Guest guest Posted February 6, 2011 Report Share Posted February 6, 2011 Jay wrote: " Many find that 15mg/day of HC is really not enough to do a good job of supporting hurting adrenals, esp in men! I suspect my cortisol rhythm is not great. I've had intractable insomnia for years...and I don't DO stress...at all. Even physiologic stress like hunger and cold. " In an effort to keep my response as short as possible (I can write novellas sometimes without realizing it :-) I left out a LOT of other experiences I've had over the last 4-5 years. For instance, at one time I was on 30 mg of HC (3 x 10 mg/day) for quite a while, maybe after I had to have surgery on my right knee because the constant swelling/fluid crumbled some cartilage. I keep excellent records of everything I take, when I started, how long I took it, but I don't feel like looking it up right now ;-) As far as the stress of different things knocking you out, I feel for you.....when winter literally blew in around here in the first week of December I really started fighting the cold - it was killing me trying to keep warm when outdoors. On top of that, my neck started hurting after almost every PT or doctor appt., which I thought was really weird because most of the health care providers I see on a regular basis (4) almost always work on my stiff and sore neck! I ruptured my C5/C6 disk playing basketball in 2004 - actually, some lunkhead did it to me with a hard and outrageous foul while I was driving to the hoop, almost pulled my left arm out of it's socket. Anyway, had a posterior partial diskectomy and hemilaminectomy in late 2004, didn't work, part of the disk had fused to my spinal cord and the surgeon couldn't reach it from the rear. In Jan 2005 I had a cervical disk replacement installed (very cool technology, not a standard fusion) along with a small titanium ladder-type brace to strengthen the area since I planned on returning to the basketball courts and wanted extra protection from accidental blows to the head. Unfortunately, I've had recurring problems with bone spurs growing around the surgical site (pretty common), which cause my neck muscles to go into spasm rather easily. How/why is that connected to the cold weather, you ask? I finally figured it out a few weeks ago, or rather my masseuse did - I usually go to her house, but that time she had company over so she had me go to her part-time office one evening. After we were done, she asked me to wait around while she closed up and walk her to her car for safety reasons. Almost as soon as we got outside, she said " hey, swing your arms in rhythm with your legs, you're all stiff! " . That was when it hit me - I was hunching my shoulders up to protect my neck from the cold, which was causing my just-worked-on neck muscles to go back into spasm! Now that I'm aware of it, I make sure I'm relaxed and moving freely whenever I go outside - putting the removable hood onto my winter coat and USING IT also has done wonders, but that hasn't resolved the overall problem of being very sensitive to the cold weather. This is the first year I've had this problem since I got sick, don't really know why it's happening now when it never happened before, but I just have to deal with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 7, 2011 Report Share Posted February 7, 2011 Hi Astro If you are very sensitive to cold, you may have thyroid issues (if you said this already, apologies. I'm off the sleep meds and it's been three days...). As you've been injured, this may be entirely irrelevant, but apparently thyroid can cause neck problems too. As I take iodine, my temps are rising, which makes me think my thyroid is not as underactive as I thought it was, but my neck is still sore most of the time...good ol FM... Jaye > > " Many find that 15mg/day of HC is really not enough to do a good job of supporting hurting adrenals, esp in men! > > > > I suspect my cortisol rhythm is not great. I've had intractable > insomnia for years...and I don't DO stress...at all. Even physiologic > stress like hunger and cold. " > > In an effort to keep my response as short as possible (I can write novellas sometimes without realizing it :-) I left out a LOT of other experiences I've had over the last 4-5 years. For instance, at one time I was on 30 mg of HC (3 x 10 mg/day) for quite a while, maybe after I had to have surgery on my right knee because the constant swelling/fluid crumbled some cartilage. I keep excellent records of everything I take, when I started, how long I took it, but I don't feel like looking it up right now ;-) > > As far as the stress of different things knocking you out, I feel for you.....when winter literally blew in around here in the first week of December I really started fighting the cold - it was killing me trying to keep warm when outdoors. On top of that, my neck started hurting after almost every PT or doctor appt., which I thought was really weird because most of the health care providers I see on a regular basis (4) almost always work on my stiff and sore neck! > > I ruptured my C5/C6 disk playing basketball in 2004 - actually, some lunkhead did it to me with a hard and outrageous foul while I was driving to the hoop, almost pulled my left arm out of it's socket. Anyway, had a posterior partial diskectomy and hemilaminectomy in late 2004, didn't work, part of the disk had fused to my spinal cord and the surgeon couldn't reach it from the rear. In Jan 2005 I had a cervical disk replacement installed (very cool technology, not a standard fusion) along with a small titanium ladder-type brace to strengthen the area since I planned on returning to the basketball courts and wanted extra protection from accidental blows to the head. > > Unfortunately, I've had recurring problems with bone spurs growing around the surgical site (pretty common), which cause my neck muscles to go into spasm rather easily. How/why is that connected to the cold weather, you ask? I finally figured it out a few weeks ago, or rather my masseuse did - I usually go to her house, but that time she had company over so she had me go to her part-time office one evening. After we were done, she asked me to wait around while she closed up and walk her to her car for safety reasons. Almost as soon as we got outside, she said " hey, swing your arms in rhythm with your legs, you're all stiff! " . > > That was when it hit me - I was hunching my shoulders up to protect my neck from the cold, which was causing my just-worked-on neck muscles to go back into spasm! Now that I'm aware of it, I make sure I'm relaxed and moving freely whenever I go outside - putting the removable hood onto my winter coat and USING IT also has done wonders, but that hasn't resolved the overall problem of being very sensitive to the cold weather. This is the first year I've had this problem since I got sick, don't really know why it's happening now when it never happened before, but I just have to deal with it. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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