2021-06-16, Wednesday: 30 tiny stressors took their toll at the end of the day
Sleep: 8h55, up 7x (44’) 
Feeling 90% well, pain 1 of 7 
[details=“Sleep details: 1h stints; writing down the exact times & cold showering helped curb break lengths & a creative flash; no “reason” for break frequency: so ‘biochemical’?; very dry mouth again, despite drinking”]
Passiflora 19:15, GABA 21:15
(21:30-) creative music flash I had to immediately “write” down…15’
22:00-
23:42 3’ p thumb dry mouth → drink, lips, gel
0:53-1:12 19’ p thumb music16’ dry mouth → drink, doze/AuTr →
2:17-2:26 9’ p thumb FCS thumb drk
3:24-3:28 4’ p thumb teeth
4:32-35’ 3’ p thumb
6:14p 6’ (2’ wait) thumb. Tooth-gum has behaved, but I can feel it’s still sore like after a treatment, so Marigold later. fw 5’ altogether.
7:17 14’ hungry → drink, tired, slight pain in front of left thigh → Traumeel (fw 3’) p (0 pain like all night), thumb, music: 5’
7:41
2+7h41-(3+19+9+4+3+6+14=)44’ 9h41-44’=8h56, up 7x (44’)
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Activities: 4h50 Feeling 90 → 80% well, pain 1 of 7 /
Well: My wife’d say 70%. OK: to be honest she’d say: 30%, but she counts funny… 
. Exhausted from doing - I thought - nothing much..
[details="If you want to know what ‘nothing’ was… - 30 “tiny” “annoyances”..]
- Didn’t start in time for the earlier train to work, so didn’t pressure, but then time was short for the next too…
- My son called while I was trying to get the train, so I cut his call off.
- Phone with him on the train - stress trying to please his girlfriend and ex at the same time, about where his daughter should be where - special situation as his daughter had hurt herself quite a bit in a bike accident on Sunday. Me trying to counsel him what to do, him asking me medical questions (Me: Well what did the docs say?) instead of more fitting communcative ones.
- Took quite some time to find out what he actually wanted, as he was a bit beside himself.
- Offered to perhaps come late that afternoon for a short time, after he misunderstood what my wife meant when she had told his ex that we could come round if they needed help and we’d sorted out what that was about.
- It’s always hard to understand him as he puts the loudspeaker on and I keep having to ask what he just said. The train noises didn’t make it easier.
- Sitting at work, people had to move drinks and stuff next to me, making quite some clonking noise and needing to talk. Wdntve been a problem in days gone by, but it was very much irritating me, I was thinking of going away, but didn’t, thought it wdnt be long…
- Lost my key. Not too bad, as it cd only be at work. But seeing as I’d lost 3-4 things in the last few weeks, including one of my mobiles and my pda, it did make me a bit anxiiouds. Found it again after 5 minutes in a door I’d been in.
- A nice colleague wanted to socialize a bit, took about 20 mins, that was too long for me.
- Off to the train: Cdnt lock my bike in as I’d lost my key again. I was pretty sure at work, but…
- So missed that train.
- Back to work. Getting more and more strained now.
- On the way there I met a nice ex-colleague, who wanted to socialize ‘only short’, which I had to this time, as last time I’d said: Sorry, no time, I’m in a rush.
- Time was running short for the next train…,
- so I ‘had to go’ -
- first back to work again, so ‘wrong direction’, but not far
- it wasn’t where I thought it was. But someone had found it.
- Back to the next train - in time tho. My son called again that both ‘his’ women were claiming they felt snubbed, altho he was trying to harmonize everything - I tried to clarify that as things are he won’t ever be able to harmonize everything, he needs to ask for opinions but then decide himself and take responsibility himself and it won’t be easy or harmonic all the time, it’s better than most as it is. Thankfully he’d called it off for today because the mother of his girlfriend needed him to help wallpapering (I didn’t understand why he hadn’t realized that that was going to happen anyway…).
- On the way home from the train I realized the back wheel of my bike was probably irreparably damaged. I’d been planning on getting it repaired this evening. Now I cd luckily make it home at least.
- At home I went to my wife hoping she’d need a break after work. Her greeting however was: Was that chocolate in the toilet this morning or what…? I said sorry, I’m really doing my best to remember to do everything, but I just sometimes forget.
- Told her the story of my day and the problems of my son and she apologized and said: and now I’m bashing you. I grinned and said - my first thought was that I’d only got one woman, not like my son…
- I was hoping we could keep it short as I knew she needed a break, and I needed one too, and she asked and talked and I cdnt sit anymore and after far over an hour we both realized we were waiting for the other to stop.
- While talking I did a bit of fibro work, tried to add research to “Alpha Stim” as treatment, and got the error message that I’d written too much, which means I have to restructure my reference work once again…
- So off I went to get my newly repaired first bike, hoping to leave the second one there and get the back wheel replaced. The bike was really beautifully done up, which is great for people who want their bikes to look good. I didn’t tho, I need to be able to let it stand half a day at a train station without it being nicked or damaged, so it’s sposed not to look good. The guy - a neighbour who I’d not known and tried for the first time - wanted me to be happy, so I played being happy, and he was so pleased. And actually I just thought: damnit, now I’ve got to use one of my bad bikes for the train station.
- Then he saw the second (ex-good) bike and said: ‘No chance’. So all remnants of hope destroyed.
- So I had to take it home again and started thinking about how to get rid of it, my ex-2nd best bike.
- But first I also had to take the remnants of an old pretty broken bike with quite a few really good expensive parts on it I’d given him. A big plastic bag, very heavy, including two rims. I cycled the few minutes home but that was very strainful.
- On the way back to him I was lost in thought looking down at the newly painted bike and almost mowed over three people as I was driving slowly on the sidewalk/pavement. They were nice about it, but I was still consternated that this had happened.
- Coming home I realized I’d lost another set of keys, so the 3rd time today. Thinking where, at work or where. Found it again after 5 minutes.
- I sat eating and said: Strange, I haven’t done much today, but I have no capacities for anything, don’t want to see anyone or do anything big anymore. This fibro is not just about ‘doing things’ and it’s not just physical, it’s also mental.
Then suddenly I contradicted that and said I wanted to go to the grocer’s now as I had planned that. And my wife said: Not in the state you’re in. I said: What’s up? I’m calm, everything’s OK. She replied: Maybe, but you are emanating 1000 volts and are dead. Leave it be, I can do it tomorrow. Phew. Good on her.
So that’s the stories behind doing nothing. When I now read it, I can believe that I am shattered, and can’t quite understand why I didn’t realize it before writing it all down
#30? IT’S HOT! (Which on it’s own may be fairly OK, altho not my favourite weather and does strain, but … )
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Activity-details: music 20', live work 3h30, cycling 1h
Music 21:45-22:00 15’, 7:25: 5’ = 20’
Cycling (expected) 8+8+8+8+8+8+5+5=h58
TT 0, mate didn’t have time
Grandchild 0
Treatment: 1h05 (self) fw: 2h30
Effects of 750mg GABA (1 capsule), 3x290mg passiflora: up often, energy, but lots of tiny tuff stuff
Night good, despite being up often. Watch for pee-pain, energy, stiffness today in comparison to yesterday due to 350mg less GABA. Actually energy etc. today, just so much tuff stuff happened. Pain before peeing a bit at midday again.
Effects of acupressure: loins good, but still with some pain
Loins’ll still be good, watch out for less/no pain on right when holding foot up; 8:45 still the same as it was. Front of left thigh only a few hours, Traumeel & workout helped.
Physio-type self-treatments: 1h05, fibro-work 2h30
yoga 2’, Timing, thumbnail 10x30’‘, AuTr 15’, hunchback-hard-cushion 10’, cold shower (10’), palpate 2’, belly 4’, back 7’, workout 8’, neck 1+ 2’, gums 2x30’‘, = 66’…
neck 2 ', loins ', marionette-hang ', breath-hold ', shaking dance ', RR x
Fibro-work: +20’ evening Night: 5’ 7:20: 3’ 7:41: 19’ 8:35: 10’ Researching Alpha Stim ?20’ and Updating this: ?1h10 = 2h30
Therapy’s further fruits:
- Both psychotherapist and physiotherapist agree that considering the amount of self-control and self-care I practice that I shdnt be worried about being up longer at night for fw if that allows me to feel ‘free’. Also I threw into the ring that the length & frequency of the breaks doesn’t make that much difference to how restorative my sleep is, how well I feel the next day etc. My wonky sleep is a factor which’d be nice to improve but praps something I just I have to live with, considering that pacing is much more important.
- At the moment I have the feeling I’m stabilizing my “90%/1”, be it at a low level of work (20%), and can slowly look from there if anything - like work - can be increased a bit. Just have to remember that I’d prefer to do everything I do a little bit more every week - actually apart from work, unless I had more hours a day, or someday my need to do fibro-work decreases… If I did more work now, everything else wd get less (apart from fibro-work, as I often do that when I have no energy for anything else, just slopping around on the couch)..
- I spent much of my life up to fibro helping others, privately and in my job/-s. My parents did not role model really helping others much, or maybe they were an anti role model, set a bad example of how to do it, looking at formalities, but not really going into true relationships (incl. with us) and centring around a sort of vague self - maybe that spawned my desire to “do it properly” and combined with reduced self-care and missing so much myself became the perfect deadly mix. Anyone else?!
Abbreviations & explanations
Entries start with night meds & sleep, before activities & treatments, because the “night before” is vital. So Fri-day starts with Thursday night, the night before Friday.
[details=“Pain “7” = crying (/out) point; my 1 is others 2-3, and due to pacing/treatments”]
My wife says my 7 is other people’s 12. 1 is probably 2-3. Due to pacing, keeping work down to 25% (12h/wk) and all my treatments (acupressure, GABA) and physio self-treatments I manage to keep getting my pains & Ache down quickly. 3 usually means the Ache, not pains; these I address individually, often automatically and on the fly now, e.g. twist-stretching everything or something specific after getting up.
TIME DATA, e.g. ' = mins, h = hours, 18:10:40', date YYYY-MM-DD
’ = mins = minutes, ‘’ = secs = seconds, h is hours as time length, 3h is 3 hours long, 3:00 is 3am, 15:00 is 3pm. 18:10:40’ means 40 minutes, starting at 18:10, = 10 minutes past 6pm up to 10 to 7pm. The date is the logical digital standard: YYYY-MM-DD.
SLEEP: slp, w, lbu/LBU, RLS, p, i
slp = sleep; reasons for getting up: w = (a)wake, lbu/LBU: lower back unrest (‘RLS’?), p: pee, i: ideas.
[details="ACTIVITIES: TT, e.g. “5:1"”]
TT = table tennis, 5:1 = score, usually showing how well I’m feeling: energy, relaxedness & alertness if the first number is much higher than the second.
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SELF-TREATMENTS (about everything else...)
The self-treatments listed are only things that I’m spotlighting & rewarding myself for at the mo by counting them; much of what I do at night is self-treatment to get back to sleep or alleviate (1-2h/d), certain regular movements at daytime, like twist-stretching (30’), writing this blog is self-treatment (30’-60’/d), and the further fibro-work is an indirect form.
Self treatments are usually preventative or always have the same positive effect (e.g. cold showering improves Ache and sleep) - at least I do them for that - and I use “
” to show what I’m doing to alleviate something and mark it off in the details “/” whether it works well enough for a time or doesn’t’, e.g. Ache cold fast shower “”
fw = fibro-work, meaning reading and writing this blog, the reference base, on 4 fibro-forums and researching fibro-stuff on the web.
AuTr = Autogenic Training (usually to actively get - back - to sleep, so counting it as sleep and AuTr…),
cold/FCS = Flash Cold Shower (20’‘-60’’) , I count it as 10’ tho.
breath-hold/WHM-B-H = Wim Hof Method Breath-Holding,
Neck 1 is stretching top right to bottom left, vice versa & sky/ground, neck “1+” is stretching far further diagonally downwards, neck 2 is pressing my head against my hand “without moving”, left right and front.
loins = loins/groin = stretching the ligaments there.
ex = exercises
HWB = Hot water bottle,
RR = bp = blood pressure (Riva Rocci), plus pulse. Used to be normal, plus sometimes white coat syndrome, went up since fibro, seems to have gone down again, but I’m still sort of on meds, candesartan 16mg, instead of 8mg plus lercanidipine, cos I saw that c. has less side effects.
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