Just A Freak Out

I've decided to write a short update on my back because I ran into one of my friends who reads the blog and she said she was really worried about me since Monday's post about my painful weekend.

But everything has turned out OK. True to form, with my history of debilitating pain, something going wrong often does send me into freak out mode. I saw Super Physio on Monday, however, and when I told her about skipping my back exercises on Friday night she said that at this stage in my recovery from the acute back injury, skipping one day would have been enough to cause pain. Because my hips are still tight, when I don't stretch everything out at regular intervals I get too stiff and then walking around is enough to cause a spasm (because the hip flexor muscles aren't long enough, your legs won't move back far enough when you walk, so your lower back moves instead).

So simple, yet so complicated.

I'm generally pretty good at doing my exercises because I don't dig pain, but I'm bound to slip up every once in a while -- these things happen. And the really good news is that by the time I actually saw SP I had hit the pain with enough anti-inflammatories and stretching exercises that I was alright again.

It was also great to have a physio visit before the SF trip because we discussed how I was going to keep everything loose and pain free while battling the long flight and the extra jet lag tiredness. I'll be doing hip stretches in the aisle on the plane and then hitting the hotel floor upon arrival for an abbreviated exercise set before I collapse. I'll tell this body who's boss.