The Torture of the Tummy

Somehow,

I've acquired what feels like lightly torn or at least heavily strained stomach muscles ... I think I know what's done it, Thursday night's attempts at going to sleep ended up in more frustration and some very dodgy feelings.

You know when you have that nasty feeling of having thrown up ? Yep. That's the one. Drinking water wouldn't get rid of it either. The really frustrating thing, I'd gone to bed early in the hopes of getting a better than usual night's sleep !

I wasn't actually ill, if you thought that. Just had that after effects feeling and the potential of actually being ill being held at bay which made further attempts at sleep difficult.

That tummy though ... it genuinely hurts when I use the muscles to move around, when I cough, when I laugh.

I'm ok. But it's events like that that make you look back, think and wonder "what caused that ?" Let's see ...

Possibly pizza from the Wednesday. Yep. I weakened again. I haven't been that interested in cooking for myself all this week (thinking of that, I must put the oven on after this post for dindins !) and on Wednesday it was the pizzas ... Thursday was KFC but that doesn't usually cause me problems like that.

Nah - I think it was the hayfever tablets I started taking again. The Acrivastine based hayfever tablets were causing me an unpleasant side effect which I won't go into here, plus I don't think they were doing any good. So I stopped those. The ones from the last week or so were the older, more common Cetirizine based hayfever tablets. I've had those before and they caused me various side effects (more in a bit) but when talking to my mum, they sounded like a good idea again.

Reason for taking them - as an anti-allergy tablet, the idea is that they target the skin irritation and help reduce it. Did that work ? Maybe ?

What I've seen -
Eyes watering in the morning again. I think this is a reaction to walking around in cold air and it has genuinely got colder this week. But you'd like to think hayfever tablets would stop your eyes watering.

Getting a little worse - I think this is coincidence to be honest, although a couple of the bad bits have been improving again since I came off the tablets.

Weak legs - when I played cricket, I would occasionally take a hayfever tablet before an evening game with the intention of it opening up my lungs for better breathing. Often, the result was the opposite, I'd have trouble catching my breath after running around plus I'd have difficulty getting that Spark of power out of the legs. I'd be Slow instead of quick and that's something I hated at the time.

Wheezy lungs - see above.

And apparently nausea has joined those symptoms too ...

That's the only way I can explain the nausea symptoms ! Oh and that other side effect from the Acrivastine based tablets was threatening to come back.

I'm ok though. Just rather tired and looking forward to having a week off in a fortnight. That's the way I work, I can make that extra effort to see me through to a break and then I'll collapse and rest up for the week. Cricket watching will happen ... England are in Bangladesh at the moment.

And it feels like I've been returning to what seems to count as normal since coming off the hayfever tablets on Friday.

The cautionary note is - if you are self medicating with stuff like hayfever tablets or the healing gels I'd been trying, keep an eye on your condition. Try to overcome the placebo instinct and ask two questions :

Is this doing me any good ?
Is it making me worse ?

The healing gel was giving me a placebo instinct where it felt like it was making a difference but I suspect it was actually making my ankles worse. The HC45 cream is way better and had a dramatic effect.

Better still - go see a doctor !

Doctors know best.

And I'll hopefully get the chance to take some of my own advice soon. While most of me is recovering when I allow it (by not worrying at half healed bits), there are still a few problem bits which aren't healing as I'd like. They're trying to but not quite finishing up that healing.

We shall see how they go. Hopefully that Hc45 continues to help out.

But for now ... I'll be chilling out to videos before stream starts later, I did do gaming yesterday (the Planetbase Dark Moon challenge was completed with just a couple of days to spare) but I've steered clear of it today. Watching the videos is amusing and more chilled out than playing.

Oh and it's time to put that dinner on too I think !