busy reffing. But I was in time to skate the first drill, so I tried it. It was a pace line and we were focusing on skating low, bent in the knees.
It was excruciating. It hurt a lot. But it never felt like anything was being damaged. Am I crazy, to differentiate like that? There's sore pain, like a bruise, when it hurts but it isn't sharp-- the damage is done and the pain is just kind of sullen and there and not changing anything. Then there's sharp pain, like a sprain-- the pain is telling you for the love of God stop it, and it makes you shriek and curl up in a ball. Sullen pain vs. sharp pain. I'm not making that up, right? That's something other people observe, right? Like the difference between uterine cramps and, say, a charley horse in your calf. (It's the difference between roller skating pain and skiing pain. Skiing pain was shrieking at me to stop the whole time. I don't like it and won't do it. Roller skating pain is all, hey man your adrenaline's going to kick in any time now, whee!)
So these knees, it was a sullen sore kind of pain, and so I mostly could keep up with whatever was going on, and that was OK.
Weird thing:
Put the skates on, thinking, OK that fucking nerve is going to be agonizing with the weird lateral pressure I have to exert to skate, right? So I'll be lucky if I make it to the wall, but I might as well try, right? So I wobbled out onto the rink and did a lap, cringing the whole time as I waited for the Godawful Twinge of Doom, and it... never came.
I experienced absolutely no sciatic nerve pain for the entire practice.
My knees hurt, but my hip/back/leg/thigh didn't at all. Not for a second.
It was weird.
And my knees? Hurt a lot during the paceline, hurt a whole lot during the fall-down-get-up drill (surprise!), and then when we started scrimmaging?
Hurt a little during the first jam. (I skated inside blocker.)
Hurt a little during the second jam. (I sat out.)
Didn't hurt again at all, except little soreness now and then like I usually get during practices.
Until I got home, and took my skates off, and took my clothes off, and sat down on my bed to check my email.
Then both knees started hurting, and the sciatic nerve had another Twinge of Doom.
Tried to walk to the bathroom to take something to stop the pain. Made it three steps. Pretty much fell down in the hallway. Sat on the floor for a good two minutes until I got bored waiting for the pain to subside and just fuckin' crawled into the bathroom.
Took a bunch of painkillers, and took a long hot bath. Didn't hurt while in the bath. Well, didn't hurt much. But immediately when I got out, it hurt again.
Still hurts like a motherfucker. Can't sleep because it hurts.
WTF??????!!!!
Flo's had knee problems since we started practicing intensively, and said her knee pain was similar to what I described. She was told it was probably a repetitive stress type of injury, just from using it too much. She's not a whole lot older-- I think 34? I don't remember, something like that though. She's never really been athletic, though, so it was a lot for her to adjust to, and then she had a couple bad falls. She said there was nothing for it but rest. She did, however, also say that sometimes it would just feel better for no reason if she just kept skating, but that's how she hurt herself. So...
I asked Mia briefly, she being a fitness/yoga instructor, what she knew about sciatic nerves and maybe stretches to kind of ease them, as at that moment the nerve hurt more than the knees, and she said only rest seems to help them. $)(#@%&!!
It's sort of ironic that for the only time ever in my life I really just wish someone would tell me I need to exercise more. Man, back in junior high I'd've killed to have someone tell me I needed to spend more time lying around and less time in gym class.
Sigh. I don't have time to stay off it.
At least I managed to get my nice cushy deluxe kneepads mailed back for their repair/upgrade. Cushy! Cushy! Today's fall-down-get-up drill served to remind me how much I hate these goddamn Pro-Tec piece of shit kneepads. They're serviceable, yes, and they're not terribly bulky, and I've not cracked the caps on them, but they are not cushy. I didn't really appreciate it, but the Pro-Designed kneepads are like landing on little bitty piles of clouds. Ahhhhhhh. I can't wait to get them back. I wish I'd managed to reach Wild Bill earlier so I'd get them back in time for the next bout. Oh well! The one after that's in April!
Might be legwarmering it again tomorrow...
Despite the weird intermittent pains-- though the sciatic nerve is hurting pretty constantly at the moment, which is making me clench both thigh muscles, which is making my knees hurt, because I'm an idiot-- I'm not in a bad mood really. Today was a decent day when I wasn't in pain. The first thing that made my day was a song on the radio. On the way in from the parking lot, the shuttle bus driver was listening to country and western.
The singer, a male, was going on in the second person about this chick, and how her (your) jeans were playing peek-a-boo and he wanted to see the other half of that butterfly tattoo etc., and he wanted to hop in the car with her (you) and go driving out into the country, and see you in the moonlight-- on and on, with a chorus about the moonlight in the country, etc. And one verse he says how every guy in the place wants to take this chick, you, home, but he isn't so crude as that. No. He wants to take you out in the country, in the moonlight, and see you--
He wants to check you for ticks.
OMG I wanted so bad to text my baby sister the nature freak about that one. But I don't have a cellphone now. Buggar.
And then practice was fun-- I actually wasn't totally incompetent at inside blocking, I could kind of actually fulfill some defensive role there, exercise minimal competence at least-- and Sweets told me more than once that I was a solid skater and she wanted me to work on these certain things and basically made me feel like a valued team member, which was nice-- and then, wonder of wonders, I skated as pivot, and it worked, I could see what was going on, I could understand the dynamics of the pack behind me, I was able to leave my position and actually effect the action--
I won't geek out, but it was pretty cool. Last time I tried to skate as pivot I mostly just back-blocked and elbowed people a lot. So it was nice to feel like I knew what I was doing. It might've been the magic new helmet covers that Blackie DeckHer's mom helped her make-- they're navy blue spandex with the star and the stripe in red paisley handkerchief material. (It's a Rosie the Riveter theme, kinda.)
And then I got home, and just as the pain was getting bad, I realized I got mentioned by name in a Smart Bitches Trashy Books post that followed up a post I commented to. Oooo! I actually contributed something to the discussion!!! I can't explain why that makes me squeeful, it just does.
I am kind of a waste of space, and the cramps are back now too oh boy, but at least I'm kind of a cheerful albeit insomniac waste of space, and that makes all the difference. Off to entertain politically-incorrect and filthy sexual fantasies!! (I so thought I was the only one with really embarrassing sexual fantasies. I admit I am still sort of closeted enough about them that I'm not going to leap into that post and own up to them. Nope nope, not comfortable discussing what rings my bell in my most private moments because you know, a girl has to have some mystique and perhaps that's because you really don't want to know. *empties browser cache* I'll just nod enthusiastically instead.)
So you know how I whined about the knees this morning? And the cramps, oh the cramps, poor me, end of the world?
Yeah. I wore legwarmers up around my knees (actually pulled up so they didn't bother my prone-to-itchiness shins) throughout my entire shift, and really was weepy about my poor knees. For a couple hours they bothered me and I just felt creaky. (I wore different shoes today, just in case-- SCW, with 20 years' experience waitressing, has in the past shared that if your knees hurt it's often because your sneakers are wearing out and it's time for new ones, so I thought I'd see if a change of shoes helped. No.)
Then, about 3 hours into my shift, I suddenly had a terrible pain, a kind of a severe sort of twingey kind of pain, that started yanking somewhere between the back of my hip and the back of my thigh. It wasn't my butt, it kind of ran along the outer edge of the butt-al region. But it hurt, and hurt bad, and I couldn't think about anything else, and couldn't take a step, and couldn't do anything.
It eased after I stood panting and clinging onto the cash register for about two or three minutes (which is a damn long time to be trying not to fall down behind a busy bar), but I couldn't really walk very well, and I kind of gimped around. Now, I'd been planning on taking my 1/2 hr break pretty much right then, so it was good timing: I limped around, wrapped things up, and went off to eat my sandwich. I took one ibuprofin and one semi-illicit Canadian codiene-and-aspirin at 5:45ish.
I sat for half an hour and tried to stretch; it mostly hurt less when I was sitting, which was a relief. Then I came back, and kept working. It would twinge every now and then, for a few seconds, and walking was unpleasant from time to time. Around 6:45 or so it twinged really hard again and I really wished I could cry but I didn't have time. My knees, on the plus side, may have stopped hurting, or perhaps it's that I stopped noticing.
A customer at the corner of the bar said, "Got a sciatic nerve problem?" I regarded him with some astonishment, as I had said nothing, and thought I hadn't been limping too badly.
"My leg's bothering me a little, yeah," I said.
"All down the back, right?" he said. "I can see how you're walking funny."
"Yeah," I said, putting a hand to the back between my hipbone and the small of my back. "From there down to the back of my knee."
"Sciatic nerve," he said. "It's a real bitch."
"Awesome," I said. "Yeah."
I got the hell out of there by 8. They put on an extraneous bartender, and at first we were kind of annoyed-- what are we doing with another person? But then it was busy, and she covered my break, and she covered SCW's final cigarette break, and she took over my section when SCW left, and I didn't have to work real hard while I was limping, so I felt better.
So I went to practice. If nothing else, I thought, I can observe; we're scrimmaging as teams now, and I'd like to see how everyone does, especially my new teammates Rockets and Fleshette, and of course Lizzie who didn't get to skate with us for the first bout because she was so busy reffing. But I was in time to skate the first drill, so I tried it. It was a pace line and we were focusing on skating low, bent in the knees.
It was excruciating. It hurt a lot. But it never felt like anything was being damaged. Am I crazy, to differentiate like that? There's sore pain, like a bruise, when it hurts but it isn't sharp-- the damage is done and the pain is just kind of sullen and there and not changing anything. Then there's sharp pain, like a sprain-- the pain is telling you for the love of God stop it, and it makes you shriek and curl up in a ball. Sullen pain vs. sharp pain. I'm not making that up, right? That's something other people observe, right? Like the difference between uterine cramps and, say, a charley horse in your calf. (It's the difference between roller skating pain and skiing pain. Skiing pain was shrieking at me to stop the whole time. I don't like it and won't do it. Roller skating pain is all, hey man your adrenaline's going to kick in any time now, whee!)
So these knees, it was a sullen sore kind of pain, and so I mostly could keep up with whatever was going on, and that was OK.
Weird thing:
Put the skates on, thinking, OK that fucking nerve is going to be agonizing with the weird lateral pressure I have to exert to skate, right? So I'll be lucky if I make it to the wall, but I might as well try, right? So I wobbled out onto the rink and did a lap, cringing the whole time as I waited for the Godawful Twinge of Doom, and it... never came.
I experienced absolutely no sciatic nerve pain for the entire practice.
My knees hurt, but my hip/back/leg/thigh didn't at all. Not for a second.
It was weird.
And my knees? Hurt a lot during the paceline, hurt a whole lot during the fall-down-get-up drill (surprise!), and then when we started scrimmaging?
Hurt a little during the first jam. (I skated inside blocker.)
Hurt a little during the second jam. (I sat out.)
Didn't hurt again at all, except little soreness now and then like I usually get during practices.
Until I got home, and took my skates off, and took my clothes off, and sat down on my bed to check my email.
Then both knees started hurting, and the sciatic nerve had another Twinge of Doom.
Tried to walk to the bathroom to take something to stop the pain. Made it three steps. Pretty much fell down in the hallway. Sat on the floor for a good two minutes until I got bored waiting for the pain to subside and just fuckin' crawled into the bathroom.
Took a bunch of painkillers, and took a long hot bath. Didn't hurt while in the bath. Well, didn't hurt much. But immediately when I got out, it hurt again.
Still hurts like a motherfucker. Can't sleep because it hurts.
WTF??????!!!!
Flo's had knee problems since we started practicing intensively, and said her knee pain was similar to what I described. She was told it was probably a repetitive stress type of injury, just from using it too much. She's not a whole lot older-- I think 34? I don't remember, something like that though. She's never really been athletic, though, so it was a lot for her to adjust to, and then she had a couple bad falls. She said there was nothing for it but rest. She did, however, also say that sometimes it would just feel better for no reason if she just kept skating, but that's how she hurt herself. So...
I asked Mia briefly, she being a fitness/yoga instructor, what she knew about sciatic nerves and maybe stretches to kind of ease them, as at that moment the nerve hurt more than the knees, and she said only rest seems to help them. $)(#@%&!!
It's sort of ironic that for the only time ever in my life I really just wish someone would tell me I need to exercise more. Man, back in junior high I'd've killed to have someone tell me I needed to spend more time lying around and less time in gym class.
Sigh. I don't have time to stay off it.
At least I managed to get my nice cushy deluxe kneepads mailed back for their repair/upgrade. Cushy! Cushy! Today's fall-down-get-up drill served to remind me how much I hate these goddamn Pro-Tec piece of shit kneepads. They're serviceable, yes, and they're not terribly bulky, and I've not cracked the caps on them, but they are not cushy. I didn't really appreciate it, but the Pro-Designed kneepads are like landing on little bitty piles of clouds. Ahhhhhhh. I can't wait to get them back. I wish I'd managed to reach Wild Bill earlier so I'd get them back in time for the next bout. Oh well! The one after that's in April!
Might be legwarmering it again tomorrow...
Despite the weird intermittent pains-- though the sciatic nerve is hurting pretty constantly at the moment, which is making me clench both thigh muscles, which is making my knees hurt, because I'm an idiot-- I'm not in a bad mood really. Today was a decent day when I wasn't in pain. The first thing that made my day was a song on the radio. On the way in from the parking lot, the shuttle bus driver was listening to country and western.
The singer, a male, was going on in the second person about this chick, and how her (your) jeans were playing peek-a-boo and he wanted to see the other half of that butterfly tattoo etc., and he wanted to hop in the car with her (you) and go driving out into the country, and see you in the moonlight-- on and on, with a chorus about the moonlight in the country, etc. And one verse he says how every guy in the place wants to take this chick, you, home, but he isn't so crude as that. No. He wants to take you out in the country, in the moonlight, and see you--
He wants to check you for ticks.
OMG I wanted so bad to text my baby sister the nature freak about that one. But I don't have a cellphone now. Buggar.
And then practice was fun-- I actually wasn't totally incompetent at inside blocking, I could kind of actually fulfill some defensive role there, exercise minimal competence at least-- and Sweets told me more than once that I was a solid skater and she wanted me to work on these certain things and basically made me feel like a valued team member, which was nice-- and then, wonder of wonders, I skated as pivot, and it worked, I could see what was going on, I could understand the dynamics of the pack behind me, I was able to leave my position and actually effect the action--
I won't geek out, but it was pretty cool. Last time I tried to skate as pivot I mostly just back-blocked and elbowed people a lot. So it was nice to feel like I knew what I was doing. It might've been the magic new helmet covers that Blackie DeckHer's mom helped her make-- they're navy blue spandex with the star and the stripe in red paisley handkerchief material. (It's a Rosie the Riveter theme, kinda.)
And then I got home, and just as the pain was getting bad, I realized I got mentioned by name in a Smart Bitches Trashy Books post that followed up a post I commented to. Oooo! I actually contributed something to the discussion!!! I can't explain why that makes me squeeful, it just does.
I am kind of a waste of space, and the cramps are back now too oh boy, but at least I'm kind of a cheerful albeit insomniac waste of space, and that makes all the difference. Off to entertain politically-incorrect and filthy sexual fantasies!! (I so thought I was the only one with really embarrassing sexual fantasies. I admit I am still sort of closeted enough about them that I'm not going to leap into that post and own up to them. Nope nope, not comfortable discussing what rings my bell in my most private moments because you know, a girl has to have some mystique and perhaps that's because you really don't want to know. *empties browser cache* I'll just nod enthusiastically instead.)
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 05:56 am (UTC)http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/863_1.cfm The picture is the fully advanced version. Just do the legs part and hold yourself up on your fore arms while bending forward slightly.
http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/483_1.cfm
These always make me feel awesome. Read the directions and then go slowly. You'll feel better in no time!
no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 06:00 am (UTC)Lie on your stomach and do leg curls...just go really slow and steady, and stretch your quads. (like a baseball player does, with his foot up by his butt)
no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 09:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 01:36 pm (UTC)See, you don't ski steep enough hills. If you do, the adrenaline starts kicking in when you look down at it. (Sign at Jay Peak: "Caution: Icy conditions and ungroomed slope may result in long, dangerous, and scary falls.") The pain tends to hit when you stop.
Sciatic nerve pain is uncool; I know a few fencers who have had it. Podiatrists are apparently God, in these people's eyes, nobody else can do much about it.
As a fencer / fmr hockey player, I can tell you that the quad/posterior chain imbalance is one of the most common problems in athletics. Another common knee problem (my personal one) is iliotibial band tightness, which causes your patella to track to the outside. And hurts.
You can't necessarily *solve* that without a GOOD PT's help, I didn't, but you can make life better -- strengthen and stretch your glutes, hamstrings, and calves, and do some external hip rotation work (because that's where you spend most of your time when you're skating - it causes most people's knees to cave inwards). You don't need a weight room; you can do this stuff in 15 minutes with the help of Google.
If you want, next time I see you I can give you a DVD with some stuff on it that you might find useful.
-darius
no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 03:56 pm (UTC)I dunno about the two types of pain...I've never looked at it that way. I think the difference is that you enjoy skating so much that you stop listening to the pain. :)